Reason Magazine - Topics > Space

Turning and Turning, Falcon Widens Gyre

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:03:00 EDT

After three abortive tries, Space X's Falcon I rocket reached orbit yesterday:

reason has a long, proud history of getting too excited about developments in the private space industry, something Ron Bailey will be chronicling in the upcoming 40th anniversary issue of the print magazine. But I'm going to go ahead and get excited anyway.

For more of me getting pumped about a space vacation—which I'm sure I'll be able to afford when the market recovers—revisit Space Travel for Fun and Profit.

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Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EDT

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Meet Virgin Mothership Eve

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:11:00 EDT

Meet the VMS Eve (short for Virgin Mothership Eve), the newly-completed launcher that's going to be schlepping anyone with the cash on a space vacation in the very near future. SpaceShipTwo, the part passengers will actually ride in, is about 70 percent complete, according to engineers.

The retro-looking space pinup painted on its side is inspired by an old photo of the vehicle's namesake, Eve Branson—Richard's Branson mother.

More on the joys of commercial space travel here.

Angels and UFOs: I Believe I Can Fly

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:32:00 EDT

68 percent of Americans believe in angels and 38 percent believe in UFOs. So what's not to like about a panel featuring early stage investors known as angel investors talking about strange new spacecraft?

Remember the NewSpace nerds* from Las Vegas? This weekend, these scrappy commercial space entrepreneurs, investors, and engineers have gathered in Virginia's slightly-less-sparkly Crystal City and I stopped by to see if they're still up to their old tricks.

Having a conference in a down-at-the-heels commercial district just outside D.C. offers up a pleasing metaphor for an industry that has mixed feelings about its runt position at the government teat.

Asked about the impact of government money on a small space company, one panelist raised his crossed fingers in front of him, as if to ward off evil. Another panelist, former venture capitalist Marco Rubin, said "Government money is the cheapest form of money. But I’ve seen it become crack cocaine for some serial entrepreneurs.” Certain kinds of government contracts can be a "culture killer" for companies that value being "light, nimble, and entrepreneurial," says Andrew Nelson, COO of the space firm XCOR Aerospace. Nelson also suggested that government cash-dependent companies grow more slowly than their fully-private counterparts.

But then all the panelists acknowledged that most large, successful space companies eventually depend on government revenue to survive, at least in part. So public/private it is, at least in the long run. NASA doesn't seem to be selling tickets yet, but there's plenty of action if you have some spare cash and want to reserve your seat on a quickie space flight now.

More info on real Space Angels and NewSpace 2008 panelist Guillermo Söhnlein here.

Awesome retro cartoon Space Angel here.

*I use the term nerd with the greatest affection and approbation.

Private Space

jwalker@reason.com (Jesse Walker) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:05:00 EDT

Who's spending money in outer space? From an informative feature in Popular Mechanics:

The largest sources of space-based business are satellites, which generated $138.8 billion products and services, or 55 percent of the global market overall. Direct-to-home-television beams and global positioning systems drove the numbers, with those two industries generating a combined $20 billion in the global economy. "Space has never been as central to our daily lives as it is now," said Joanne Maguire, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin's Space Systems.

The second largest source of space funding is the U.S. government, which in 2007 spent $62.5 billion, or 25 percent of the space global market. That is dominated by Defense Department spending, followed by the National Reconnaissance Office and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. At the lowest rungs are the National Science Foundation ($0.33 billion) and the Federal Aviation Administration ($0.01 billion.)

Despite the hype, commercial space transportation services (i.e., space tourism) hardly registered on last year's money list, bringing in a relatively small $0.04 billion, or less than 1 percent of the global market.

One thing the article makes clear is that much of the "private" space industry depends on federal dollars. Or, potentially, on federal regulations: "For any carbon cap-and-trade system to work, a database or clearing house that monitors it must be put in place. That, many industry insiders say, creates a market that can only be filled by more robust space-based systems."

Where government money is scarce, though, businesses adapt:

"We are forced to go to the commercial market for satellite launches due to the low institutional funding," said Francois Auque, the CEO of Astrium, which is owned by the powerhouse European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). Auque pointed out that when it comes to switching from solely space-based business to services, having little government money makes his company consider business models that bring space to customers: "Commercial services are the engine of Astrium in terms of growth."

Elsewhere in Reason: Spacious articles from John Tierney and Katherine Mangu-Ward.

The Earth and Moon from Mars

rbalko@reason.com (Radley Balko) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:09:00 EDT

Stunning and beautiful.

Via Boing Boing.

About as Funny as a Fart in a Spacesuit

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 28 May 2008 11:52:00 EDT

The main toilet aboard the International Space Station has broken down, forcing the three crew members to use the loo on the Soyuz escape craft that's permanently attached to the ISS, according to various media reports.

More here.

reason on space.

50 Years of DARPA: GPS, Telepathic Spies, and Bionic Arms

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:22:00 EDT

Whatever qualms one might have about a semi-super secret defense agency with a mandate to invent "surprising" military technologies, you have to give the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) some credit. It's not like with the space program: All they can claim to have contributed to civilian life is Velcro and Tang (and even those claims are disputed). DARPA has given us the Internet, GPS, and faster wireless communications. They failed to give us telepathic spies.

New Scientist looks back at 50 years of DARPA, and comes up with a list of the good, the bad, and the promising. Of course, we'll probably never know about the really good stuff DARPA has managed to come up with.

Great success!:

GPS: We would be quite literally lost without today's global positioning system (GPS). But long before the current NAVSTAR GPS satellites were launched, came a constellation of just five DARPA satellites called Transit. First operational in 1960, they gave US Navy ships hourly location fixes as accurate as 200 metres.

Total failure (but awesome, and immortalized in science fiction):

Orion: Set in motion shortly after DARPA was created, Project Orion aimed to drive an interplanetary spacecraft by periodically dropping nuclear bombs out of its rear end.
The entire craft was designed like a giant shock absorber with the back covered in thick shielding to protect human passengers. Concerns about nuclear fallout and the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty ended the project in the early 1960s.

Promising:

Bionic Limbs: DARPA wants prosthetic limbs that are "fully functional, neurologically controlled and have normal sensory capabilities" and is funding scientists who are making serious progress.
For example, Video of a bionic arm built by the creator of the Segway shows impressive dexterity, while other teams have built prototype prosthetics controlled by thought alone.

Not mentioned, but something I'm pretty pumped about: A nasal spray that dramatically reduces the need for sleep.

More DARPA here. And Best. Logo. Ever. (above).

Pick a Rocket, Any Rocket

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:38:00 EDT

Another company is getting into the space tourism race, so would-be recreational astronauts will now be able to squabble about which experience of weightlessness is better over beers.

Xcor Aerospace Inc. announced Wednesday that it would enter the space tourism market with a rocket plane that would carry passengers for about $100,000 a ride. The Lynx will take off under its own power, carrying just a pilot and a single passenger, the Mojave, Calif., company said at a news conference in Beverly Hills. Each flight will reach an altitude of 200,000 feet, close enough to space that passengers will experience about 90 seconds of weightlessness. Flight testing of the Lynx is expected to begin in 2010.

The competition, a collaboration between British billionaire Richard Branson and aircraft designer Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites (also Mojave-based) is SpaceShipTwo, a bigger ship selling tickets at $200,000 a pop. Of course, customers stand to benefit as competition drives prices down out of the stratosphere more quickly.

The Lynx is planning to do up to four trips a day, to make up for the small capacity, so there will be plenty of chances to catch a flight on either spaceline.

More on the wacky, wacky world of space travel for fun and profit.

Hitler vs. Doritos

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:57:00 EDT

Remember the movie Contact, where aliens find us because we accidentally sent them a broadcast of Hitler speaking at the 1936 Olympics? Wouldn't it be better if they find us because of delicious Nacho Cheese Doritos?

The British public is being asked to shoot a 30-second ad about what they perceive life on earth to be as part of Doritos 'You Make It, We Play It' user-generated-content campaign. The winning advert in the competition will be beamed past the earth's atmosphere, beyond our solar system and into the Universe, to anyone 'out there' that may be watching. The winning ad will also be broadcast on terrestrial TV.

This might seem like an insane publicity stunt. But don't worry, it's actually very practical:

Dr Darren Wright, Lecturer in the Radio and Space Plasma Physics Group, Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Leicester has played a pivotal role in realising this project. "There could also be potential commercial interest in enterprises like this. Imagine one day that companies on Earth might wish to advertise to other planetary colonies within our solar system --for example if man ever moves to colonise Mars!

Ads! In! Spaaaace!

Space: The Final Frontier...for Barfing

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:08:00 EST

Let's face it, Space Child: State-run space programs suck. Here's the latest "news" from the Intergalactic House of Pancakes, or whatever they're calling the multinational tax-hole in the sky these days:

German astronaut Hans Schlegel geared up for his first spacewalk on Wednesday, two days after an illness forced the shuttle Atlantis crew member to skip an outing to install the international space station's new European lab.
Schlegel and American astronaut Rex Walheim donned their spacesuits and were preparing to install a new nitrogen tank on the space station.
In a series of broadcast interviews Tuesday, Schlegel said he was feeling great but was a little anxious about his first venture outside the safe confines of the cabin. He refused to say what had been ailing him, insisting "medical issues are private."
NASA and European Space Agency officials stressed there were no changes to Wednesday's 6 1/2-hour spacewalk on Schlegel's behalf, and that he would do everything just as he'd practiced before last week's launch. No one was opposed to his going outside to perform the strenuous spacewalking work, officials said.

More here. If this is news, then don't bother waking me until the Kree/Skrull war comes a-callin. This may well be the sort of crap--along with the tech-bubble collapse, true--that lured Lou Dobbs from vacationing off-planet at Space.com to attack terrestrial migrants.

NASA last worked the P.R. machine most brilliantly when it ripped off The Simpsons' brilliant Deep Space Homer episode.

For a look at the real future of space travel, check out reason here and here.

Hippies in Space: Some '70s Flashbacks

jwalker@reason.com (Jesse Walker) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:21:00 EST

In the days before camcorders and YouTube, fans of countercultural DIY video put their hopes in Sony Portapaks and cable access television. Howard Rheingold has just posted one artifact from that era, shot in 1976 and starring a young Rheingold as "Howard K. Martian, extraterrestrial anthropologist."

On a related note (sort of), here's an online edition of Space Colonies, a book published in 1977 by the CoEvolution Quarterly. The Quarterly was a spinoff from the Whole Earth Catalog, which wasn't just a bible for the back-to-the-land movement but offered a helping hand to those who wanted to go up-to-the-skies.

Rocketship Rudy Sets His Sights on Mars!

kleinp@spectator.org (Philip Klein) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:00:00 EST

Tampa, Florida--"I hate pandering... have all my life," Rudy Giuliani once told Newsmax. "It's one of the worst characteristics that politicians have--pandering to people...There's a dishonesty in that that really offends me."

That was in 2006. This year, the former mayor of New York City is trying to win an election. With his national lead eroded and his presidential candidacy on the brink, Giuliani has staked everything on winning today's Florida primary. In the process, he has developed a strange new appreciation of the space program and the perils of the homeowner's insurance market.

"We're going to get to Mars before anyone else gets there," Giuliani boasted at a rally on Monday by the Orlando Sanford International Airport. "And we're going to reestablish our space program and eliminate that gap, so we can get our people up to the space station ourselves. That's something I learned about here in Florida, and I am committed to doing it."

Beyond supporting an industry that is an important part of the state's economy, Giuliani's main gambit to win votes and influence people in the Sunshine State has been getting behind something called the National Catastrophic Fund. Under this proposal, the federal government would help in the event of a major natural disaster, which would spread risk and thus allow insurers to offer more affordable homeowner's polices to residents of hurricane-prone Florida.

"The idea is to be there with a backstop that will allow a private market to work so that people who have risk will pay more but at least they'll have insurance that [isn't] excessive," Giuliani explained last week.

Contrary to Giuliani's assertion, the private market in Florida is functioning quite efficiently, because it is sending homeowners the signal that it'll cost them if they choose to live in an area in which there is a high risk of a hurricane. To artificially lower insurance rates would only encourage more people to move to the state, meaning more costly storms in the future. Giuliani's response to critics is that the federal government ends up stepping in anyway, so being proactive is actually the more fiscally conservative thing to do.

At every campaign stop "America's Mayor" has been touting the fact that he is the only Republican in the race that supports the National Catastrophic Fund, and he took out a television ad educating voters on his position. During last Thursday's debate, when Giuliani had the opportunity to ask a question to one of his rivals, the former prosecutor grilled former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on his lack of enthusiasm for the giveaway.

Yet Giuliani has received very little in return for taking such a strong stand on the fund and the desperate need for a publicly funded Mars expedition. His poll numbers have continued to dwindle in the state, and Florida's GOP Gov. Charlie Crist, a leading proponent of the idea, ended up endorsing Sen. John McCain, who said no to the fund.

To be sure, not all economic pandering is created equal. While Giuliani doesn't have much to show for his efforts, Mitt Romney's latest incarnation as a born-again John Edwards has paid enormous dividends.

After defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire, where he had spent tens of millions of dollars, Romney's chances of capturing the Republican nomination seemed slim. But in Michigan, he won by promising to save the auto industry and fight for every job, and he has continued to echo populist themes in Florida. At campaign stops here, Romney talks about the "economic squeeze" and "help[ing] middle class families make ends meet."

After spending most of last year running away from his Massachusetts health care plan, Romney now fully embraces it, defending the various mandates that are part of the program. He has been promising that as president, he'll work to get every American insured.

Not only is Romney pushing the idea of universal health care, but according to a report in the Politico, his campaign has attempted to woo senior citizen voters in Florida with robo calls attacking the frontrunner McCain for voting against "the AARP-backed Medicare prescription drug program."

That multi-trillion-dollar entitlement program has served as a monument to President Bush's betrayal of limited government principles, and the AARP has been the biggest obstacle to achieving entitlement reform because of its use of scare tactics directed at its elderly members. The idea that Romney, who is trying to portray himself as an economic conservative, would employ similar scare tactics to assail a rival for opposing the boondoggle is staggering. Yet many conservatives have concluded that Romney is their last hope of stopping McCain, whom they dislike on immigration, campaign-finance reform, and other issues. So they are giving the former Massachusetts governor a free pass on his dash to the left on economic issues.

In the primaries so far, McCain himself has avoided the type of economic pandering that his rivals have engaged in, and it has been greeted with mixed results. He had a better-than-expected showing in Iowa despite his opposition to ethanol subsidies. And his refusal to endorse the idea of a catastrophic fund didn't cost him the endorsement of Gov. Crist. In the span of a few weeks, he improbably went from also-ran to the head of the GOP pack, both in Florida and nationally.

Which isn't to say he hasn't paid a price in the campaign.

"We went to Michigan, and we told them the truth," McCain recounted at a Tampa rally Monday night, referring to his acknowledgement that auto industry jobs leaving Detroit weren't coming back. He then joked, "They didn't like it much."

Philip Klein is a reporter for The American Spectator.

Discuss this story at reason's Hit & Run blog.

"We're Going to Kill Some People"

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:50:00 EDT

The Federal Aviation Administration has no power to regulate the nascent private space travel industry until 2012, and seemed oddly cheerful about it at a recent conference of air and space lawyers:

"We're going to kill some people," says Tracey Knutson, a lawyer who has advised the FAA and who moderated a panel discussion on the topic. "The question is how the relationship then changes."
Laura Montgomery, senior attorney in the FAA's Office of the Chief Counsel, said once somebody dies, "we then have the authority to act and we would." Until then, Congress "told us to keep our mitts off."

The background:

In the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, Congress told the FAA to treat the industry more like an adventure business than an air carrier. The law protects the rights of those who wish to be among the first private citizens to go into space — likening them to visionaries and adventurers who knowingly take other risks like climbing mountains — while giving the people who operate the new types of unproven spacecraft the scientific latitude to learn from their first fatal mistakes.
"This is an ultra-hazardous business," [said] Patti Grace Smith, the FAA's associate administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Read about recent on-the-ground deaths--not enough to provoke the regulatory wrath of the FAA--here.

Giuliani: Toughest Candidate in All the 12 Galaxies

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:54:00 EDT

Rudy is ready for War of the Worlds I, reports the AP:

During a town hall meeting in Exeter, a young questioner asked the former New York mayor about his plan to protect Earth.
"If (there's) something living on another planet and it's bad and it comes over here, what would you do?" the boy asked.
.........

"Of all the things that can happen in this world, we'll be prepared for that, yes we will. We'll be prepared for anything that happens," said Giuliani,

Romney, worried that the invaders might be from Kolob, will be hesitant to strike quickly; of the GOP front-runners, it has to be Rudy if "will protect us from alien invaders" is your main political concern.

UPDATE: You are there!

Is NASA Worthless Or Just Underfunded?

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:33:00 EDT

The L.A. Times opinion section (now home to former reason staffers Tim Cavanaugh and Matt Welch) runs a neat feature called Dust-Up. It pits two well-informed people against each other for a week's worth of chatter on their area of expertise. This week, it's space:

First up yesterday was Homer Hickam, a novelist, Vietnam vet, and former NASA engineer, in the role of NASA booster with an anti-government bent:

NASA is a timid bureaucracy that goes crawling to Congress every year for a pittance (less than 1% of the federal budget) and will do anything — anything — to please....
I say why not raid the federal budget for it? I mean, it's not like it's spending its annual $3 trillion (!!) of our money on much that's worth anything, anyway....Did you know the Department of Labor (that this department exists at all deserves another ! from me) gets four times more money than NASA? Health and Human Services 26 times more? Housing and Urban Development (!!!) gets twice as much? You want to talk about waste? Just peruse a list of their programs! It will make you weep.

My friend and private space guru Rand Simberg responds to Hickham's cheerful optimism with harsh reality:

If NASA were to put forth a plan by which it enabled hundreds or thousands of people to go into space, I think that would be worth going back and asking the Congress and Office of Management and Budget to fund. Sadly, NASA isn't capable of that, by its nature as a federal agency, because it would mean too much relinquishing of control to what it perceives to be a frighteningly uncertain and unpredictable private sector, with too few opportunities for pork in specific districts.

Today they're talking about peopling Mars. Later in the week, they'll hit evolution in space, post-communist space exploration and "other far-out topics." Keep checking in at the L.A. Times for more.

And go here and here for more space stuff.

Man Has Invented His Doom/First Step Was Touching the Moon

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:52:00 EDT

Science reveals grim truth: germs sent out into orbit return--as wacky, koo-koo super germs, packed with extra deadliosity. USA Today chills our blood:

Researchers placed identical strains of salmonella in containers and sent one into space aboard the shuttle, while the second was kept on Earth, under similar temperature conditions to the one in space.
After the shuttle returned, mice were given varying oral doses of the salmonella and then were watched.
After 25 days, 40% of the mice given the Earth-bound salmonella were still alive, compared with just 10% of those dosed with the germs from space. And the researchers found it took about one-third as much of the space germs to kill half the mice, compared with the germs that had been on Earth.
The researchers found 167 genes had changed in the salmonella that went to space.

Link from the invaluable Rational Review.

Bob Dylan warns against space travel (and stagnant pools); this germ news certainly gives further reason to avoid growing food on the Moon and eating it raw.

Sputnik and the Big 5-0

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 10:39:00 EDT

Today's New York Times Science Times section has an all-space, all-the-time theme, in honor of Sputnik's 50th anniversary.

Among other fascinating tidbits:

Tang, no matter what you’ve heard, was not an invention of the space program. Neither were Teflon or Velcro.

See a slideshow of what the space program actually has done for us landlubbers.

Also, check out semi-sour (bittersweet?) grapes essay on how far we haven't come since Sputnik:

My sci-fi dreams are dead, but Sir Richard Branson and his fellow space entrepreneurs say they have business plans. If Mr. Branson manages to get the cosmologist Stephen Hawking into space and back, he will have done more for the cause of space exploration than 25 years of space shuttles going around in circles.

John Tierney offers bored decabillionaires the chance to be the next Prince Henry the Navigator, King Ferdinand, or Queen Isabella by funding a Mars mission prize, and this sage advice:

Whether you offer a prize or send your own expedition, insist that the ship carrying the first humans to Mars be named after you. Sure, you’ll be accused of egotism, but pay the critics no heed. They’ll be dead soon enough. Your name will live forever.

More on the private space race from reason here.

Space Race

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:06:00 EDT

In 1942, Joseph Schumpeter wrote that creative destruction "is the essential fact about capitalism." Innovations destroy old monopolies, and powerful companies collapse even if they have done nothing out of the ordinary. This is what drives growth. It is the possibility of new, entrepreneurial entrants into the marketplace—what Schumpeter called "the perennial gale of creative destruction"—that keeps market ventures lively, even as bureaucracies ossify and government projects drag on for decades, unfinished.

A liberal, and literal, interpretation of the phrase sheds some light on the two challenges that have faced the world of space flight in recent days, and the risks faced by private space ventures versus those of NASA.

All week, NASA has been tearing out its collective hair deliberating over the problem of a three-inch gouge in the protective foam on the bottom of the shuttle Endeavour. The injury exposed a small slice of felt, the heat barrier of last resort for the shuttle's aluminum frame. The team finally decided against repair efforts late yesterday night, because of the risks of a space walk and the possibility of doing more damage while attempting the repair.The gouge is unlikely to cause fatal problems when the shuttle heats up on reentry, but it might damage the underlying structure enough to require repairs once back on Earth, as well as a delay until the next launch.

Meanwhile, a July 26 accident at Mojave Spaceport in California was more prosaic, and more deadly, than Endeavour's gouge in the vacuum of space. Several engineers working for spaceship builder Scaled Composites were administering a routine test to check the flow of nitrous oxide through an opening when an explosion occurred, according to company CEO Burt Rutan. Three people died, and several more were hospitalized. There were no rockets fired at the time, and no one was in zero-g.

The reactions to the two accidents offer a quick primer on what it's like to operate on the government's time and dime, versus operating in a competitive market. Both accidents have brought out the best in the major players, who have reacted calmly and competently. But there are subtle, fundamental differences in their respective aftermaths.

Statements, official and unofficial, about the shuttle problem were phrased in terms of sunk costs, established hierarchies, and contingency plans. "We have really prepared for exactly this case, since Columbia," said John Shannon, chairman of Endeavour's mission management team, "We have spent a lot of money in the program and a lot of time and a lot of people's efforts to be ready to handle exactly this case."

For days, astronauts in the Endeavour waited for pronouncements from the corps of engineers and decision-makers at mission control, who have the spectre of congressional fury hanging over their heads.

On Wednesday, Shuttle Commander Scott Kelly was wondering what the decision might be from the geeks on the ground:

"And, ah, no indication of which way they are leaning?" Kelly radioed Mission Control.
The response from Mission Control was less than informative: "Unfortunately, we have no idea which way the wind is blowing at the moment."

The gouge was caused by falling foam, the problem that resulted in the explosion of the shuttle Columbia in 2003. The falling foam issue has plagued many previous shuttle launches as well, but flights were still given the go-ahead.

Congress has actually been more attentive to NASA since the Democrats took power, and lawmakers were already somewhat peeved before the most recent falling-of-the-foam. A report last month from the Government Accountability Office cited $94 million in misplaced equipment [PDF] over the last ten years, with unsatisfactory explanations like this one:

This computer, although assigned to me, was being used on board the International Space Station. I was informed that it was tossed overboard to be burned up in the atmosphere when it failed.

In contrast, the Mojave accident prompted a rash of speculation about the viability of the private space industry, and whether the accident would result in the collapse of Scaled Composites, the company also providing hardware for bad boy billionaire and entrepreneur Richard Branson's venture, Virgin Galactic. But it's the very possibility of failure, the possibility that the industry, or this company, or this technique might have to be scrapped altogether, that it might be destroyed by events or competitors, is what gives the private space industry strength and flexibility.

But even in acknowledging that possibility, industry watchers and participants seem confident the accident won't derail the space tourism industry. Michael Belfiore, author of a new book about the industry called Rocketeers, said: "Since it wasn't actually in flight, it's hard to see it as a strike against space technology as a whole....It's tragic and very sad, but I don't know if it's going to have a chilling effect on the industry."

Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn added, "Clearly, in the context of what's happened, given the personal tragedies, this is of course a setback."

New Mexico Spaceport Authority Chairwoman Kelly O'Donnell expressed a similar sentiment: "I would characterize [Mojave] as a tragedy, but I would not, at this point, characterize it as a setback either for commercial space or for Spaceport America."

X Prize founder Peter Diamandis took a similar tack. "This was an industrial accident. This has nothing to do with spaceflight. I have complete confidence that they are building a safe and robust spaceship."

At Mojave airport, $40,000 went to an independent consultant to investigate the airport's procedures. Scaled composite is conducting its own inquiry. The National Space Society statement put a fine point on it: "Let us not shirk from what happened yesterday. Professionals will find the cause. The program will continue."

Meanwhile, when costs go up on the private space side, they work around it. Bigelow Aerospace, another private space company in the midst of assembling an orbital hotel, has decided to skip a step in its scheduled sequence of test modules as "inflation, previously artificially low launch costs and the falling value of the U.S. dollar" have forced its hand. The company uses Russian rockets for now, which has become an increasingly expensive proposition. Rather than just ask for more appropriations and plod ahead, Bigelow will consign a series of tests to a terrestrial hangar, then send up the next module.

Bigelow has also long made it clear that when good orbital space ships become available, the company will be a good customer. Its willingness and ability to be fickle with suppliers might be the key to its success. NASA suffers from being locked into certain suppliers and techniques (like the troublesome foam insulation), as contracts are often determined more by congressional politics than by what's needed for a particular mission, or what might be cheaper in the long run.

And then there are the attitudes of the engineers and astronauts themselves: NASA astronauts accept risk in a way that is comparable to the risk taken by soldiers and Marines in Iraq. They have volunteered, they know what they're getting into, and they're facing it bravely. But they're doing it on someone else's terms. Decisions are made with big things like national interest, congressional appropriations, and national glory in mind.

The people who died in the Scaled Composites explosion, and everyone who works in the fledgling private space industry took on similar risks, but in a more personal, direct way. They made the choice to go in on a small company in its early days, one that might never get off the ground (so to speak) at all. The risks they take are physical, but they are also financial, professional, and personal. The Personal Spaceflight Federation touched on this theme in their statement: "We are engaged in a demanding endeavor - opening the space frontier. It is not easy, but it is a goal worthy of our highest efforts. We are aware of the risks and every day we take the highest precautions." After pledging openness, honesty, and a thorough investigation into what went wrong, they've also promised to "persevere—we believe that we can best honor those pioneers who were involved by carrying on their work."

One of the dead, Glen May, also had a rocket biking hobby, "He would work on his rocket motors, strap them to the bike, don his helmet and heat suit and attempt to zoom down the flight line. After a fizzle or two, he was successful in rocketing his bike in front of his admiring Scaled audience." Risk is in the blood of entrepreneurs and spacemen, perhaps doubly so in the blood of those who opt for employment in the still-young private space industry. The perennial gale of creative destruction will overwhelm the weaker companies. But the stronger, safer, most efficient ones will emerge.

Katherine Mangu-Ward is an associate editor for reason.

Pack Your Bags: Space Hotel by 2009

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 12:35:00 EDT

Astropreneur and terrestrial hotel magnate Robert Bigelow has decided to speed up the timetable for his orbital hotel, making berths available by 2009, or perhaps even earlier. He already has two successes under his belt with Genesis I and II, sent up on Russian rockets, and rising launch costs due to "inflation, previously artificially low launch costs and the falling value of the U.S. dollar" have forced his hand:

Bigelow Aerospace's billionaire founder says he'll be skipping a step in his grand plan to send up an inflatable space habitat capable of hosting humans, due to escalating launch costs. That means Bigelow's Sundancer module, which will be designed to accommodate three people, could be ready to go even before 2010....
Sundancer had been set for launch in 2010, but Bigelow's comment that a habitable complex could be available "much earlier than any of us had previously anticipated" implies that 2009 or perhaps even late 2008 might be in the cards.

As always with the private space race, caution is advised:

Just don't chisel those dates in stone: Sure, Bigelow Aerospace has been successful so far, but schedule snags could still develop during the Galaxy testing phase. And Bigelow might decide to wait until there's an orbital spaceship available to transport passengers to Sundancer. That could be a SpaceX Dragon, or a Rocketplane Kistler K-1, or a SpaceShipThree, or even an extra Russian Soyuz craft.

Meanwhile, China's mapping the moon, all the better to "exploit the vast quantities of Helium-3 thought to lie buried in lunar rock."

Read all about the private space scene here.

About Damn Time (Flying Car Update)

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 11:25:00 EDT

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a viable flying car!:

A "flying saucer" that glides three metres above the ground and carries two people has gone into commerical production.
US company Moller International has begun to manufacture parts for its Jetsons-like personal flying pod, the M200G Volantor.
The M200G is the size of a small car and is designed to take off and land vertically.
Company founder Dr Paul Moller calls the craft "the ultimate off-road vehicle" as it is able to travel over any surface.

Keep your eyes peeled for my essay on Where's My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived in the October print edition. Looks little bit of Jetsons-style sci-fi future arrived after all.

More reason on flying cars here.

UPDATE: This is actually real. See a test flight video here, or below.

NASA's Rocket Men Really Were High as a Kite...

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 14:04:00 EDT

The latest triumph of NASA, the preferred federal workfare posting for diaper-wearing, would-be kidnapper pilots everywhere:

Despite safety warnings from NASA doctors, astronauts were allowed to fly after drinking heavily, an independent panel said in a report released Friday.
The report said it happened twice but gave no names and did not say when the drinking occurred, how many astronauts were involved, or whether they were flying on the space shuttle, the Russian Soyuz spaceship, or aboard NASA's training jets.
NASA officials let them fly even after flight surgeons and fellow astronauts raised concerns that safety might be jeopardized, according to the report, done by a panel created by NASA after the arrest of astronaut Lisa Nowak in February on charges she tried to kidnap her rival in a love triangle.

NASA vs. MADD

kmw@reason.com (Katherine Mangu-Ward) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:35:00 EDT

Houston doesn't seem to have a problem with drinking and driving. At least, not if you're driving a space shuttle that costs 600 million taxpayer dollars per launch. After all, who wouldn't need a little liquid courage for something like that?:

Aviation Week & Space Technology says it has obtained a draft report that says NASA allowed astronauts to fly while intoxicated on two occasions.
The respected trade publication, which doesn't identify its sources, says members of a government panel found evidence to suggest "heavy use of alcohol" by astronauts during the 12-hour period before launches. Astronauts aren't supposed to consume alcohol during that period.

Will MADD start targeting NASA, in the acronym death match for the ages? Joking aside, this does undermine the message that a drink or two turns everyone, in virtually any circumstances, into a befuddled and dangerous operator of heavy machinery. Check out the full NASA report here at noon tomorrow.

Red Mars

jwalker@reason.com (Jesse Walker) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 11:43:00 EDT

Chris Nakashima-Brown watches a Soviet science-fiction flick from 1959, The Heavens Call:

A Soviet state art project directed by Mikhail Karyukov and Aleksandr Kozyr, the film is a kind of Cold War bookend to Destination Moon....Instead of Heinlein's libertarian dream of a private entrepreneurs building the rocket for parallel goals of profit and progress, Heavens Call tells the story of dedicated technocrats working to propel their socialist utopia into the solar system, with their giant ship "Motherland" bound for the Red Planet.

Unfortunately, their ideologically pure mission is screwed up by a competing American mission that could be operated by the same guys behind Destination Moon -- "The Mars Syndicate," selling canalside lots for $10 an acre, with their fast rocket "Typhoon" piloted by astronaut "Mr. Clark" (a Chuck Yeager analog famous for his masterful emergency landing of a wild rocket in El Paso, played by a silver-haired brick of a Russian with actual divots in his face and the tangible gravitas of a hero of Stalingrad) and accompanied by a glib dilettante celebrity broadcaster. When the Americans, in their greedy rush, end up falling toward the sun, the selfless Russians abandon their mission to save the misguided capitalists, then find themselves stranded without fuel on the asteroid Icarus. As they stand in a cubist variation on a Chesley Bonestell spacescape, watching the ripe red planet rise before them, co-pilot Andrei voices the tantalizing frustration of their near miss, to which Kornev replies that the next mission will be more successful because of this "useful lesson in the consequences of useless competition."

The movie now occupies a high spot on my must-see list. Trivia: This is the picture that Roger Corman and Francis Ford Coppola recut a few years later as Battle Beyond the Sun, with the communist and capitalist missions transformed into less politically charged powers: the southern and northern hemispheres. Fans of Soviet Martian visions will also want to check out Aelita: Queen of Mars, which features a revolution on the Red Planet, and which may or may not have been inspired by the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

[Hat tip: Bryan Alexander.]

More on Space Tourism: Inflatable Hotel Launched

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 13:50:00 EDT

Why, the news on private space travel is getting almost too thick to keep up with. To add to Katherine's post below, Space.com reports on last week's successful launch from a Russian base of the Genesis II prototype for a future inflatable space hotel.

And of course Katherine's January reason feature remains a wonderful primer on the whole burgeoning world of private space efforts