Space Syntheis

Source A

The following is excerpted from the testimony of a United States representative during a congressional hearing.

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America is built on a strong heritage of exploration, discovery, and innovation. From President Thomas Jefferson’s commissioning of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to exploring the American West, to the Transcontinental Railway linking east and west together, to the public-private partnership that helped the airline industry grow to become a safe mode of travel all over the world, to the internet, which has generated as much economic growth in 15 years as the Industrial Revolution did in 50.

Space, like the internet before the dot-com boom of the 1990s, was originally a government-run enterprise. Many believe that the commercial spaceflight is poised to have its own dot-com moment in the near future. NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo program alone has already created thousands of high-quality jobs here in America, including many at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, which I represent. My district is also home to Mojave Air and Space Port where many commercial spaceflight companies have located to research, develop, and test their hardware that will soon take Americans back to space.

This is why I support the commercial spaceflight industry: the creation of thousands of good paying jobs on U.S. soil and the continuation of America’s legacy in space exploration and innovative technologies. Think about this: Over the last 50 years, about 500 humans have been to space. With the commercial space market, the number could double over the next ten years with the government only serving as a customer. The next U.S. astronauts to fly to space on American rockets will do so because of this new model.

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The use of innovative public-private partnerships offers the government new ways of solving problems. A study shows these partnerships benefit the taxpayer, by providing space services at nearly 1/10 the cost of traditional contracting methods, getting results for less money, getting innovation, growth, and risk-sharing in the private sector. As NASA leads continued exploration missions and related technology development, entrepreneurs will follow, spending their own money and creating new industries.

However, it is up to us as legislators to ensure our current regulatory environment is appropriate for the needs of the 21st Century and to make sure safety is paramount in the commercial spaceflight industry’s endeavors. This is why I introduced H.R. 3038 to ensure that the U.S. commercial spaceflight industry has a clear path ahead as it continues to innovate and generate high-quality American manufacturing jobs. A robust commercial space industry will also help attract students to the STEM fields of education by inspiring the next generation to literally reach for the stars.

Source B

[Paul G.] Allen, who became a co-founder of Microsoft, is responsible for SpaceShipOne, the pint-size manned rocket that won the $10 million Ansari X Prize competition last year as the first privately financed craft to fly to the cusp of space—nearly 70 miles up.

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Mr. Allen is not the designer; that is Burt Rutan, the legendary aeronautical engineer with the sideburns that look like sweeping air scoops. He is not one of the test pilots who made the competition-winning flights; they are Michael Melvill and Brian Binnie. Mr. Allen is, instead, the one who gets little glory but without whom nothing is possible—he is the guy who signs the checks. And he did what the rich do: he hired good people.

The SpaceShipOne flight made him the best-known member of a growing club of high-tech thrillionaires, including the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who find themselves with money enough to fulfill their childhood fascination with space. Rick N. Tumlinson, co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation, a group that promotes public access to space, said the effort had become a geeky status symbol. “It’s not good enough to have a Gulfstream V,” he said. “Now you've got to have a rocket.”

Many self-professed “space geeks” say the possibility that entrepreneurs like Richard Branson of the Virgin Group may help regular people see the black sky—well, regular rich people, at least—has drawn away much of the excitement that government-financed human space efforts long enjoyed.

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“It’s completely shifted,” said Charles Lurio, a space consultant with an interest in private efforts that goes way beyond ardent. “This is where the action is, not at NASA.”

The new generation of deep-pockets space entrepreneurs includes Mr. Bezos, who founded Blue Origin, in Washington State, and quietly announced this year that he had bought 165,000 acres of land in West Texas as a base for his eventual launching operations.

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Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal, created the rocket company SpaceX, and John Carmack, the creator of computer games like Doom and Quake, has been testing rocket designs through his company, Armadillo Aerospace near Dallas.

The engine for Mr. Allen’s craft was developed by SpaceDev, a company formed as a second act by another computer entrepreneur turned space man, Jim Benson. And Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, recently joined the board of the X Prize Foundation.

The rise of the space money men is a unique moment in history, said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, a co-founder of the X Prize. “There is sufficient wealth controlled by individuals to start serious space efforts,” he said.

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What’s more, they are frustrated, he went on, adding: “The dreams and expectations that Apollo launched for all these entrepreneurs have failed to materialize. And in fact, those who look into it realize that the cost of going into space has gone up and the reliability has, effectively, gone down.”

For Mr. Allen, 52, SpaceShipOne was no set-it-and-forget-it bauble of a project. It was an expression of a lifelong passion, he said, a “love of science and technology, and what can be done with engineering.”

Source C

SpaceX’s footprint at Cape Canaveral is getting larger. The company is planning a new launch control center, the details of which became public in the form on an environmental review. The first renders resemble a giant water tower with the curves of a Martian vehicle from The War of the Worlds, standing as high as three hundred feet over Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX calls it “a very uniquely shaped building with limited windows” and adds that, “mitigation to reduce bird collisions will be addressed in the final design.”

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Why does it have to be so big? “The launch and landing control center would be of sufficient size to host a data center; firing room; engineering room; control center for Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon; customer control center; temporary customer offices; and indoor and outdoor meeting space,” the company says in the environmental impact report.

SpaceX’s expansion at Kennedy anticipates a ferocious satellite launch schedule. “There are over 70 missions on its manifest from commercial and government customers in the U.S. and countries around the world, representing more than $10 billion under contract,” SpaceX says in the report.

SpaceX plans on building a 133,000-square-foot hangar to handle these customers. “With plans to refurbish and reuse Falcon vehicles to support manifest rate, an additional vehicle processing and storage facility is required,” the report says.

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Fitting the company’s sense of its place in history, SpaceX company is reserving an area to serve as a “rocket garden” to display its retired, trailblazing spacecraft to visitors. There’s a similar such garden at Kennedy Space Center’s visitor’s center, which tells you something about the place SpaceX sees itself in aerospace history.

This is not just hubris. Musk and SpaceX have changed the trajectory of spaceflight, not just in the United States but across the world. The increase in launch competition and drop in launch prices is called the “SpaceX effect” for good reason. And the company is poised to keep going, using the profits from paying customers to create even more ambitious rockets and spacecraft meant to carry people.

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In 2019 the company will launch astronauts to the International Space Station, proving its human-rated Dragon capsule is ready for customer rental. What the company does with a crew-rated capsule will be sure to capture headlines, and already has.

In fall 2018, SpaceX announces the identity of the first private passenger it intends to shoot into space: Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. The passenger comes on stage to reveal that he will fund a trip around the moon and will take six others with him as part of a global art project in 2023. “I choose to go to the moon,” Maezawa says during the announcement. “With artists!”

This isn’t a stunt, this is a customer. The whole point of the private space movement is that anyone could pay for a ticket for any reason. The old idea that space is reserved for stern-faced scientists and military pilots—and any other flight is silly—is an archaic, vanishing distinction.

Source F

A few weeks ago, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket carrying an unmanned Dragon capsule destined for the International Space Station (ISS) exploded. The explosion was likely caused by a failed strut. In October of last year, Orbital Sciences had a rocket destined for the ISS explode for unrelated reasons, just after they were awarded a $1.9 billion contract with NASA. In the wake of these incidents, it may be time to assess the implications of private sector involvement in state-sponsored space programs.

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Over the past few years, private companies such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic have been hailed as the new major players in space. Indeed, they are effectively changing how space exploration is conducted and how related technology is developed and implemented. From an operational point of view, private companies are able to implement decisions and fund projects much faster than most governments can.

These companies have been able to complete missions that only governments had been able to previously, and have garnered major contracts with NASA. But although this takes pressure off of governments and introduces a more competitive environment for space-related innovation, outsourcing government projects can lead to complications, or at the very least, a shift in how space exploration is conducted.

The most cited benefit of the shift to private space exploration is cost. These companies must bid for NASA contracts, which lowers the taxpayer cost of these missions, as some research and development R&D costs are absorbed by the company. Governments and private companies also function differently in terms of the different interest groups to whom they are responsible. NASA is beholden to the government and the taxpayer, while private companies must deal with a more complex web of investors/shareholders, the bottom line, and the need to keep a secure contract. Yet with these benefits, there are new challenges that must be addressed; perhaps the greatest of which is “what happens when something goes wrong”? Rocket missions and space travel are inherently difficult and risky; it’s only a matter of time before this becomes a bigger issue. . . .

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So far, SpaceX has had a practically flawless track record: under contract with NASA, it has already made seven trips to the ISS. NASA has a strong vested interest in these companies, even geopolitically speaking, as they end the Russian monopoly in supplying the ISS. SpaceX plans on sending humans to space in 2017, and NASA has publicly said that this last incident will not hinder that goal.

So far, so good. While these companies remain private, they still have to answer to their investors, and to governments, but otherwise have quite a large amount of freedom. What will happen when they go on the market? Overnight, the company would have to answer to its shareholders and function in a very different dynamic. The bottom line for a company is arguably more intensely scrutinized than where a government is investing its tax dollars. Given the benefits of private space exploration, it would behoove the government to stand behind such companies when things do go wrong.