FYI,

"Private Space Race Hits Bumpy Road
- Rocket entrepreneurs cope with reversals, look for new
opportunities"
MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21457371

: Three years after SpaceShipOne fired the opening shot of what
: some called a revolution, the space tourism industry is going
: through a difficult childhood.

: The past year has seen setbacks, ranging from a fatal accident
: in July to a major spaceship deal that went sour last week. But
: some of the setbacks are providing an opening for players that
: are still trying to get into the fray, including the major
: aerospace companies.

: Those setbacks and opportunities are in the spotlight here this
: week at the International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight, a
: gathering of entrepreneurs and space-savvy government officials
: as well as past and future space travelers.

: Peter Diamandis, who as co-founder of the X Prize Foundation
: orchestrated the $10 million prize that SpaceShipOne won in
: 2004, told attendees at Wednesday's opening session that
: private-sector rocketeers were facing "a critical time."

: "We're in that phase where if we stop pushing, it stops,"
: Diamandis said.

: Entrepreneurs in the commercial space race are still pushing,
: as evidenced by the buzz about renewed ventures to be announced
: later in the week. And this weekend could well bring a
: million-dollar triumph for one band of rocketeers, the
: Texas-based Armadillo Aerospace team.

: Led by video-game millionaire John Carmack, Armadillo is thought to
: have a better than even chance of winning a NASA-backed prize in
: the $2 million Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. The
: vertical-launch contest is the marquee event at the X Prize Cup, an
: air and rocket expo scheduled Saturday and Sunday at Holloman Air
: Force Base, near Alamogordo, N.M.

: This week's symposium serves as a warmup for the X Prize Cup, and
: also as an annual assessment of the private spaceflight industry.
: Over the past year, developments have contributed to a somewhat
: more sober assessment this time around.

: Accident's aftermath

: The most significant setback came in July: Three workers died when
: a nitrous-oxide tank flew apart during an engine test at Scaled
: Composites, the California-based company that built the
: SpaceShipOne rocket plane. Scaled is building a scaled-up version
: of SpaceShipOne for Virgin Galactic, a company backed by British
: billionaire Richard Branson.

: Alex Tai, chief operating officer for Virgin Galactic, said he
: could not comment on the cause of the accident because it was still
: under investigation. He did say that the hybrid propulsion system
: being developed for SpaceShipTwo would be reviewed as a result of
: the accident, along with other aspects of the rocket plane's
: design.

: "Certainly this is a natural time to review all of this," he told
: reporters.

: Virgin Galactic is regarded as the front-runner among a half-dozen
: companies seeking to send tourists on suborbital flights to
: altitudes of 62 miles (100 kilometers) or more. From that height,
: fliers could feel a few minutes of weightlessness and see the
: curving Earth beneath the black sky of space — and scores of
: would-be passengers are paying $200,000 per seat to sign up.

: Last year, Tai told the symposium's attendees that Virgin Galactic
: was holding $15 million in deposits. Since then, the figure has
: risen to $31 million, Tai said Wednesday. It's not clear when those
: passengers would start flying, however: For now, the most
: optimistic guess would be late 2009 or 2010, the earliest possible
: time frame for finishing work on Virgin Galactic's home base at
: Spaceport America in New Mexico.

: Redoing the deal

: On the orbital side of the commercial space race, the big prize is
: NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, or COTS.
: Last year, NASA offered Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Kistler and
: California-based SpaceX almost $500 million to encourage the
: development of spaceships capable of transporting cargo between
: Earth and the international space station after the space shuttle
: fleet's scheduled retirement in 2010.

: Last week, however, NASA pulled the plug on its deal with
: Rocketplane Kistler, saying that the company failed to meet a
: pledge to bring in $500 million in private investment and as a
: result stopped work on its K-1 launch vehicle.

: Rocketplane Kistler is appealing the decision, but NASA
: nevertheless went ahead with a new call for new COTS proposals.
: Those proposals are due Nov. 21. The money that NASA held back from
: Rocketplane Kistler — $174.7 million — would be awarded to the new
: winner or winners by next February, said Valin Thorn, deputy
: program manager for NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo Program.

: Among those likely to compete in the COTS do-over are five
: companies that are already working with NASA on spaceship designs
: but aren't currently getting any of NASA's cash: Constellation
: Services International, PlanetSpace, SpaceDev, Spacehab and
: Transformational Space. Based on Thorn's presentation, some of the
: companies' concepts featured something old or something borrowed:

: - CSI's LEO Express concept calls for sending up a canister that
: would rendezvous with Russia's workhorse Progress spacecraft, then
: dock as a unit with the international space station.

: - SpaceDev is sticking with its Dream Chaser concept, which is
: based on the HL-20 lifting body developed by NASA in the 1980s. The
: spaceship could be launched atop a suborbital rocket, NASA's
: next-generation Ares 1 rocket or an Atlas 5 from the United Launch
: Alliance.

: - PlanetSpace could be updating as many as three old rocket
: technologies: the V-2 engines pioneered by the Nazis during World
: War II; a hypersonic glider based on the FDL-7 design of the 1960s;
: and Lockheed Martin's Athena 3 rocket, which was designed in the
: 1990s but never flew.

: United Launch Alliance, the joint venture involving aerospace
: giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin, says it is working with CSI,
: SpaceDev and Spacehab and could get in on some of the COTS funding
: — thus benefiting from a program that was designed to develop
: alternatives to the cost-plus approach favored by Boeing and
: Lockheed Martin in the past.

: Michael Holguin, a program manager at United Launch Alliance, told
: the "New Space" audience that "Old Space" was capable of evolving
: as the space industry changes.

: "We think there's a lot of synergy between us ... dinosaurs, if you
: will, and the commercial human spaceflight industry," Holguin
: said.

: SpaceX on track, for now

: SpaceX, meanwhile, has been meeting its COTS milestones along the
: way toward demonstration launches of its Falcon 9 rocket in late
: 2008 and 2009.

: "I actually feel pretty confident about getting hardware to the
: Cape by the end of next year," Elon Musk, the company's millionaire
: founder, told reporters.

: After that point, "external dependencies" such as regulatory
: requirements could conceivably force delays in the COTS timetable,
: Musk said. But for now, he saw nothing that would force SpaceX to
: deviate from what he called the "'things go right' schedule."

: In the nearer term, SpaceX's next Falcon 1 launch attempt is
: tentatively targeted for the first quarter of next year, Musk said.
: Even though the company has yet to put a payload into orbit, SpaceX
: has been taking in money for future launches. Because of that
: income from long-term contracts, Musk said SpaceX had a positive
: cash flow and would likely turn a profit this year.

: Musk, who made his fortune as a co-founder of the PayPal online
: payment service, said he was hopeful that SpaceX would yield a
: similar return when the company goes public, "maybe two or three
: years from now."

: "It actually has the potential to exceed the return on PayPal," he
: told reporters.

: Diamandis agreed with Musk's upbeat assessment: He said the
: personal spaceflight industry could sustain an "exothermic economic
: reaction" and become unstoppable in five years' time — that is, if
: space entrepreneurs continued pushing ahead. All it would take is
: that "first Netscape event," such as a successful SpaceX public
: offering, he said.

: "If you're in this business, you're an optimist," Diamandis
: said. "If you're a realist, you're selling real estate, on Earth.
: If you're not an optimist, you're not in this business. ... Sure,
: is this industry a few years behind our optimistic schedule when
: SpaceShipOne flew? Absolutely. But do I have any question that the
: industry is going to materialize? None whatsoever."

Mark Reiff