FYI,

"5 Years After SpaceShipOne: Commercial Spaceflight Ready for 'Go'"
Space.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20091003/sc_space/5yearsafterspaceshiponecommercia\
lspaceflightreadyforgo

: It has been five years since SpaceShipOne screamed its way into the
: history books as the first privately built and financed manned
: craft to reach space. While that roar from the ship's rocket engine
: has long since dissipated, the aftershocks from its suborbital
: space shots are still being felt.

: Roaring upward over the Mojave, Calif., desert on repeat flights,
: pilots Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie individually controlled the
: craft to the suborbital heights - and within the span of a 14-day
: period. In doing so, on Oct. 4, 2004, the $10 million Ansari
: X Prize was won - and the vision of non-governmental spaceflight
: became sharply focused.

: Designed by Mojave-based Burt Rutan - the lead out-of-the-box
: thinker of Scaled Composites and his team - and financed by
: Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the barrier-breaking vehicle
: earned its stripes.

: Its victory was hailed by the banner: "SpaceShipOne, Government
: Zero."

: Today, at the Mojave Air and Space Port all appears in readiness
: for the combined test flights of WhiteKnightTwo and the sleek
: two-pilot, six-person SpaceShipTwo - the world's first passenger-
: carrying suborbital spaceliner. This outing is backed by British
: entrepreneur, Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic company.
: Like SpaceShipOne, the new SpaceShipTwo is designed to be carried
: to a high altitude by a mothership aircraft where it can launch on
: suborbital trips.

: Above the fold

: Burt Rutan reflects on the wake left by the pioneering SpaceShipOne
: flights, the winning of the Ansari X Prize, and a glimpse at the
: road ahead.

: "Our big milestone of 2004 occurred on June 21, the date of the
: first non-government manned spaceflight. The X Prize flights were
: an opportunity for our sponsor and our employees to get a
: 'well-done bonus' and to show that our June accomplishment was not
: a lucky fluke...that it really is feasible for low-cost space
: access to be offered to the public," Rutan explained.

: Rutan proudly spotlights a "Google Trends" search that also shows
: the importance of their first manned spaceflight. The Newsworthy
: Record , that is the number of world newspapers that carried the
: story above the fold, showed that the June 21st story was the
: second largest news event of 2004 - the first being the capture of
: Saddam Hussein. Three of the five manned space flights of 2004 were
: flown from Mojave, California.

: "SpaceShipOne was my 39th manned aircraft type to be flight tested
: and was clearly the most significant," Rutan said. "It was my last
: design...an opportunity to hand over the reins to the very talented
: young designers at Scaled."

: Rutan said that he has continued to design new concepts as Chief
: Technology Officer and Chairman Emeritus of Scaled Composites.

: "I may design a future aircraft or two, but because of the
: rewarding experience of SpaceShipOne for all my employees, I
: personally feel that my aircraft development career is complete,"
: Rutan told SPACE.com.

: Historic, game changing

: A witness to all three of the SpaceShipOne flights was Will
: Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic. "Those breathtaking
: X Prize flights were worthy of every cliche in the book...historic,
: game changing...all in all, the right stuff!"

: When SpaceShipOne pilot Brian Binnie shot skyward on the second of
: back-to-back suborbital treks to snag the X Prize purse, Whitehorn
: considered that historic day as "one which will change the face of
: the space industry forever."

: And as the wispy contrail from that prize-winning run turned
: invisible, there were a host of judgments remaining, Whitehorn told
: SPACE.com. "Big decisions had to follow...such as whether to
: rebuild SpaceShipOne as a commercial vehicle, or take the braver
: and more costly decision to build a truly capable integrated space
: launch system," he said.

: Fast forward to the present: The WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo is
: viewed as that space launch system. The combo of flight hardware
: not only gives space tourists what they wanted, but also supports
: human-in-the-loop science and launching satellites as well,
: Whitehorn said.

: "It is now five years on and where are we? Flying the launch
: vehicle...firing the rocket motor...on the cusp of unveiling the
: finished SpaceShipTwo and of course watching a runway unfold in the
: New Mexico desert," Whitehorn added, pointing to the development of
: Spaceport America – home base for Virgin Galactic commercial
: operations.

: "Hundreds of Virgin Galactic, Scaled and Spaceport America people
: are working towards a true industrial revolution in space,"
: Whitehorn concluded. "I, for one, can't wait, but will never forget
: the fact that the Ansari X prize was a real catalyst for these
: events."

: Quiet before the storm

: "Right now is the quiet before the storm," said Rick Tumlinson, a
: leader in the NewSpace movement and co-founder of the Space
: Frontier Foundation. He points to a trio of past events that has
: brought about the emerging space squall.

: "The winning of the X Prize, the takeover of the Mir space station
: by private investors and the flight of Dennis Tito to the space
: station were the three shots that convinced investors that there
: was a market for commercial human spaceflight, a way to capitalize
: on it in the near term...and people willing to put money into the
: idea," Tumlinson said.

: Comparing it to the moment before the flag is dropped on a race
: track, "the teams are building their cars and rolling them out to
: the starting line," Tumlinson said.

: The Tumlinson timeline: Within the next few months the first
: companies will begin flights and within two years the first paying
: customers will be flying. Within three years the first commercial
: facilities will be overhead and within five years you will be able
: to fly commercially to orbit on a private spaceship.

: "NewSpace has been through some major shakeouts, with only a few of
: the many firms surviving that were around when the X Prize was won.
: In fact, Scaled Composites may be the only one of the registered
: competitors that did survive," Tumlinson said.

: "It is important to maintain perspective. Some would have us
: believe that the X Prize all by itself signaled the NewSpace
: revolution. It did not," he added. "There were a lot of people
: working on a lot of important projects for at least a decade before
: it was won, and by itself it would not have been anything more than
: a news blip."

: Tumlinson said that beyond Scaled/Virgin Galactic, none of the
: other surviving NewSpace firms that really have a chance to succeed
: competed for the X Prize at all. "XCOR and Armadillo Aerospace
: refused to participate, and the billionaire guys like Bezos,
: Bigelow and Musk are doing their own thing completely," he added.

: New set of investors

: Peter Diamandis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the
: X Prize Foundation has a different take on the spark stemming from
: the X Prize.

: "Since the Ansari X Prize was won in 2004, over $1 billion in
: capital has been invested into the personal spaceflight industry,"
: Diamandis said. "Of the 26 teams from seven nations that competed,
: I would guess that about a quarter of them remain viable and are
: pushing toward commercial operations."

: In looking back over the past five years, Diamandis said that one
: of the most important results of the Ansari X Prize involves
: credentialing this slice of the industry as real, as well as
: stimulating this market sector.

: "People now know and believe that they can buy a private ticket to
: space without having to be a government employee," Diamandis noted.
: "Other benefits include helping to clarify the regulatory regime
: and bringing a new set of investors and sponsors to fund the
: entrepreneurs who have dedicated their lives to this industry
: sector."

: Claims, rhetoric, and drama

: While SpaceShipOne's snaring of the X Prize showcased the possible,
: as well as what was attainable, hubris shouldn't be the propellant
: for pushing forward.

: That cautionary view is espoused by David Livingston, the host of
: "The Space Show" - a popular talk radio and streaming Internet
: program. On one hand, SpaceShipOne's victory started opening a
: tightly closed door for investment which is opening even wider
: today.

: "That said, accessing space is not easy or dirt cheap - be it
: suborbital, orbital, or actually going someplace rather than just
: orbiting Earth," Livingston said. "While I believe the
: entrepreneurs and businessmen and women know how to kick the door
: wide open and establish needed space economic infrastructure to
: develop this new industry, I have my doubts about policy makers,
: our elected officials, and those motivated to hold on to old
: agendas that won't work for the new space economy."

: Livingston sees an increase in the claims and rhetoric by
: enthusiasts, dreamers, advocates, and those wanting to be very much
: a part of a truly space-faring world.

: "The risk here is that as the extremes in the claims, rhetoric, and
: drama get exposed to the light of the day as being nothing more
: than what they are, they fuel the arguments and unenlightened ways
: of those in power - or in influential positions - and they add to
: the risks of sidetracking or slowing down commercial space
: development," Livingston asserted.

: The bottom line is that real space development is essential for our
: future, Livingston said. "Let's keep it real so we can achieve our
: goals and improve our world."

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"Soviet-Era Spaceships to Fly Commercial Space Missions"
Space.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20090818/sc_space/sovieteraspaceshipstoflycommerci\
alspacemissions

: An international spaceflight company plans to launch paying
: passengers on week-long orbital trips by 2013 using vehicles based
: on Soviet-era spacecraft built for classifed military space
: stations.

: The company, Excalibur Almaz Limited based in the Isle of Man, has
: acquired several Reusable Return Vehicles (RRVs), spacecraft
: initially designed for flying cosmonauts to the former Soviet
: Union's super-secret Almaz space stations of the 1970s, the firm
: announced Tuesday at the Moscow Air Show in Russia.

: "With this announcement, the dream of private orbital space
: exploration may become a reality in the very near future," said
: veteran Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Titov, an advisor to Excalibur
: Almaz, in a statement.

: To date, wealthy space enthusiasts have been able to book trips to
: orbit by riding as paying passengers on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft
: headed for the International Space Station during crew change
: missions. Those trips, arranged by the Virginia-based firm Space
: Adventures and Russia's Federal Space Agency, currently cost more
: than $30 million.

: Excalibur Almaz did not reveal its anticipated price per trip in
: Tuesday's announcement, but did detail plans to update the RRV
: spacecraft design with modern technology to support independent
: flights to orbit.

: The spacecraft consists of two sections, the cone-shaped RRV for
: launch and re-entry, and an expendable service module designed to
: offer more room to live and work in space. The vehicles can carry
: three people - a commander and two passengers - or about
: 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of cargo and are designed to stay
: aloft for at least a week, officials said.

: "A critical feature of the RRVs is their reusability, which will
: reduce logistical, overhead and program costs for commercial access
: to space," Excalibur Almaz officials said, adding that the
: spacecraft will be designed to fit atop a variety of launch
: vehicles in order to lift off from different sites around the world.

: The company is working with the original Almaz station
: manufacturer, Russia's NPO Mashinostroyenia (or NPOM), to overhaul
: its stock of launch vehicles and space stations, company officials
: said.  The spacecraft will be updated to meet customer needs for
: space exploration, cargo delivery or orbital research in
: microgravity, they added.

: NPOM designed, tested and flew several Almaz space stations and RRV
: prototypes in the 1970s. The first Almaz (which means "Diamond" in
: Russian) station to reach orbit was christened Salyut 2, but failed
: in 1973. Two others, dubbed Salyuts 3 and 5, later flew with much
: success. The RRVs flew about nine test flights, with two vehicles
: reaching orbit repeatedly, Excalibur Almaz officials said.

: The effort is an international endeavor with members in Russia, the
: United States, Europe and Japan. Former NASA astronauts - such as
: veteran spaceflyers Leroy Chiao and Franklin Chang-Diaz - as well
: as veteran space officials and cosmonauts are listed among the
: company's top leadership and advisors.

: Because of that international involvement and expertise "[Excalibur
: Almaz] is in a unique position to initiate a new era of private
: orbital space exploration," said the company's founder and CEO Art
: Dula, a veteran attorney specializing in aerospace issues.

Mark Reiff

FYI,

Wouldn't this be better spend on a prize to do the same?  NASA still
in the game of picking winners.  Then again Obama's had such a great
record of improving the economy by giving select companies your hard-
earned tax dollars so far. /sarc

"NASA Wants Proposals for Space Taxis"
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57944520090810

: NASA plans to use $50 million of federal economic stimulus funds to
: seed development of commercial passenger transportation service to
: space, agency officials said on Monday.

: Aspiring spaceship operators will have 45 days to submit proposals,
: which will be competitively evaluated. Awards for the Commercial
: Crew Development program are expected to be announced before the
: end of September.

: The United States is retiring its fleet of space shuttles next year
: after seven more missions to complete construction of the
: $100 billion International Space Station, which orbits about
: 225 miles above Earth.

: After that, the United States plans to buy rides for astronauts to
: and from the station from Russia, one of the 16 nations involved in
: the station program.

: NASA is spending $500 million to help two U.S. firms, Space
: Exploration Technologies, a privately held company known as SpaceX,
: and Orbital Sciences Corp, develop rockets and capsules to deliver
: cargo to the station.

: SpaceX's contract includes an option to upgrade its Dragon cargo
: ship for passenger service. The company has said it needs
: $300 million, most of which would be used to develop a launch
: escape system for the crew.

: "It's a little disappointing that (the new program) is only
: $50 million," SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk told
: Reuters. "Fifty million is what it costs for one seat on the
: (Russian) Soyuz."

: Nevertheless Musk hailed the move as a step in the right direction.

: "The main thing that the public should be taking note of is that
: right now we are (solely dependent) on the Russians (for space
: transports) after 2010," he said.

: The White House has convened a panel, headed by former Lockheed
: Martin chief Norm Augustine, to review NASA's human space program.
: The current plan is to finish the station next year, retire the
: shuttles and develop new vehicles that can travel to the space
: station as well as to the moon and other destinations in the solar
: system.

: Funding for the follow-on program has been scaled back to
: $81.5 billion from $108 billion between 2010 and 2020, the year
: pegged for the first post-Apollo moon landing.

: Members of a presidential panel reviewing the country's human space
: program said last week that given current budget forecasts and no
: changes in the program, a moon landing would not occur until the
: mid 2020s at the earliest.

: The panel, which is scheduled to make its report by August 31, also
: has been mulling extending the life of the space station beyond its
: projected shut-down date of 2015.

: In addition to scientific uses, having a station in orbit will
: serve as a market to stimulate commercial space development, said
: board member Jeff Greason, the co-founder and head of XCOR
: Aerospace.

: NASA plans to hold a workshop in Houston on Thursday for companies
: interested in partnering to develop commercial passenger service to
: space.

: Firms expressing interest in the program include Ball Aerospace and
: Technologies Corp., Airborne Systems, SpaceX, Boeing Co, Tether
: Applications, Retro Aerospace, Emergent Space Technologies,
: Davidson Technologies, and Paragon Space Development Corp.

: The competition is only open to U.S. firms.

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"Commercial Spaceflight Federation Creates Scientific Advisory Panel
- Focused on Suborbital Research Applications"
Commercial Spaceflight Federation Press Release
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.rss.spacewire.html?pid=28927

: The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is pleased to announce the
: creation of the Suborbital Applications Researchers Group (SARG),
: composed of experienced scientists, researchers, and educators
: dedicated to furthering the research and education potential of
: suborbital reusable launch vehicles under development by the
: commercial spaceflight sector.

: The panel is chaired by Dr. S. Alan Stern of the Southwest Research
: Institute, a space scientist who previously served as head of the
: Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

: The members of the Suborbital Applications Researchers Group (SARG)
: are aiming to increase awareness of commercial suborbital vehicles
: in the science and R&D communities, to work with policymakers to
: ensure that payloads can have easy access to these vehicles, and to
: further develop ideas for the uses of these vehicles for science,
: engineering, and education missions.

: "The innovative vehicles being developed by a wide range of
: commercial suborbital companies, including Armadillo Aerospace,
: Blue Origin, Masten Space Systems, Virgin Galactic, and XCOR
: Aerospace, represent valuable new capability for scientists,
: engineers, and educators," said Alan Stern, Chairman of SARG.
: "Because some of these vehicles are approaching first flights in
: 2010 and 2011, it is crucial to start engaging with the broader
: scientific community as soon as possible to put payloads and
: scientists on these vehicles."

: In addition to Dr. S. Alan Stern, SARG includes the following
: members:

: - Dr. Steven Collicott, Purdue University - Microgravity Physics
: - Dr. Joshua Colwell, University of Central Florida - Microgravity
:   Physics
: - Dr. Daniel Durda, Southwest Research Institute - Planetary Science
: - Dr. David Grinspoon, Denver Museum of Natural Sciences
:   - Education/Public Outreach
: - Dr. Richard Miles, Princeton University - Mechanical and Aerospace
:   Engineering
: - Dr. John Pojman, Louisiana State University - Microgravity
:   Chemistry
: - Dr. Mark Shelhamer, Johns Hopkins University - Space Life Sciences
: - Dr. Mike Summers, George Mason University - Atmospheric Sciences
: - Dr. Erika Wagner, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Space
:   Life Sciences

: SARG has been officially formed as a coordination and advisory
: committee of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
: (www.commercialspaceflight.org), with Matthew Isakowitz, Associate

: Director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, serving as
: Program Officer. The first meeting of SARG will occur August 18, in
: Boulder, Colorado.

: About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation

: The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to
: promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue
: ever higher levels of safety, and share best practices and
: expertise throughout the industry. CSF member organizations include
: commercial spaceflight developers, operators, and spaceports. The
: Commercial Spaceflight Federation is governed by a board of
: directors, composed of the member companies' CEO-level officers and
: entrepreneurs. For more information please visit
: www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John
: Gedmark at john@... or at 202.349.1121.

: About the Suborbital Applications Researchers Group

: The Suborbital Applications Researchers Group (SARG) is a
: coordination and advisory committee of the Commercial Spaceflight
: Federation, composed of scientists and researchers dedicated to
: furthering the scientific potential of suborbital reusable launch
: vehicles under development by the commercial spaceflight sector.
: SARG will seek to increase awareness of commercial suborbital
: vehicles in the science, R&D, and education communities, work with
: policymakers to ensure that payloads can have easy access to these
: vehicles, and aim to generate new ideas for uses of these vehicles
: for science, engineering, and education missions. For more
: information please contact Alan Stern at astern@... or
: at 303.324.5269.

: Contact:

: John Gedmark
: 202.349.1121

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"Let Private Firms Run Space Taxis, Panel Told"
Reuters
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090729/sc_nm/us_space_transport_4

: The U.S. government should leave the business of launching cargo
: and people into Earth orbit to private commercial space
: transporters, members of a presidential panel said on Wednesday.

: A subcommittee of the Human Space Flight Review panel said turning
: over transport services to the International Space Station to
: private firms would allow the U.S. space agency NASA to focus on
: new challenges, such as extending human presence beyond low-Earth
: orbit.

: "My God, great NASA has been to the moon and we are sort of
: thinking that it is a big challenge for us to continue going to
: (low-Earth orbit)? Let's turn it over to newcomers," Bohdan "Bo"
: Bejmuk, a former Boeing Co executive, told panel members.

: "I think you will find out there are a lot of people who will rise
: and compete," Bejmuk told the meeting broadcast by NASA. "Some of
: them will fail, some of them will succeed, but you will have
: essentially created a new industry."

: NASA currently spends about half of its budget -- $18 billion in
: the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009 -- on human space
: programs.

: Its future plans include completing construction of the space
: station with seven final shuttle missions, retiring the shuttle
: fleet in 2010 and developing new spacecraft that can travel to the
: space station, the moon and other destinations.

: NASA has provided seed funds for privately-funded Space Exploration
: Technologies (SpaceX), and Orbital Sciences Corp, to develop
: commercial spaceships to haul cargo to the space station.

: SpaceX, founded by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, also has a
: contract option to upgrade its capsule with an escape system and
: other equipment needed for passenger service.

: The government's own new Orion spaceship is scheduled to debut in
: 2015.

: A review conducted for the panel by The Aerospace Corp. shows an
: additional two-year delay is likely based on current budget plans
: and the program's technical status.

: The human space flight review panel, headed by former Lockheed
: Martin chief Norm Augustine, is scheduled to issue its report by
: August 31.

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"Making the Moon Pay"
MSNBC
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/07/28/2012537.aspx

: Forty years ago, moon landings were exclusively the province of
: superpowers - but today, commercial ventures are trying to turn
: lunar missions into profitable businesses. Do such dreams represent
: one small step for high-tech entrepreneurship, or do they require
: an overly giant leap of faith?

: Ramin Khadem, a veteran of the telecom satellite industry, thinks
: there's definitely money to be made on the moon. That's not
: surprising: As chairman of Odyssey Moon Limited, he's in charge of
: one of the ventures planning to deliver commercial payloads to the
: moon - not 40 years from now, but sometime in the next five years.

: "The moon is almost like an eighth continent," Khadem told me.
: "It's within the planet Earth's own economic sphere ... Our
: approach has been to explore this eighth continent. Just as
: explorers went to the new world and found all sorts of great
: things, we think there are opportunities there."

: The only problem is, we've known for the past 40 years that the
: "eighth continent" is within reach - but nothing has come of it. In
: fact, "Right Stuff" novelist Tom Wolfe argued around the time of
: this month's Apollo 11 anniversary that the fate of lunar travel
: was sealed once the moon race was won.

: Today's NASA would never take the risks that NASA did in 1968 and
: 1969 by sending astronauts on just-barely-tested spacecraft to the
: moon - primarily because there's no longer any Cold War-scale
: reason to do so. Nothing has been done on the moon's surface, by
: humans or by robots, since 1972 (except for crashing).

: So why should the economic equation be any different five years
: from now?

: 'The next stage'?

: Khadem, who once served as chief financial officer for the Inmarsat
: telecom consortium, is feeling as if it could be deja vu all over
: again.

: "I've been in the satellite business for many years," he said. "If
: you look back 40 years or so, the satellite business was in its
: infancy. Now, we've got a huge business at 34,000 kilometers in
: space - a multibillion-dollar business which is actually a huge
: benefit to mankind."

: The benefits of the commercial satellite revolution - ranging from
: better weather forecasts to globe-girdling communication links
: - came "as the result of some risk taking" in Earth orbit, Khadem
: said.

: "We think the moon itself is the next stage," he said.

: Like 18 other teams, Odyssey Moon is working to put a rover on the
: moon by 2014 to win a big piece of the $30 million Google Lunar X
: Prize. But the venture is also lining up customers for lunar
: delivery services as well.

: "We've got a number of customers already," Khadem said. "When we
: last put out an RFI (request for information), we got 27 responses,
: and there are a number of responses that are still outstanding."

: Khadem estimated that Odyssey Moon had enough payload potential to
: fill up its first launch. "We can fill up the second launch as
: well, and we've only scratched the surface," he said.

: If all those plans come to fruition, the prospects for profits are
: good. That's a big "if," however. Khadem said he recognized that
: rocket science is an inherently risky business. "The model that we
: know in the satellite business and telecom can be applied here," he
: said.

: Just this month, Odyssey Moon announced that it was bringing a
: "dream team" of corporate partners into its venture, including
: banking specialists (Near Earth LLC), marketers (The Brand Union /
: WPP), insurance experts (Aon) and lawyers (Milbank, Tweed, Hadley &
: McCloy).

: Odyssey Moon is working as well with other partners that have
: experience in the spacecraft business, such as NASA's Ames Research
: Center (which is developing the lunar lander); prime contractor
: MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (the Canadian company behind
: the robotic arms on the space shuttles and the international space
: station); and Paragon Space Development (which is working on the
: lander and its thermal control system as well as a mini-greenhouse
: for the moon).

: The moon market

: Who are the customers? Khadem won't go much beyond generalities.
: "Our main business is simply carrying payload for customers,
: whoever they may be, and obviously for peaceful purposes of all
: kinds," he said.

: A study conducted by Futron Corp. for the X Prize Foundation
: estimated that the 19 teams chasing the Google Lunar X Prize could
: serve a market of $1 billion or more in the next decade.

: "We examined a wide range of markets that teams could address, both
: those that exist today and those that could be enabled by low-cost
: commercial lunar exploration," Futron senior analyst Jeff Foust was
: quoted as saying. "If one or more teams are able to win this prize
: competition, they will be able to serve markets potentially far
: larger than the prize purse."

: For now, the primary payoff would come in the form of technology
: and scientific data: How will a gizmo designed for NASA's future
: moon missions actually work in the lunar environment? How much more
: can be learned about the moon's makeup, or about potential lunar
: resources? What kinds of observations can be made from the moon?

: "Associated with this business there will be marketing and
: advertising," Khadem said. That could take the form of corporate
: logos plastered on the spacecraft. More ambitious schemes might
: call for setting up an exclusive video feed from the moon, for use
: in TV shows, movies or video games. You could let tourists take a
: spin around the lunar landscape via virtual reality. One company
: even says it will use a specially tracked rover to trace out
: advertising messages in moondirt (although the current launch
: prospects are uncertain).

: If samples could be returned from the moon, that could open up yet
: another type of market. Apollo-vintage moondust and moon rocks are
: valuable commodities on Earth, strictly controlled by NASA, and
: even meteorites from the moon can sell for six figures, lunar
: scientist Paul Spudis noted last week on his "Once and Future Moon"
: blog.

: Looking ahead

: In the longer run, lunar operations could conceivably supply an
: outpost with raw materials ranging from solar power, drinkable
: water and breathable oxygen to building materials, as outlined in
: an essay written by Spudis and two other moon-watchers. And in the
: even longer run, some people suggest the moon could yield beamed
: energy or fusion fuel.

: All this eventually gets back to the original question: If there
: are profit possibilities on the moon, why have they been neglected
: for all this time?

: The biggest missing piece in the commercial moon puzzle is having a
: reliable, affordable launch vehicle that can reach the lunar
: surface. That challenge is something that the Google Lunar X Prize
: could well address.

: California-based SpaceX, for example, is offering a 10 percent
: discount on launch costs for X Prize launches to the moon - a
: factor that the X Prize Foundation took into account when the rules
: for the challenge were written. "We tried to write it so that it
: was just barely winnable on a Falcon 1," said Will Pomerantz, the
: foundation's senior director for space prizes.

: At least one X Prize competitor, Romania's ARCA team, is developing
: its own rocket for a future moon mission. The Helen launch vehicle,
: which is designed for launch from a high-altitude balloon platform,
: is due to be tested in August or September.

: In their essay, Spudis and his colleagues argue that small steps
: leading to lunar settlement - including new breeds of reusable
: launch vehicles, new processes to take advantage of resources on
: the moon and new opportunities for private enterprise - could
: succeed where another Apollo-style giant leap just might fail:

: : "It is clear to us is that we are neither doing the right things
: : in space nor are we are doing things right. Frankly, we do not
: : think that it is possible to do much worse. The United States
: : spends more money on space through our government than all other
: : governments put together and we get less results on a dollar for
: : dollar basis. Day by day more bad news about slipped schedules,
: : enormous cost overruns, and lost capabilities make it into the
: : news. It is beyond time to change the way that we conduct
: : spaceflight, and if we choose to make this spaceport/settlement a
: : reality, we will completely transform our aerospace industrial
: : system. This rearrangement will save taxpayers billions of
: : dollars while increasing our operational capabilities."

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"SpaceX Successfully Launches Commercial Satellite to Orbit"
Space.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20090714/sc_space/spacexsuccessfullylaunchescommer\
cialsatellitetoorbit

: A private spaceflight company launched a Malaysian satellite into
: orbit using a rocket of its own design late Monday, marking the
: firm's first successful commercial space shot.

: The Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies, Corp.
: (SpaceX) launched the small satellite atop its Falcon 1 rocket, a
: two-stage booster that made its first successful test flight last
: year after three consecutive failures. It was the fifth Falcon 1
: launch for SpaceX, but its first to successfully haul a functional
: Earth-watching satellite into its intended orbit.

: The Falcon 1 rocket blasted off at about 11:35 p.m. EDT
: (0335 July 14 GMT) from the U.S. Army's Ronald Reagan Ballistic
: Defense Test Site on Omelek Island in the Kwajalein Atoll, a launch
: site that sits about 2,500 miles (4,023 km) southwest of Hawaii.

: Delayed liftoff

: A malfunction in equipment used to load helium aboard the Falcon 1
: rocket pushed the mission four hours beyond its initial launch
: target, with stormy weather delaying the mission even more. SpaceX
: initially hoped to launch RazakSAT in April, but the need to
: eliminate a vibration issue between the satellite and its Falcon 1
: rocket set the flight back several months.

: But despite those lengthy delays, Monday's launch ultimately
: reached orbit without a hitch. After jettisoning its first stage as
: designed, the Falcon 1 booster reached a parking orbit and later
: restarted its rocket engine to deploy RazakSAT in an orbit that
: flies high above Earth's equator.

: "Second burn and satellite separation nominal," SpaceX officials
: said in an update. "Falcon 1 has successfully deployed RazakSAT
: into the correct orbit."

: RazakSAT was built by Malaysia's Astronautic Technology (M) Sdn.
: Bhd. (ATSB) to take high-resolution images of Malaysia to aid land
: management, resource development and conservation, forestry and
: fish migration studies, SpaceX officials said. The satellite
: carries a camera that can observe Earth at a panchromatic
: resolution of 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) and a color resolution of about
: 16.4 feet (5 meters).

: The Falcon 1 rocket launched several hours after NASA canceled its
: own launch of the space shuttle Endeavour in Florida for the fifth
: time, this time due to foul weather. The shuttle is slated to
: launch Wednesday to begin a long-delayed construction flight to the
: International Space Station.

: Falcon rocket family

: SpaceX, too, has its eyes on flying to the International Space
: Station. Founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Musk, a co-founder of
: the electronic payment service PayPal, SpaceX is aiming to offer
: low-cost launches to space with its Falcon 1 rocket and a larger
: version called Falcon 9.

: The Falcon 1 rocket can haul small satellites, like the nearly
: 400-pound (180-kg) RazakSAT, into low Earth orbit. After three
: launch failures between 2006 and 2008, SpaceX successfully reached
: orbit with a Falcon 1 rocket last September. Falcon 1 launches
: currently cost about $8 million per flight, SpaceX officials have
: said.

: The larger Falcon 9, however, is designed to launch SpaceX's Dragon
: spacecraft, a capsule-based vehicle tapped by NASA as one of two
: privately built spacecraft to ferry cargo to and from the
: International Space Station. NASA awarded SpaceX with a
: $1.6 billion contract last year to launch 12 unmanned cargo flights
: to the space station by 2016. The other vehicle, Orbital Sciences
: Corp.'s Cygnus spacecraft, received a $1.9 billion from NASA for
: eight cargo flights.

: SpaceX has drawn plans for a free-flying version of Dragon, called
: DragonLab, for space experiments, as well as a manned version to
: launch astronauts to and from the space station. The company plans
: to launch its first Falcon 9 rocket test flight sometime this year
: from a seaside pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in
: Florida, SpaceX officials have said.

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"Submission Deadline Extended for SFF and Heinlein Trust $5,000
NewSpace Business Plan Prize"
Space Frontier Foundation Press Release
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.rss.spacewire.html?pid=28371

: The Space Frontier Foundations' Heinlein Business Plan Competition
: is actively seeking Executive Summaries from companies that can
: demonstrate how their product or service is related or beneficial
: to the commercial space industry.

: Due to the continued interest in the competition after the
: International Space Development Conference, the Space Frontier
: Foundation has decided to extend the deadline for submissions by
: one week to allow teams more time to put together their 3 - 5 page
: summary. The new deadline is June 19th, 2009, 5:00PM Eastern.

: The announcement of which companies will be invited to participate
: will be on June 26th and the competition will take place on Sunday,
: July 19th at the Space Frontier Foundation's annual New Space
: Conference. First prize includes a $5,000 cash prize and the
: opportunity for the winning team to present at Space Investment
: Summit 7 in Boston, MA on September 30th. For more details on the
: recommended sections to include in the Executive Summary and
: competition guidelines, please see the Business Plan section of the
: NewSpace Website.

: NewSpace 2009 is a single-track conference focusing on
: entrepreneurial space activities. Sessions are intended not only to
: provide interesting presentations, but also to generate lively
: discussions among NewSpace CEOs, established space industry
: leaders, NASA & military space experts, and government regulators.

: Discounted early-bird registration for the Conference is available
: at the NewSpace 2009 website, which also provides information about
: our group rate ($99/night) at the Domain Hotel in nearby Sunnyvale,
: California.

: For more information about the foundation, conference, and
: registration, visit http://newspace2009.spacefrontier.org/ - or
: RSVP on Facebook today!

Mark Reiff

FYI,

Go to article to see photos of the SpaceX facility.

"Space 2.X: The Private Rocket Race Takes Off"
Wired Magazine
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/06/gallery_spacex

: Building a successful startup in Silicon Valley is hard, but it's
: not rocket science. Unless you're SpaceX.

: Eschewing the traditional startup trappings of two college grads
: eating ramen, watching Adult Swim and coding until the wee hours of
: the night, SpaceX instead employs hundreds of brainiacs and builds
: its rockets in a massive hangar that once housed a 747 fuselage
: factory.

: Started in 2002 by PayPal founder Elon Musk, SpaceX (short for
: Space Exploration Technologies Corporation) brings a startup
: mentality to launching rockets into orbit, which until recently was
: almost exclusively government turf. The hope is that minimal
: bureaucracy, innovation and in-house manufacturing and testing can
: be used to put payloads into space at roughly one-tenth the cost of
: traditional methods.

: If the company's newest rocket, the Falcon 9, successfully
: completes its two scheduled launches this year, it will rendezvous
: with the International Space Station in 2010. After that, it will
: officially begin its mission as NASA's Commercial Orbital
: Transportation Services platform, replacing the space shuttle as
: the method for transporting cargo and crew to the ISS.

: SpaceX launched its first rocket, the Falcon 1, last September,
: placing a dummy payload into orbit. Space enthusiasts are holding
: their breath to see how Falcon 9 performs.

: Here's a behind-the-scenes look at SpaceX's facility. This is how
: the private sector builds a rocket capable of space travel.

: Looking less like a lab full of rocket scientists and more like
: Google, SpaceX foregoes offices and private meeting rooms. Instead
: the company opts for an open floor plan and glass-paneled
: conference rooms. Don't be fooled, those are rocket scientists.

: Later this year, SpaceX will launch its much larger Falcon 9
: rocket. If all goes well, the craft will make several orbits around
: the Earth before splashing down off the California coast. If the
: mission is a success, a commercial payload will be launched before
: the end of 2009.

: The Falcon 9's capsule, Dragon, is designed to carry cargo and
: astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.

: SpaceX uses a high-tech, strong and lightweight aluminum-lithium
: alloy with a rigid internal structure in the construction of its
: Falcon 1 rocket. The lighter the rocket, the heavier the payload
: can be.

: An extremely accurate laser survey device, left, is used to ensure
: that rocket parts fall within SpaceX's tight tolerances.

: High-pressure, high-temperature manifolds and final rocket cones
: wait for assembly into rocket engines.

: The business end of a Falcon 1 rocket stage fuel tank stands nearly
: ready to be mated with a rocket motor and blasted into space.

: The Falcon 9's top nose cone fairing, left, is built around a
: multi-armed support structure to provide a rigid skeleton when
: forming the composite shell. The top nose cone will form the
: exterior of the top of the rocket and partially protect the payload.

: Much larger than the Falcon 1, the Falcon 9 first stage, right, is
: ready for its end cap to be attached (see bottom photo).

: The first and second stages of the Falcon 9, left and right
: respectively in top photo, are nearly identical, with the second
: stage being a shorter version of the first. The domes and walls of
: the stages are made with a superstrong aluminum-lithium alloy.

: The end caps are covered with a special heat shielding designed to
: protect the stages upon reentry so they can be recovered and reused.

: Several rocket motors sit waiting to attached to Falcon rockets or
: test platforms, but first they will need to be assembled. The stand
: in the photo below supports the rocket motor during the assembly
: process.

: These motors take the propellant and focus it in the right
: direction. They're right where all those impressive flames shoot
: out at launch. The special shape creates the huge amount of thrust
: that gets the rocket into space.

: Machinists in the SpaceX shop use computerized mills and lathes to
: form raw chunks of exotic alloys into working rocket parts.

: In the top photo, a machinist inspects a small part he is drilling
: with a computerized mill.

: Another machinist waits for a robotic press to finish shaping what
: appears to be a fuel tank fairing, as seen in slide 6.

: A rocket motor is being formed in a milling machine. The hoses
: hanging from the door are used to lubricate the bit and wash away
: slivers of metal the mill removes.

: A robotic drill press cuts precise, computer-guided holes into a
: block of metal that will soon find its way into a rocket.

: Here, a machinist adjusts the tooling on a large hydraulic press
: that is shaping a fuel tank fairing.

: A partially finished rocket motor awaits machining next to a mill.

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"Past and Future of 'New Space'"
MSNBC
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/05/21/1939893.aspx

: The documentary "Orphans of Apollo" focuses on the effort to
: privatize Russia's Mir space station, shown here during a 1995
: space shuttle mission to the outpost. The effort helped prolong
: Mir's life but ultimately failed, leading to its demise in 2001.

: A behind-the-scenes documentary on the unsuccessful effort to turn
: Russia's Mir space station into a money-making operation serves as
: a cautionary tale for the private sector's present-day space
: ambitions.

: "Orphans of Apollo," a movie that tells the story of the
: masterminds and millionaires behind MirCorp, has been making the
: film-festival circuit for months and is already on DVD. It's
: getting its London premiere on Friday, according to the
: documentary's director and executive producer, Michael Potter.

: A decade ago, when the dot-com boom was going strong, a
: well-connected group of space enthusiasts and entrepreneurs laid
: plans to set up their own commercial beachhead in outer space. The
: title of the movie refers to the fact that many of these
: self-described revolutionaries were inspired by the Apollo moon
: landings that began 40 years ago - and then stopped 37 years ago.

: "It was over in the government's minds, but a lot of young kids
: there, myself included, were ready for what was next," Peter
: Diamandis, the head of the X Prize Foundation, says in the film.
: "We drank the Kool-Aid."

: Diamandis and many others anticipated an age when they themselves
: could follow Apollo's pioneers to the final frontier, and felt
: profoundly let down by what they saw as NASA's retreat. "We, as
: Apollo's children, felt we were Apollo's orphans. We had been left
: out in the cold," said Rick Tumlinson, co-founder of the Space
: Frontier Foundation.

: So when Russia's space officials began thinking about getting rid
: of Mir and turning their attention to the international space
: station, the revolutionaries began thinking about the
: opportunities. The central figure in the fight to save Mir turned
: out to be Walt Anderson, an "anarcho-capitalist" telecom
: millionaire with a penchant for supporting space causes.

: "I had approached Walt earlier and said to him, 'Would you like a
: space station, because I think we can get it,'" Tumlinson recalls
: in the movie. "And he said, 'Yeah.'"

: "Orphans of Apollo" chronicles the rise and fall of MirCorp, the
: venture created to turn Mir into an orbiting commercial paradise,
: through present-day interviews as well as extraordinary home video
: shot during Anderson's business dealings.

: One sequence of shots shows Anderson and his buddies feasting on
: take-out pizza and wine and playing Risk while they fly on the
: millionaire's private jet for a crucial round of talks in Russia.
: During the year 2000, MirCorp's team spun out grand plans to
: refurbish the space station as a tourist destination and the
: setting for a reality-TV show. At one point NBC, one of the
: partners in the msnbc.com joint venture, had a deal with MirCorp
: and "Survivor" creator Mark Burnett to use Mir as the centerpiece
: of a prime-time series.

: Thanks to Anderson's millions, MirCorp got their Russian
: "landlords" to send one more crew up to the space station in
: mid-2000 and keep the place running. But that was the venture's
: high point. The grand ambitions of Apollo's orphans ran up against
: a perfect storm of personality clashes, politics and economics.

: On the personality front, Anderson didn't even bother to hide his
: contempt for governments, particularly his own. The video shows him
: telling the Russians at one point during their negotiations, "We're
: dealing with some of the stupidest bureaucrats in Washington at the
: State Department."

: Unfortunately for Anderson, those bureaucrats would turn his life
: into a special kind of hell. NASA and other government agencies
: were worried that keeping Mir in operation would siphon off Russian
: resources that were needed by the infant international space
: station.

: "Our concern was that it was an old vehicle and was costing more
: and more to maintain," Leon Fuerth, Al Gore's former national
: security adviser, says of Mir in the film. "And we wanted the
: Russians, if they had to choose which way to put their money, to
: put the money on what was coming rather than keep it going to what
: was clearly no longer useful."

: The veterans of MirCorp suggest that NASA pushed hard on the
: Russians, the State Department and anyone else who mattered to kill
: Mir off. "I put a reward out for $1,000 for the person who can come
: up with the smoking gun," Potter, the film's director, told me.
: "From the MirCorp side of things, they always felt there was this
: conspiracy."

: It didn't help that Anderson was often portrayed as an eccentric
: space nut. One famous New York Times article was accompanied by a
: cartoon tracing the adventures of "Wacky Walt."

: But the nail in MirCorp's coffin was the dot-com bust that started
: in 2000 and gathered momentum as the months went on. Anderson had
: anticipated adding to his fortune and bringing in new investors,
: but the money troubles worsened instead. The Russians lost
: patience, and in April 2001, Mir was deep-sixed for good.

: MirCorp tried to carry on, working on a reality-TV deal that called
: for pop singer Lance Bass to fly to the international space station
: in 2002. But Anderson eventually soured on the whole enterprise.
: And that wasn't the worst of it: In 2005, federal authorities
: arrested Anderson in what was then called the "biggest personal tax
: evasion case ever." Today, Anderson is serving a nine-year prison
: sentence and facing a $184 million tax bill.

: Most of this seems like ancient history to those of us who covered
: MirCorp's rise and fall, but the movie clearly shows that Apollo's
: orphans have learned their lessons.

: "This stuff really is rocket science," Potter said, "and it's not
: just the physics. It's the business model: How do you handle the
: risk assessment? How do you handle the insurance? It's really
: complicated - but it's not as complicated as NASA makes it."

: The biggest lesson is that you want to have the government as your
: customer, not your enemy. "I think the slightly more commercial and
: realistic and politically savvy entrepreneurs who are now investing
: in private space understood where Walt went wrong," David Chambers,
: who was MirCorp's vice president of strategic planning, says in the
: movie. "And they're prepared to play nice with the various
: governments that they need to play nice with."

: The examples are legion: SpaceX's Elon Musk has received millions
: from NASA to develop a new rocket and spaceship (with a crucial
: Falcon 9 launch planned this year). Scaled Composites' Burt Rutan
: has benefited from government contracts as well as investments from
: billionaires such as Paul Allen and Richard Branson. Robert
: Bigelow, a billionaire himself, is hoping government business will
: eventually help sustain his own privately funded space station
: program. XCOR Aerospace, Armadillo Aerospace and many other "New
: Space" companies rely on government contracts to keep the money
: coming in while they work on their rocket revolution.

: Potter said he's applying the lessons from "Orphans of Apollo" in
: his own work with Odyssey Moon, one of the teams entered in the
: $30 million Google Lunar X Prize competition.

: "We don't view ourselves as competing with NASA," he said. "We're
: just a gear in the cog. You want FedEx to the moon? We'll take care
: of that. ... We're pretty typical, if you compare us with a lot of
: Silicon Valley tech ventures."

: And it's pretty typical that some ventures fade away while others
: keep going. To conclude, here's a quick rundown on how some of the
: space revolutionaries have fared since MirCorp faded:

: - One of MirCorp's founding directors, Indian-American tech
: entrepreneur Chirinjeev Kathuria, is now chairman of PlanetSpace, a
: launch venture that competed unsuccessfully for some of NASA's
: spaceship development funds. PlanetSpace recently lost an appeal of
: NASA's decision.

: - MirCorp's president and chief executive officer, Jeffrey Manber,
: went on to found Yuzoz, a space-themed company producing random-
: number generator software. Yuzoz has officially gone under, but
: Manber is now working on a book about Russia's space overtures to
: the West (including the MirCorp saga).

: - Tumlinson has founded business ventures to create flight suits
: for commercial space shots and offer "space diving" for thrill-
: seekers on the final frontier. (If you need help imagining what
: space diving would be like, check out the latest "Star Trek" movie.)

: - While MirCorp's principals were struggling to keep their rented
: space station alive, Diamandis was pushing ahead with the X Prize
: Foundation and Zero Gravity Corp. Zero G was sold to Space
: Adventures last year, but the X Prize Foundation has branched out
: into genetics, automotive innovation, health care and other fields
: as well as space. The foundation is still best-known for putting
: together the $10 million Ansari X Prize, which Rutan's SpaceShipOne
: captured almost five years ago. The next big thing on Diamandis'
: schedule is next month's Incentive2Innovate conference at the
: United Nations.

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"NASA Approves Partial Privatization of the Space Program"
Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,519609,00.html

: NASA's critics have long asked: Why does the space agency need to
: design and build its own rockets and spacecraft?

: When the Justice Department or the Centers for Disease Control want
: to send employees somewhere, they don't specify the aircraft types,
: let alone design the airframes, engines and avionics. They just buy
: plane tickets.

: Even the military finds it cheaper to use civilian aircraft for
: certain missions. So why should space transportation be any
: different?

: NASA's beginning to agree. For the first time, after nearly a half
: century of building its own rockets and orbiters, it has approved
: the outsourcing of some of the equipment that enables its manned
: space missions to private contractors.

: Last week, acting NASA Administrator Chris Scolese told a
: congressional subcommittee that the agency plans to give
: $150 million in stimulus-package money to private companies that
: design, build and service their own rockets and crew capsules
: — spacecraft that could put astronauts in orbit while NASA finishes
: building the space shuttle's replacements.

: On Thursday, the White House ordered a top-to-bottom review of the
: entire manned space program, one that will be led by former
: Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, long considered a friend of
: private space ventures.

: Both developments show that the once-reluctant space agency and the
: Obama administration are ready to support commercial human
: spaceflight.

: It's a dramatic change, one that could reduce America's dependency
: on Russia for the next half-decade after the space shuttle program
: ends, and one that could kick-start a space program that some see
: as having stalled for 40 years.

: "Our government space program has become over-burdened with too
: many objectives, and not enough cash," says William Watson,
: executive director of the Space Frontier Foundation, a
: Houston-based group promoting commercial space activities. Watson
: said that allowing private companies to handle routine orbital
: duties could free up NASA to focus on returning to the moon and
: going to Mars.

: Scolese said that $80 million of the stimulus money will be awarded
: to the company that demonstrates the best "crewed launch demo" — a
: prototype, based on existing cargo-capsule designs, modified for
: humans. The agency was careful to note that the competition will be
: an open one.

: Two well-positioned spaceflight companies, SpaceX and Orbital
: Sciences, are seen as the leading contenders. Each already has a
: full line of rockets and cargo capsules ready to go, and each
: company's capsules can be converted to transport astronauts.

: Both firms were tight-lipped about their suddenly increased
: opportunities. Orbital Sciences didn't respond to queries; SpaceX
: said only that it was "encouraged by NASA's commercial crewed
: services initiative."

: But NASA's savings in cost and time could be significant.

: The two leading contractors are building their launch vehicles from
: scratch. Their designs emphasize very efficient business models and
: low manufacturing costs. And they operate with at most a few dozen
: employees at their launch sites, as opposed to the space shuttle
: program's standing army of almost 15,000 workers.

: NASA's hostility toward other American space ventures goes back at
: least to the early 1990s, when Lockheed Martin developed the DC-X
: suborbital experimental rocket, financed by the Pentagon's
: Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO).

: The goal was to get payloads into orbit with a reusable craft that
: was not the space shuttle, which the Defense Department saw as
: unreliable and costly.

: NASA was hardly enthusiastic about this approach. It believed that
: it would be many years before such Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs)
: would be ready to fly, and some inside the agency saw it as a
: threat to its monopoly on human space flight.

: In 2000, NASA even objected to the cash-strapped Russian space
: agency's $20 million deal to send up the first "space tourist,"
: American billionaire Dennis Tito.

: But three things happened.

: -- The February 2003 Columbia space-shuttle disaster, in which
: seven astronauts died, forced NASA to rethink its way of doing
: business. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board's final report
: "found a NASA blinded by a 'Can Do' attitude, a cultural artifact
: of the Apollo era that was inappropriate in a Space Shuttle program
: so strapped by schedule pressures and shortages that space parts
: had to be cannibalized from one vehicle to launch another."

: NASA's tight relationship with a small number of major contractors
: and its persistent problems integrating political and legal demands
: with the need to maintain engineering excellence had stressed the
: agency to the breaking point, the report said.

: -- In January 2004, President George W. Bush decided to "reboot"
: the space program, announcing his "Vision for Space Exploration" to
: go back to the moon and to eventually send humans to Mars.

: -- And in October 2004, engineer Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne won the
: $10 million Ansari X Prize. The rocket was the first privately
: built flying machine ever to reach space.

: There was a catch to the Bush plan: As part of the ambitious new
: program, the 30-year-old space-shuttle program will end next year,
: saving NASA $3 billion a year to spend on new spacecraft, the first
: of which is scheduled to fly in late 2015.

: But that has created a gap in America's ability to launch
: astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). For
: at least five years, NASA will depend primarily on Russia to get
: Americans into space, which doesn't sit well with many space
: experts and politicians.

: As a result, NASA quickly became much friendlier to commercial
: ventures. In late 2005, then-agency Administrator Michael Griffin
: announced that NASA was considering buying crew and cargo
: transportation services to the ISS from private industry.

: "We believe," he said, "that when we engage the engine of
: competition, these services will be provided in a more
: cost-effective fashion than when the government has to do it,"
: Griffin said.

: In 2006, the first round of the Commercial Orbital Transportation
: Services (COTS) contracts was won by SpaceX corporation of
: Hawthorne, Calif., which received a contract worth $278 million,
: and by Rocketplane Kistler of Oklahoma City, which was supposed to
: get $207 million.

: Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX for short,
: founded by PayPal entrepreneur Elon Musk, was already hard at work
: on its Falcon series of rockets.

: It also had done preliminary design work on a multipurpose capsule
: called the Dragon, which could be adapted to carry either crew or
: cargo to the ISS on a Falcon 9.

: SpaceX was funded mostly by Musk's personal fortune, but also had a
: small number of contracts to launch satellites for the Defense
: Department and from overseas.

: Rocketplane Kistler, on the other hand, was an innovative but
: underfunded enterprise. It promised to build on an earlier RLV
: program that had failed to get off the ground after a promising
: start in the late 1990s.

: In October 2007, Rocketplane Kistler's NASA contact was terminated
: due to its failure to meet the agreed-upon financial milestones.

: The remaining $170 million from the Rocketplane Kistler
: disbursement was awarded to Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles,
: Va., for its Taurus 2 launcher and Cygnus capsule combination.

: Orbital, one of the few entrepreneurial space firms that have
: successfully gone from start-up to billion-dollar status, not only
: builds the Pegasus and Taurus launchers, but also has established a
: decent reputation building small-to-medium-sized commercial and
: scientific satellites and space probes.

: Most importantly, both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences are well-funded
: and commercially viable, a crucial factor to NASA.

: If a private company shows it's ready to invest its own funds,
: that's a lot better than people who want to "help spend NASA's
: money," as Griffin once put it in a different context.

: But not everyone in NASA's old guard is pleased with this approach.

: "In order to preserve U.S. leadership in space, it would be better
: to invest in a lifting body lander, a spaceplane that would land on
: a runway like the Shuttle does now," Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz
: Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, told FoxNews.com .
:: "There is a [NASA] design called the HL-20 that could be launched
: on an existing reliable rocket and could be ready for a
: demonstration flight in 2013."

: But to the Space Frontier Foundation's Watson, the sky's the limit.

: "Let's have an American competition in space — to create good jobs,
: fuel innovation and close the [spaceflight] gap more quickly," he
: said. "With private funds matching government investment, we can
: dramatically leverage taxpayer dollars to produce breakthroughs in
: a new American industry — commercial orbital human spaceflight."

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"Zero G Experiment Wins Cash Prize"
SPACE.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20090427/sc_space/zerogexperimentwinscashprize

: A Texas zero gravity experiment has won a $25,000 cash award and a
: free ride into space aboard a privately built rocket.

: The winning team from the University of Texas would see their work
: go up on a Falcon 9 rocket from private spaceflight firm Space
: Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), one of the sponsors for the
: first Microgravity Research Competition. Other competition sponsors
: included The Heinlein Prize Trust and the Rice Alliance.

: "Microgravity opens a new window on biological and physical
: processes, enabling innovation in biotech, nanotech, and other
: fields," said Art Dula, a trustee for the Heinlein Prize Trust.
: "Furthermore, microgravity can now be accessed by companies and
: universities on a commercial basis."

: The proposed experiment focuses on developing drug delivery systems
: for medical applications. The results could help promote the
: science and technology of implantable devices for controlled,
: long-term drug release â€" research which could yield treatment means
: for diseases such as cancer.

: "The winner's experimental payload will be launched on a future
: flight of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and remain in a microgravity
: environment onboard SpaceX's DragonLab spacecraft for an extended
: period of time before returning to Earth," SpaceX officials said in
: an online statement.

: The Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX has begun testing on its
: Falcon 9 rocket at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for
: its first launch later this year. The firm has already signed a
: contract for its rocket and Dragon spacecraft to help haul NASA
: cargo to and from the International Space Station, and could take
: on private paying customers too.

: SpaceX previously celebrated its first successful launch of the
: smaller Falcon 1 rocket in September 2008, proving that fourth
: time's the charm after three failed attempts.

: The company had delayed its latest launch attempt, a planned Monday
: Falcon 1 liftoff to carry a Malaysian satellite into orbit, while
: engineers study compatibility issues between the rocket and its
: payload.

Mark Reiff

Just go to http://space.org and sign up from that page.  Any discussions you add
or participate in will help.

--- In commercialspaceplace@yahoogroups.com, vdp42 <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
>
> How can I help?
> Do we go into ning.com and search for Space.org and sign-up as new members
when (if) we find it?
> Or do you have a link we need to go to and sign in?
> I'm not interested in any commercial sponsorship, but I would help test the
site and be a member.
>
> >
>

How can I help?
Do we go into ning.com and search for Space.org and sign-up as new members when
(if) we find it?
Or do you have a link we need to go to and sign in?
I'm not interested in any commercial sponsorship, but I would help test the site
and be a member.

>

I've owned space.org since I registered it in August of 1995, and in the process
of attempting to figure out what to do with it, have turned down many offers to
purchase it over the years. I think that Web 2.0 has finally made it possible to
do what I want with the domain at the level of quality I'm seeking, and
therefore I'm inviting the participants of this forum to participate in the
site's "soft launch" (deployed on top of Ning.com's social network service) and
help me figure out how to best utilize the information and technology now
available to provide a valuable service to the space advocacy community as a
whole.

At a later point, I will also be making email addresses @space.org available,
and perhaps sub-domains (joeblow.space.org). Soft launch participants will
receive priority in address and domain selection, and a year's free email
service (and perhaps more) if and when that option is in place.

A limited number of initial commercial sponsorship options are also available at
very reasonable rates, if anyone is interested, feel free to contact me via
email at this address, or call me at 831-295-3917 (my business cell).

FYI,

: Space Access '09 Conference Information

: April 2-4, Phoenix Arizona

: Space Access '09 is just a week away - if you haven't already,
: book your flights and rooms now. Airfares will only get more
: expensive if you wait. And our reserved special-rate room block
: has opened up for general rental by any tourist who comes along,
: and rooms are going fast - Friday night in particular is getting
: tight. Call the Grace Inn at 800 843-6010 and ask for the "space
: access conference rate" for our $99-per-day-all-inclusive
: discount room rate, soon, if you want to be sure of a room right
: at the conference. Early April is still winter sunshine tourist
: season in Phoenix, so affordable rooms and good airfares can be
: hard to come by at the last second. So shake off the winter cold
: and damp (and all the overblown talk of economic doom) and treat
: yourself to a three-day look at the future under the warm
: Arizona sun.

: Space Access '09, our upcoming annual conference on the
: technology, politics, and business of radically cheaper access
: to space, featuring a cross-section of leading players in the
: field, will once again be the place to hear the latest on the
: fast-moving entrepreneurial new-space industry. Space Access
: conferences are designed to let people who are serious about
: doing low-cost space transportation themselves get together,
: trade information, make deals, and learn useful things. No
: rubber-chicken banquets, just an intensive single-track
: presentations schedule with relaxed on-your-own meal breaks in
: a setting with plenty of comfortable places nearby to go off
: and talk.

: The conference program is almost complete - we've got quite a
: few more interesting speakers confirmed since our last update.
: Stay tuned for further changes to the program, since one way
: we get the up-to-the-minute latest on this new industry is to
: stay flexible right up to the last minute.

: Speakers: If we have you scheduled before you're arriving or
: after you're leaving, email us at space.access@...
: and we'll fix it. We prefer you bring your presentation on a
: laptop tested and ready to plug into our projector and sound
: system (we'll have standard SVGA and headphone plugs) to
: prevent program delays. If that's not possible, let us know
: well before your talk and we'll try to set you up with a
: loaner machine you can load and test your presentation on
: ahead of time. We'll also have a DVD player, a VHS VCR, and
: on Thursday an overhead projector. Anyone needing that last on
: other days should contact us and let us know ahead of time.

S: pace Access '09 Preliminary Program Schedule, 3/27/09

: overall schedule:
: - Thursday April 2nd, sessions 2 pm - ~10 pm
: - Friday April 3rd,   sessions 9 am - ~10 pm
: - Saturday April 4th, sessions 9 am -  6 pm (Hospitality
: - till late)

: Thursday April 2nd
: 1 pm - Registration and Hospitality open (we may have them open as
:     early as noon, depending on how setup goes, but no guarantees.)
: 1:50  Henry Vanderbilt says "Welcome" and shares a thought or two
: 2 pm  Henry Spencer, "The Big Top Step: From 100 Km To LEO
:       - Building To Orbit From Suborbital Capabilities"
: 3:30  break
: 4 pm  Stratofox Aerospace Tracking Team/Ian Kluft
: 4:30  Unreasonable Rocket/Paul Breed
: 5:05  David Summers/Universal Transport Systems, "High Delta-V
:       Rocket Aircraft"
: 5:25  SpeedUp/Bob Steinke
: 5:55  break for dinner
: 8 pm  James Van Laak, FAA AST Deputy Associate Administrator for
:       Commercial Space Transportation
: 8:40  Space Studies Institute/Lee Valentine
: 8:50  Robin Snelson, Space Tourism Specialist with Rocketship Tours
: 9:00  Monroe King, N-Prize Contestant: Team Prometheus/Aeronautic
:       Enterprises Inc.
: 9:20  TBA
: late - Hospitality closes

: Friday April 3rd
: 8 am - Registration and Hospitality open
: 9 am  James Dunstan, on Orbital Debris Law
: 9:20  Panel on Orbital Debris - James Dunstan, Jeff Foust, Dennis
:       Wingo
: 9:50  Kevin Greene, "The SBA-Guaranteed Business Loan Process"
: 10:10  break
: 10:40  Flometrics/Carl Tedesco
: 11:15  Michelle Murray, FAA AST Experimental Permit Program Lead
: 11:55  TBA
:        break for lunch
: 2 pm  XCOR Aerospace/Jeff Greason
: 2:50  Garvey Spacecraft/John Garvey
: 3:25  break
: 4 pm  BonNova/Bob Noteboom
: 4:35  Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
:      (SEDS)/Joshua Nelson
: 4:45  TrueZer0/Scott Zeeb and Todd Squires
: 5:20  NASA Ames Human Tended Suborbital Science/Yvonne Cagle and
:       Bruce Pittman
: 5:50  break for dinner
: 8 pm  Panel, World Space Programs & Projects, Clark Lindsey, Dave
:       Salt, Henry Spencer
: 8:50  Iain Finer, N-Prize Contestant: Team Kiwi 2 Space
: 9:10  Ed Wright, Teachers in Space's Astronaut Teacher Course
:       Design Workshop
: 9:20  Brian Miller, AFI Fellow, with the short film "Cosmonaut" and
:       a few words on attempting authentic space film
:  late - Hospitality closes

: Saturday April 4th
: 8 am - Registration and Hospitality open
: 9 am  Rocketplane Global/Chuck Lauer
: 9:35  Leik Myrabo, Lightcraft Technologies Inc and RPI,
:  "International Research Collaboration on Beamed Energy Propulsion"
: 10:25  break
: 10:55  Misuzu Onuki, "Current Status Of Japanese Space Venture
:        Companies"
: 11:20  Armadillo Aerospace/John Carmack
: 12:10  Space Frontier Foundation
: 12:20  break for lunch
: ~12:40  - Registration closes
: 2 pm  Orbital Outfitters & Space Divers/Rick Tumlinson
: 2:40  Masten Space/Dave Masten
: 3:20  break
: 3:50  Jim Muncy/PoliSpace, "Minding the Space Gap"
: 4:30  Copenhagen Suborbitals/Frank Smith
: 4:55  Charles Pooley, N-Prize Contestant: Microlaunchers
: 5:15  Wrapup Panel, with Various Luminaries telling us What It All
         Means
: ~6 pm  that's all for this year
: late - Hospitality closes - see you next time!

: SA'09 takes place at the Best Western Grace Inn at
: 10831 South 51st Street, a comfortable resort-style hotel in
: Phoenix Arizona, ten miles from the Phoenix Airport via free hotel
: shuttle, in a pleasant suburban neighborhood with shopping and
: dining a short walk away, with free parking.

: Our rates are the same as last year, both for SA'09 conference
: registration ($100 by check mailed in advance, $120 check cash or
: credit card at the door, student rate $30 either way) and hotel
: rooms ($99 a night for 1 or 2 includes all taxes plus full American
: hot buffet breakfast every morning).

: For hotel room reservations, phone the Grace Inn at 800 843-6010.
: Ask for the "space access conference rate" for our $99-inclusive
: discount room rate. (If you're attending, this rate is good for
: three days before and after the conference too, if you want to
: catch some extra Arizona springtime sun.)

: For advance SA'09 conference registration, mail checks (sorry,
: credit cards can only be accepted at the door) to

: Space Access '09
: 5555 N 7th St #134-348
: Phoenix AZ 85014.

: Print, fill out, and mail along this form so we'll have all the
: info we need to have your badge ready when you arrive. (Our last
: pickup run to our mailbox before the conference will be Wednesday
: evening, 4/1/09.)

: ---------Space Access '09 Advance Registration----------------

: Name ____________________________________________________________

: Organization ____________________________________________________
: (optional, will appear on badge, 20 characters max)

: email ___________________________________________________________
: (for conference updates and newsletter)

: amount enclosed ______________ for _______________________________

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Mark Reiff

FYI,

: Space Access '09 Conference Preliminary Information
: April 2-4, Phoenix Arizona

: Space Access '09, our upcoming annual conference on the
: technology, politics, and business of radically cheaper access
: to space, featuring a cross-section of leading players in the
: field, will once again be the place to hear the latest on the
: fast-moving entrepreneurial new-space industry.  Space
: conferences are set up to maximize opportunities for trading
: information and making deals.  No rubber-chicken banquets, just
: an intensive single-track presentations schedule with relaxed
: on-your-own meal breaks in a setting with plenty of comfortable
: places to go off and talk.

: SA'09 is just two months away.  Book your flights and rooms soon
: - early April is still winter sunshine tourist season in
: Phoenix, so affordable rooms and good airfares can be hard to
: come by at the last second.

: We are as usual just getting rolling on organizing the
: conference presentations at this point - stay tuned for
: additions to the program in coming weeks.  One way we get the
: up-to-the-minute latest on this new industry is to stay
: flexible right up to the last minute.  Look for a detailed
: program schedule about two weeks before the conference starts.

: Confirmed SA'09 speakers so far:

: - Armadillo Aerospace/John Carmack

: - FAA AST

: - Flometrics/Steve Harrington

: - Jeff Foust

: - George Herbert/Retro Aerospace

: - Clark Lindsey

: - Masten Space/Dave Masten

: - Jim Muncy/PoliSpace

: - SEDS

: - Space Studies Institute/Lee Valentine

: - Henry Spencer

: - Stratofox/Ian Kluft

: - Unreasonable Rocket/Paul Breed

: - XCOR Aerospace

: Overall Conference Schedule:
: - Thursday April 2nd, sessions 2 pm - ~10 pm
: - Friday April 3rd, sessions 9 am - ~10 pm
: - Saturday April 4th, sessions 9 am - ~ 6 pm
: - Space Access Hospitality Suite open till late all three
:   nights.

: SA'09 takes place at the Best Western Grace Inn at 10831 South
: 51st St, a comfortable resort-style hotel in Phoenix Arizona,
: ten miles from the Phoenix Airport via free hotel shuttle, in
: a pleasant suburban neighborhood with shopping and dining a
: short walk away, with free parking.

: Our rates are the same as last year, both for SA'09 conference
: registration ($100 by check mailed in advance, $120 check cash
: or credit card at the door, student rate $30 either way) and
: hotel rooms ($99 a night for 1 or 2 including tax and full
: American buffet breakfast).

: For hotel room reservations, phone the Grace Inn at
: (800) 843-6010. Ask for the "space access conference rate" for
: our $99-inclusive discount room rate.  (If you're attending,
: this rate is good for three days before and after the
: conference too, if you want to catch some extra Arizona
: springtime sun.)

: For advance SA'09 conference registration, mail checks (sorry,
: credit cards can only be accepted at the door) to

: Space Access '09
: 5555 N 7th St #134-348
: Phoenix AZ 85014

: Print, fill out, and send along this form so we'll have all the
: info we need to have your badge ready when you arrive.

: ----------------Space Access '09 Advance Registration----------

: Name __________________________________________________________

: Organization __________________________________________________
: (optional, will appear on badge, 20 characters max)

: email _________________________________________________________
: (for conference updates and newsletter)

: amount enclosed ______________ for ____________________________

--------------------------------------------------------

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"Future of Commercial Spaceflight Uncertain, But Promising"
Space.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20081231/sc_space/futureofcommercialspac
eflightuncertainbutpromising

: This year closed with a volley of seemingly hopeful signs for
: what's termed by some as "NewSpace" - an entrepreneurial
: spaceflight trajectory markedly different than NASA and its cabal
: of mainstream aerospace contractors.

: For example:

: Item: The huge WhiteKnightTwo mothership successfully lifts off
: into aerodynamic adulation at the Mojave Air and Space Port, that
: it can serve as a carrier plane to support two-pilot, six passenger
: suborbital SpaceShipTwo tourist operations for spaceliner operator,
: Virgin Galactic.

: Item: NASA awarded two fixed-price "indefinite delivery, indefinite
: quantity contracts" collectively valuable at about $3.5 billion
: - one to Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., and one to Space
: Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif. - for
: commercial cargo resupply services to the International Space
: Station.

: Item: XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, Calif. successfully completed its
: first test fire of the rocket engine designed to power its two-seat
: Lynx suborbital vehicle to the edge of space. Meanwhile, Jules Klar
: of RocketShip Tours has announced that his company is selling rides
: to the edge of space on Lynx for $95,000 per flight.

: Item: Bigelow Aerospace of North Las Vegas continued to monitor
: though the year its Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 modules placed into
: orbit July 2006 and June 2007. Both spacecraft remain in excellent
: shape, with the private firm pushing forward on larger expandable
: structures that can become habitable havens in Earth orbit.

: It's the economy $tupid

: But one big issue looms for NewSpace next year, said Jeff Foust, an
: aerospace analyst, journalist and publisher, as well as editor and
: publisher of the respected website, The Space Review. And that
: topic of trepidation is the state of the economy.

: "This is going to affect companies in the industry in two ways.
: One, it's going to make it that much more difficult for companies
: to raise the money needed to develop their vehicles," Foust told
: SPACE.com.

: "It won't directly affect companies that are already self-funded or
: otherwise fully-funded - like Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Armadillo
: Aerospace, Bigelow Aerospace, etc. - but those  companies trying to
: raise tens of millions of dollars or more  to carry out their
: business plans will find that steep path to funding  has become
: even steeper.

: Foust also noted another impact tied to the rocky economy - a
: potential reduction in customer demand, particularly in space
: tourism. A whiplash from the continuation of a deep recession in
: 2009, he said, may well be people reconsidering tossing out
: $95,000 to $200,000 or more for suborbital jaunts, or putting the
: trip off a few years - to a time when, presumably, the economy
: recovers.

: X factor

: In his crystal ball gazing, Foust said he expects that the coming
: year will be a year more of incremental advances rather than
: breakthroughs in the NewSpace field.

: "In short, I think commercial space will continue to have strong
: long-term prospects, but that 2009 will present its share of
: challenges for the industry to overcome in order to realize those
: prospects," Foust said.

: Another "X factor" for commercial space in 2009 that Foust flagged
: is the incoming Obama administration.

: "During the general election, the Obama campaign made some positive
: statements about the importance of commercial space, especially in
: the campaign's space policy issued in August. However, we'll have
: to wait and see how exactly they will implement that...and what
: priority commercial space issues will get among other pressing
: space policy issues, not to mention overall policy," Foust
: observed.

: Expect the unexpected

: Taking a longing look at the economic uncertainty of the times is
: David Livingston, host of The Space Show - a home for a bubbling
: cauldron of space experts that fill the sound waves with talk radio
: and a streaming program of both solution and worry.

: "Concerning my civil and private space expectations for 2009, about
: all I can say at this time is to expect the unexpected," Livingston
: said. "With the economy and markets in flux, with Congress doing
: its best to spread fear, and with tight money, I suspect capital
: acquisition efforts on the parts of some private companies may find
: the going to be tough," he said.

: Livingston said that he is expecting the unexpected for most - if
: not all of 2009.

: "Too much is unknown or uncertain at this time to be sure of
: anything. By the way, markets and money hate uncertainty. We need
: to get through this mess, start our recovery, or at least stop with
: the fear propagation by members of Congress and the press...and we
: need to see or at least reliably anticipate stability returning to
: the financial and economic world," Livingston concluded.

: Big plans

: An ongoing success story in private space matters is that of John
: Carmack, chief rocketeer of his Armadillo Aerospace team in
: Rockwall, Texas. Last October, Armadillo bagged $350,000 in prize
: money for winning Level One of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander
: Challenge in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

: In assessing 2009, a confident Carmack sees winning Level Two of
: the lunar lander challenge.

: Furthermore, "we are planning on doing 'boosted hops' up to around
: a mile or so at our home base airfield once the new [Federal
: Aviation Administration] amateur rocket regulations go into effect
: in February," Carmack added. "We will be testing higher speeds
: going up and down, and eventually trying an engine relight after a
: short descent under drogue [parachute]."

: In other Armadillo rocket milestones, Carmack said that they should
: be doing exhibition races with multiple Rocket Racers. Also, he
: advised that a skydiver will ride and jump off from one of the
: company's rockets.

: "I hope to be flying at [New Mexico's] Spaceport America later next
: year, which will give us supersonic flights and get close to
: space...but that is contingent on a few other factors," Carmack
: told SPACE.com.

: Time for patience

: Jeff Greason is head of XCOR Aerospace in Mojave, California - a
: leading private entrepreneurial space group with an eye on the
: suborbital space market. In putting a business-eye on the coming
: year, he signals a time for patience.

: "During 2009, entrepreneurial space companies will continue working
: on their propulsion systems, airframes, and all the other
: components necessary for successful access to space," Greason
: explained. "So we will see engine tests, other subsystem tests, and
: progress on vehicle construction and system integration."

: But given all that activity, Greason added: "We're unlikely to see
: any new systems enter service in 2009. People should not find this
: disappointing. This is the hard work that is necessary to make
: affordable spaceflight a reality, and it will lead to first flights
: in 2010."

: Spotlighting that next year will likely become the "tipping" point
: in the emerging personal space flight industry is Stuart Witt,
: general manager of Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

: Witt's end of the year message is straightforward: The industry has
: an opportunity to expand to many locations across the nation if
: operators are successful at Mojave.

: "The business of being first in new and exciting endeavors has its
: risks, but thank goodness we have people willing to be creative and
: take the personal and business risks which have such a positive
: effect on so many," Witt feels.

: Witt contends that what's needed is creativity, innovation and a
: long reach...all which has been missing from national space policy
: for decades.

: "As America focuses on bailing out everyone who is on the brink of
: failure, thank God we have places where failure is still an option
: in order for innovation to be realized," Witt believes. "When you
: strip away a country's or individual's ability to fail you take
: away their right to succeed. Let the natural forces of
: accountability work for all."

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"The Silicon Valley of NewSpace"
The Space Review
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1273/1

: "Today, you're treated to really strange Mojave weather conditions
: this time of year," said Ken Doyle, operations manager for
: AirLaunch LLC, to a tour group visiting the company's engine test
: stands on the north side of the Mojave Air and Space Port last
: month. The "really strange" weather conditions, on a mid-November
: afternoon, were clear skies, light winds, and a temperature of
: about 70°F. "This is very unusual. It should be 40 degrees and
: 40 miles per hour [wind]."

: Even if the weather had been closer to normal, though, it would not
: be difficult to understand why so many entrepreneurial space, or
: "NewSpace", companies have been attracted to the high desert about
: 150 kilometers northeast of Los Angeles. From the test sites on the
: north side of the airport, used for engine tests, to the cluster of
: hangars along the airport's flight line, as well as the wide array
: of aircraft that use the airport's runways themselves, an airport
: once known primarily as a storage site for excess airliners has
: emerged as one of the hubs for the NewSpace industry.

: For example, in the last week XCOR Aerospace successfully tested a
: new engine, the 5K18, that will be used in its Lynx suborbital
: vehicle. The engine, which uses liquid oxygen and kerosene
: propellants, generates up to 11,100–12,900 newtons of thrust; four
: of the engines will power the Lynx on its suborbital missions.
: Masten Space Systems also has been performing engine tests at
: Mojave in the last month for its XA-0.1B test vehicle. And
: WhiteKnightTwo, the carrier aircraft for SpaceShipTwo, has been
: making series of taxi tests in preparation for its first flight,
: which finally took place Sunday morning.

: This level of activity and concentration of companies have led some
: to liken Mojave Air and Space Port to a NewSpace version of Silicon
: Valley, a comparison the airport embraces. "It is a center of
: aerospace development and a real hotbed of creativity and fantastic
: things going on," Rick Searfoss, chief test pilot for XCOR, says in
: a new promotional video about the airport. "In fact, it's somewhat
: analogous to Silicon Valley, only for the aerospace business and
: specifically NewSpace. The stuff that happens here doesn't happen
: any place else."

: Or, as Dave Masten, president and CEO of Masten Space, says in the
: same video: "Only in Mojave can you be talking to one rocket
: company and listening to another one work."

: It's understandable why companies in Mojave would want to draw
: parallels with Silicon Valley, 500 kilometers to the northwest: the
: Valley is perhaps the best-known region of technological innovation
: in the world, having spawned a series of highly-successful
: companies from Hewlett-Packard and Intel to Apple and Google. The
: comparison is not perfect, however. The companies of Silicon Valley
: share very little physical infrastructure; the density of companies
: there is driven more by access to talent, financing, and other
: factors—including, in a bit of circular logic, the ability to say
: they're based in Silicon Valley.

: The companies in Mojave do get some of those same effects, in
: particular the access to talent, but the bigger draw is the airport
: itself and its features: good flying weather, access to restricted
: airspace, and the ability to do flight testing, rocket engine
: development, and other work not easily possible at most other
: airports. In that sense Mojave is less a state of mind, like
: Silicon Valley, and more of a research park or laboratory for the
: commercial aerospace industry. Or, in the mind of airport general
: manager Stu Witt, a mall.

: "We have a couple of thousand people working here and 40 tenant
: companies. I explain it as a mall," Witt said during a discussion
: November 18th with members of the AIAA's Commercial Space Group,
: who were touring the airport and meeting with some of the companies
: there. "If you've ever seen how a mall operates, you have anchor
: tenants—big stores that fill up the parking lots—and then you have
: a lot of boutiques. The boutiques benefit from the filled-up
: parking lots, and they come and they go."

: "You really try to take care of your anchor tenants," Witt added,
: continuing the mall analogy. "You give your best deals to your
: anchor tenants, give them your best deals, breaks on fuel and land
: rents. You try to encourage the boutiques. Some of them make it and
: turn into anchor tenants. That's our business model."

: It's a business model that appears to be working well for the
: airport. Earlier this month the Mojave Chamber of Commerce
: recognized the airport as its business of the year. "They are just
: doing business hand over fist out there," the chamber's president,
: Rheta Scott, told the Antelope Valley Press. The airport's
: buildings and hangars are fully occupied now, with a waiting list
: for access to them.

: As another sign of its growth, the airport dedicated earlier this
: year Legacy Park, on a small plot of land behind the administration
: building. "That was a vacant lot a year ago, it was just trash out
: there," Witt explained. "That's what your crew can do in very
: little time. Now it's the place where we have our barbeques once a
: month." The park is home to the Roton ATV, the atmospheric test
: vehicle built by Rotary Rocket Company in the late 1990s, as well
: as a full-scale replica of SpaceShipOne. It's a memorial site as
: well: a plaque honors the three Scaled Composites employees killed
: in an accident in July 2007 at the airport while performing a
: propellant flow test for SpaceShipTwo.

: Yet, like Silicon Valley itself—not to mention much of the rest of
: the global economy—Mojave is experiencing the effects of the
: current downturn. Witt said that three of the space companies based
: in Mojave, primarily smaller firms, had gone out of business or
: otherwise suspended operations.

: "I'm surprised, because I thought there would be more," said Witt.
: "I thought in May of this year, with the [economic] indicators what
: they were for the entrepreneurials and the people privately funding
: them, that we would have more business failures occur than we have.
: We were pleasantly surprised."

: Another area of concern is the development of competing spaceports,
: attracting businesses and other activity to them. When Mojave Air
: and Space Port received its FAA launch site operator, or spaceport,
: license in 2004, it was the first licensed inland spaceport in the
: US. However, the Oklahoma Spaceport, at a former Air Force base in
: Burns Flat, west of Oklahoma City, received its spaceport license
: in 2006 (see "Little spaceport on the prairie", The Space Review,
: June 7, 2004). And just last week the FAA awarded a license to
: Spaceport America in New Mexico, a facility whose construction is
: now set to begin in early 2009.

: Witt, in his conversation with the AIAA group, played down any
: notion of competition with spaceports in other states. "The press
: comes in here and asks if we're in competition with New Mexico and
: Florida, and I say no. We're not in competition with anybody," he
: said. The real issue, he said, is whether the country considered
: spaceflight a national priority. "And if we're in it, we're going
: to have to have spaceports dotting the landscape."

: However, at a board meeting later that day of the East Kern Airport
: District, which oversees the airport's operations, Witt
: acknowledged the competition from other states when requesting
: $10,000 from the airport's board to help promote the airport and
: its activities to the new administration. In the minutes of that
: meeting, Witt noted that "the District is competing against sites
: in Florida, New Mexico, Oklahoma and California that are spending
: huge sums of money to bring in tenants. General Manager [Witt]
: stated that his goal is for the District to stand up and say we are
: doing this to save jobs for tenants that already exist here at
: Mojave. This would send a strong signal to Mojave's tenants that
: the District wants to retain their business for the long run."

: "I really think we have to stay focused—at least at this site—on
: helping the designers, the developers, and the entrepreneurs build
: their space vehicles," Witt said to the AIAA group. "I have got to
: make sure they stay focused, because without them we don't have an
: industry."

: There's also a more personal factor driving that effort. Witt
: recalled being interviewed by CBS' 60 Minutes program when he was a
: fighter pilot at the Navy's "Top Gun" school in 1980 and being
: asked what he wanted to do after flying in the Navy. His response:
: join the space program. "I didn't realize it was easier to become
: first baseman for the Dodgers," he said, adding that, ironically,
: his "backseater" at the school, Pierre Thuot, did become a NASA
: astronaut, flying on three shuttle missions.

: "I'm here for one reason," Witt said. "I want to go." It's a reason
: likely shared by many of the other people and their companies that
: make Mojave their home.

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"Griffin's Commercialization Legacy"
The Space Review
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1266/1

When the Bush Administration nominated Mike Griffin to be NASA
administrator in March 2005, the space community anticipated that he
would take special interest in efforts to promote the commercial
space industry. Unlike his predecessor, Sean O'Keefe, whose career
had been primarily in government and academia, Griffin spent
significant time in industry, including a stint with the American
Rocket Company (AMROC), a proto-NewSpace company from the 1980s, and
as president of In-Q-Tel, a company that effectively serves as the
venture capital arm of the CIA. As noted in this publication at the
time of his nomination, "his experience bodes well for those who
would like to see such [entrepreneurial] ventures play a bigger role
in NASA's programs." (see "Getting to know Michael Griffin", The
Space Review, March 14, 2005)

Now, by most accounts, Griffin's tenure at NASA is nearing an end.
Unless the incoming administration elects to keep Griffin at the
agency—an unlikely but not impossible turn of events—Griffin's likely
last major public statement on NASA's commercialization efforts was
made at a largely-overlooked speech Friday at NASA Headquarters
during a ceremony to honor Armadillo Aerospace for winning one of the
prizes in the Lunar Lander Challenge, one of NASA's Centennial
Challenges prize competitions. In that address Griffin made the case
for not just what the agency should be doing to support commercial
space efforts, but also why.

Parabolic and suborbital commercialization

Griffin's speech, while largely a review of ongoing efforts, did
contain some new developments. One was in the area of commercializing
parabolic flight services for reduced and microgravity work. NASA
operates a C-9 aircraft, dubbed the "Weightless Wonder"(but more
popularly, if infamously, known as the "Vomit Comet") that is used to
train astronauts and perform experiments. A few years ago a
commercial venture, Zero Gravity Corporation or ZERO-G, started
performing similar flights for almost anyone who can pay the $4,950
price. ZERO-G also started to pursue providing similar flights for
NASA.

Early this year NASA awarded ZERO-G a one-year contract, with
multiple one-year options, for parabolic flight services. Griffin
said in his speech that ZERO-G has since performed a number of test
flights to demonstrate their capabilities, in several cases flying
experiments funded by NASA's Small Business Innovation Research
(SBIR) program.

"Tests aren't yet complete, but project managers are confident that
ZERO-G can meet our needs," Griffin said. "Thus, we're planning for
the transition of all microgravity flight activities from the NASA C-
9 to commercial aircraft." The C-9 will be retained for space shuttle
training work, and as a backup to ZERO-G, but Griffin said that "our
primary path will be commercial."

Griffin also discussed NASA's interest in purchasing flight services
from the emerging commercial suborbital industry, for applications
ranging from scientific research to astronaut training. Griffin spoke
the same day that two requests for information (RFI) were due to the
agency on human-tended suborbital science and other research that
could be performed in this emerging class of vehicles. NASA is also
hosting a workshop on human-tended suborbital science on December 15
in San Francisco, timed to coincide with the American Geophysical
Union meeting being held there.

Despite these efforts, as well as positive comments about the concept
made by Griffin in a speech in March (see "Hoping for a reality
tomorrow", The Space Review, March 10, 2008), some in the industry
have been concerned that NASA has been dragging its heels on this,
particularly after one of its biggest proponents, former NASA
associate administrator Alan Stern, left the agency earlier this
year. His successor, Ed Weiler, was perceived to be less enthusiastic
about the concept, noting the limited response to a similar RFI
earlier in the year.

Griffin, though, indicated that he continued to support the idea of
purchasing such services when companies start flying. "When the
capability becomes available, we will purchase seats for various
science payloads, microgravity experiments, and perhaps even
astronaut training," he said. "We're not interested in doing `junk
science' just to fly it, and we're not interested in subsidizing
suborbital space tourism development as we are, in the same fashion,
doing with COTS… But we do plan to leverage this new capability when
it emerges to improve the science that we can conduct as we do today
on sounding rocket missions or to lower our costs. You should see
more about this initiative in next year's budget request."

Defending COTS's cargo emphasis

NASA's biggest commercialization effort during Griffin's tenure,
though, has involved the resupply of the International Space Station
(ISS). Griffin discussed his plans for what would become the
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program in a speech
a couple months after becoming administrator, one where he said
that "both sides have to have skin in the game," eschewing
traditional government procurement for agreements that involved
progress payments for achieving milestones in the development of
systems.

The overall success of COTS won't be clear for several years to come,
but it has clearly attracted the interest of industry. SpaceX
continued to make progress on its funded Space Act Agreement under
the COTS program with the development of its Dragon spacecraft and
Falcon 9 launcher, while Orbital Sciences Corporation, which won a
similar agreement earlier this year after NASA terminated a prior
agreement with Rocketplane Kistler, is ramping up its work on its
Cygnus spacecraft and Taurus 2 rocket. Both companies, along with a
PlanetSpace-led team that includes several major aerospace companies,
are competing for the follow-on Commercial Resupply Services (CRS)
contract, scheduled to be awarded on December 23.

One area where at least some in industry have differed with NASA is
on the program's emphasis on cargo over crew transportation. The
original COTS program included an option for crew transportation,
known as Capability D, that NASA has not exercised. Proponents
of "COTS-D" have argued that developing a crew transportation
capability opens up new markets for providers in addition to
servicing the ISS, something that cargo-only vehicles don't offer
(see "The COTS conundrum", The Space Review, July 28, 2008)

In Friday's speech, though, Griffin defended the emphasis on
cargo. "I've been asked on many occasions for my opinion on
commercial crew transportation to ISS," he noted, then went on to
explain that cargo is "our more critical need". According to his
logic, there is already a means for getting crew to and from the
station once the shuttle is retired—the Russian Soyuz vehicle, for
which NASA recently extended a contract with the Russian Space Agency
for flights to the station in 2011–2012—but "we don't currently have
a method of getting cargo to space station, and we can't support crew
without cargo."

On the surface that statement seems a little puzzling, since there
are today vehicles that can provide cargo to the ISS: the Russian
Progress vehicle and ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), with
Japan's H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV) under development. However,
Griffin appeared to be referring to the anticipated shortfall in
cargo capability to the station once the shuttle is retired even when
those vehicles are taken into account, particularly given the needs
of a six-person crew.

"While I certainly wish I had more money to invest in developing COTS
crew capability—along with many other things I wish I had more money
for—I think it's unwise to raid other accounts to increase our bet on
COTS crew capability," Griffin said.

The value of prizes

Given that Friday's speech was part of a ceremony to honor the winner
of a NASA-funded prize competition, it was little surprise that
Griffin also talked about the prize competitions, both in general and
NASA's Centennial Challenges effort in particular. Prizes have
captured considerable interest in the space community—and elsewhere—
in recent years, thanks in large part to the $10-million Ansari X
Prize and the attention it garnered. That effort not only led to
NASA's own prize program, but also new interest in even bigger
prizes, including prizes in the range of $5–10 billion for human
missions to the Moon or Mars.

Griffin said he favored the use of prizes in general, but not the
proposals for billion-dollar Mars prizes. "For example, I think it
would be fruitless for the American taxpayer to sponsor multi-billion-
dollar prizes for manned missions back to the Moon or to Mars as some
prominent members of the chattering class have suggested," he said,
an apparent reference to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has
proposed such prizes before. "The high upfront cost and technical
complexity of such missions to me renders them unrealistic for a
private concern to undertake at this time. It's an interesting
thought experiment, but it's not an idea which would gain much
traction in the real world, in my opinion."

He added that if establishing a human presence on the Moon was a
national priority, the US government should be actively pursuing
it. "We should not establish a prize for the accomplishment and then
sit back and wait to see whether or not it is claimed," he said. "We
should either care enough to make it happen, or not bother."

So when are prizes most effective for NASA or other government
agencies? According to Griffin, it's when such agencies "are actively
seeking individuals and companies who would not normally participate
in a traditional government procurement process." He added: "Prizes
entice the kind of people who are repelled by the cumbersome nature
of government processes." He cited examples ranging from Charles
Lindbergh to Peter Homer, who won a prize in NASA's astronaut glove
prize competition last year.

All of these efforts Griffin mentioned in his speech—prizes, COTS,
and other purchases of commercial services—touched upon a fundamental
theme: the importance of getting the commercial sector involved in
order to make NASA's space exploration effort sustainable over
multiple administrations and Congresses. "Those of us on the
government side of the space business must recognize a fundamental
truth: if our experiment in expanding human presence beyond the Earth
is to be sustainable in the long run, it must ultimately yield
profitable results, or there must be a profit to be made by supplying
those who explore to fulfill other objectives," Griffin
concluded. "We should reach out to those individuals and companies
who share our interest in space exploration and are willing to take
risks to spur its development."

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"Secretive Space Vehicle Tested at Private Texas Site"
Space.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20081208/sc_space/secretivespacevehiclet
estedatprivatetexassite

: That secretive rocket work being bankrolled by billionaire Jeff
: Bezos of Amazon.com fame has shed some new light on its activities.

: Blue Origin is developing New Shepard, a rocket-propelled
: vehicle that takes off and lands vertically and is designed to
: routinely fly multiple astronauts into suborbital space at
: competitive prices.

: Flight tests of the suborbital craft have been staged at a private
: launch site in Texas.

: Blue Origin is now noting that, in addition to providing the public
: with opportunities to experience spaceflight, New Shepard will also
: provide frequent opportunities for researchers to fly experiments
: into space and a microgravity environment.

: To help shape this activity, the group has announced that
: interested parties should contact Blue Origin's independent
: representative for research and education missions, Alan Stern, the
: former NASA chief of space science.

: These research and education missions are dubbed REM, oriented
: toward microgravity and space science investigations.

: This activity would be in addition to, not in place of, Blue
: Origin's long-standing plans for human-carrying commercial flights.
: The first opportunities for autonomous or remotely controlled
: experiments on unpiloted flights could be as early as 2011 and the
: first ones requiring accompanying research astronauts would be
: available as early as 2012.

: Coasting into space

: In a mission overview, Blue Origin explains that the New Shepard
: vehicle will consist of a pressurized Crew Capsule (CC) carrying
: experiments and astronauts atop a Propulsion Module (PM).

: Flights will take place from Blue Origin's own launch site, which
: is already operating in West Texas. New Shepard will take-off
: vertically and accelerate for approximately two and a half minutes
: before shutting off its rocket engines and coasting into space.

: The vehicle will carry rocket motors enabling the Crew Capsule to
: escape from the PM in the event of a serious anomaly during launch.
: In space, the Crew Capsule will separate from the PM and the two
: will reenter and land separately for re-use.

: The Crew Capsule will land softly under a parachute at the launch
: site. Astronauts and experiments will experience no more than a
: 6g acceleration and a 1.5g lateral acceleration during a typical
: flight. High-quality microgravity environments will be achieved for
: durations of three or more minutes, depending on the mission
: trajectory.

: Call for investigators

: Blue Origin is soliciting input from investigators to help design
: research astronaut and experiment accommodations. Researchers will
: have the opportunity to provide their own racks to mount into the
: vehicle (subject to a safety review), or use standard racks and
: services to mount their experiments.

: Flight experiments may be autonomous, remotely operated, or
: operated manually by an accompanying researcher provided by the
: customer or by Blue Origin.

: As for a timeline, Blue Origin notes that flight testing of
: prototype New Shepard vehicles began in 2006. The group expects the
: first opportunities for experiments requiring an accompanying
: researcher astronaut to be available in 2012. Flight opportunities
: in 2011 may be available for autonomous or remotely-controlled
: experiments on an unpiloted flight test.

: Experiment listing

: Preliminary accommodations and standard services Blue Origin
: anticipates will be available include:

: - Capacity — three or more positions to be used by astronauts or
: experiment racks
: - Experiment Mass Allocation — 120 kilograms available per position
: (including rack)
: - Windows — One per position
: - Data recording — Experiment data storage provided for post-flight
: download with synchronized trajectory parameter measurements

: As for the kinds of experiments that could be flown, Blue Origin's
: website lists remote sensing, such as atmospheric science and Earth
: observations, sampling of the atmosphere and magnetospheric
: measurements. In-cabin science investigations are listed too,
: including physiology, gravitational biology or microgravity physics
: research.

: Still under study is possible launching of deployable payloads from
: the New Shepard.

: NASA interest

: Blue Origin's interest in suborbital science, like other rocket
: firms, is being stoked by NASA creating a program office to explore
: this arena at the space agency's Ames Research Center.

: That office is investigating the use of emerging commercial
: suborbital vehicles for scientific research, including, but not
: limited to, flights to space of researchers to allow for
: human-tended experiments.

: By the way, a Human-Tended Suborbital Science Workshop is on tap
: next week at the Westin San Francisco Market Street. That Dec. 15
: workshop is being held in conjunction with the American Geophysical
: Union Fall Meeting and is sponsored by the Universities Space
: Research Association.

Mark Reiff

Hello,

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cfrjlr <cfrjlr@...>

FYI,

"SpaceDev Founder Jim Benson Dies"
SpaceRef
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=26665

: SpaceDev, Inc. announced today that SpaceDev Founder and Board
: Member James Benson, 63, died peacefully in his home. Benson was
: diagnosed in 2007 with a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor, the
: cause of his death early this morning. Mr. Benson had resigned from
: an operational role in SpaceDev in September 2006. He retained a
: seat on the Board of Directors of SpaceDev where he had continued
: to support the Company that he founded in 1997.

: "Jim was a true visionary," said Mark Sirangelo, SpaceDev's CEO and
: Chairman of the Board. "He saw that space exploration could be more
: effective if done commercially, and formed SpaceDev to make that
: dream become a reality. He will be missed by many but his legacy
: contained in SpaceDev will continue to forward his vision for the
: commercialization of space. On behalf of the employees, board and
: shareholders of SpaceDev we would like to express our condolences
: to the Benson family."

: Prior to founding SpaceDev, Mr. Benson spent thirty years
: associated with the computer field, spanning the era from the
: introduction of modern mainframe computers, to the dominance of the
: computer industry by microcomputers. Mr. Benson invented modern
: full text computer indexing and searching in 1984, and exploited
: the new field through companies he founded; Compusearch and
: ImageFast of McLean, Virginia.

: After his successful career as a computer industry entrepreneur,
: Mr. Benson decided to take on the challenge of starting an
: innovative space commercialization venture because it combined his
: lifelong interests in science, technology and astronomy with his
: successful business experience. SpaceDev was the result.

: In addition to his roles in SpaceDev and Benson Space, Benson had
: been a member of the Board of Directors of the California Space
: Authority. He founded the non-profit Space Development Institute,
: and introduced the Benson Prize for Amateur Discovery of Near Earth
: Objects.

: Mr. Benson Received a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from
: the University of Missouri in Kansas City, his home town.

: He is survived by his wife Susan, 3 children and 4 grandchildren.
: The family is planning a memorial service later in the year.

"Jim Benson Has Died"
Michael Belfiore
http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2008/10/jim-benson-has-died.html

"Jim Benson, RIP"
Personal Spaceflight
http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2008/10/10/jim-benson-rip/

"SpaceDev Founder Jim Benson Dies at 63"
Space.com
http://www.space.com/news/081010-jimbenson-obit.html

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"Successful Launch for Falcon 1 Rocket"
Space.com
http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon/004

: The Falcon 1 booster redeemed itself Sunday with an electrifying
: launch that put an exclamation point on six years of hard work and
: disappointment for SpaceX, the startup company chartered to
: revolutionize space travel.

: The 70-foot-tall rocket successfully delivered a 364-pound hunk of
: aluminum to orbit on the launcher's fourth flight, ending a streak
: of three consecutive Falcon 1 failures dating back to 2006.

: "That was freakin' awesome," said Elon Musk, CEO and chief
: technical officer of Space Technologies Corp.

: Musk established SpaceX in 2002 and funded the company from the
: fortune he earned from starting Zip2 and PayPal.

: "We made orbit thanks to the hard of work of SpaceX and all you
: guys," Musk told a crowd of employees at the company's headquarters
: in Hawthorne, Calif.

: Musk, who appeared speechless during his address to workers, said
: his nervous system had been frazzled by the successful launch.

: "There are a lot of people that thought we couldn't do it, but as
: the saying goes, fourth time's the charm," Musk said.

: The mission logo for the launch, known as Flight 4 in SpaceX
: parlance, includes two four-leaf clovers symbolizing the end of the
: rocket's string of bad luck.

: "Getting to orbit, that's just a huge milestone," Musk said. "There
: are only a handful of countries on Earth that have done it. It's
: normally a country thing, not a company thing."

: The rocket reached the end of a smooth countdown at 7:15 p.m. EDT
: (2315 GMT) Sunday. Unlike previous countdowns riddled by
: last-second aborts, this time the rocket's Merlin 1C engine ramped
: up to 78,000 pounds of thrust and the black-and-white launcher was
: cleared for takeoff.

: The rocket flew east from the company's launch site on Omelek
: Island at Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean. The
: Falcon 1's first stage completed its burn two-and-a-half minutes
: after liftoff, and the spent booster separated from the rocket's
: second stage five seconds later.

: Stage separation was the moment of failure during the Falcon 1's
: third flight in August, but this time the critical event occurred
: as planned.

: SpaceX employees gathered inside the company's massive assembly
: hangar let out cheers as the second stage Kestrel engine fired and
: propelled the rocket away from the first stage.

: The two halves of the 11.5-foot-tall metal fairing were let go
: about 30 seconds later, prompting another round of applause from
: company workers.

: The Kestrel burned for nearly seven minutes before shutting down
: once on-board computers detected the rocket had arrived in orbit.

: Then the party began.

: "I want to have a really great party tonight," Musk told his
: employees. "I don't know about you guys."

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"DC-X Honored for Its Contributions, Potential"
SPACE.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080901/sc_space/dcxhonoredforitscontri
butionspotential

: Creating routine, aircraft-like, low-cost access to space is not
: only technologically challenging, it will require enormous tenacity
: to overcome the inevitable bureaucratic, political and funding
: hiccups. These are just a few of the lessons learned by veterans of
: the Delta Clipper-Experimental (DC-X) rocket ship program. Created
: by an entrepreneurial-like pact between industry and government
: from 1991-1997, the DC-X project showcased the technology and
: operational concepts for a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle capable of
: supporting an array of military and commercial applications,
: including public space travel.

: The DC-X was first managed by the Strategic Defense Initiative
: Organization, under a contract with the U.S. aerospace firm,
: McDonnell Douglas (now a part of Boeing). The initial goal was to
: rapidly prototype the spacecraft as a step toward a
: single-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle. The first vertical takeoff
: and landing demonstration vehicle flew Aug. 18, 1993, two years
: after receiving the funding go-ahead.

: At the neighboring White Sands Missile Range, the U.S. Air Force
: flew DC-X eight times between August 1993 and July 1995.
: Subsequently, NASA and the U.S. Air Force managed an advanced DC-X
: design that was flown four times in 1996. On its last flight,
: however, the vehicle tipped over and was destroyed in an accident
: caused by human error — not connecting hardware related to one of
: the craft's landing legs.

: DC-X engineers and program officials reviewed the venture during a
: 15th anniversary reunion, held here Aug. 17-19, but also assessed
: the status of space transportation for the 21st century. The event
: was hosted by the New Mexico Museum of Space History and was a
: kick-off for fundraising to develop a permanent DC-X/XA exhibit at
: the museum.

: Limited schedule and budget

: "The DC-X and XA showed that a small dedicated government and
: industry team with focused objectives could make significant
: advances within the boundaries of a limited schedule and budget,"
: said Bill Gaubatz, former director for Delta Clipper Programs at
: McDonnell Douglas.

: According to Gaubatz, the total amount of money spent on the
: DC-X/DC-XA efforts was less than $100 million, including range and
: lab costs.

: Gaubatz said the DC-X experience was made possible by a small,
: independent team of selected people. "We were, in effect, a little
: entrepreneurial team working within a big company," he told Space
: News, all committed to a "this-can-be-done" philosophy and a vision
: to drive launch costs below $100 a pound.

: "I'm convinced that if the DC-X program hadn't been terminated, we
: would have been in regular trips to orbit now. We may or may not
: have been a single-stage-to-orbit, but we would have been a totally
: reusable, safe, rapid-turnaround transportation system," Gaubatz
: added. "Cheap, unsafe access is not the way to go."

: Aircraft-like space access operations and experience with rapid
: prototyping development — as evidenced by DC-X — have a lot to
: offer the so-called "newspace" companies, Gaubatz suggested, adding
: that they might perhaps prod the "old" space companies to again get
: involved in the development of less-expensive space vehicles.

: Ambassador Henry Cooper, the first civilian Strategic Defense
: Initiative director in 1990 who provided funding for the DC-X
: effort, said he thought the step-by-step DC-X rocket program would
: pay for itself during its development by launching suborbital
: targets for missile defense interceptors. He bemoaned U.S.
: President Bill Clinton administration's action in 1993 to cut the
: agency's funding in order "to take the stars out of star wars."
: That deed canceled the DC-X program and turned off all innovative
: technological progress within the Strategic Defense Initiative era,
: Cooper said.

: "The regrettable part is that we knew how to do this job 15 years
: ago. It can be done better today. The technology has moved on in
: spite of the government not investing in it in some cases ... or
: not investing as much in it," Cooper said.

: That DC-X termination brought about two great losses, Gaubatz
: added: dispersal of the team that worked on it and the loss of
: time.

: Catching "the vision"

: Jess Sponable, U.S. Air Force program manager for the original
: Single Stage Rocket Technology program (now retired from the Air
: Force), said the DC-X focus was demonstrating a reusable rocket
: that operates with aircraft-like operability. "We learned a lot
: about what to do ... but we learned a lot about what not to do," he
: said.

: Sponable flagged the transportable elements of the DC-X, including
: a trailer-filled flight operations control center. "There's no
: reason we can't take a similar approach in the future for how we do
: launch systems," he explained, underscoring the cost per flight of
: the rocket that was roughly in the range of $200,000 to $300,000.

: "We were the last program to actually combine and accomplish
: faster, cheaper and better ... all at the same time," Sponable
: pointed out. "The seeds have been planted. The future is coming and
: it won't be stopped by bureaucratic setbacks. Low-cost space access
: is coming and it will happen."

: Several DC-X veterans at the meeting see a legacy from DC-X,
: spotlighting a proliferation of private groups that "caught the
: vision." Examples cited were Scaled Composites and its work on the
: WhiteKnightTwo flying launch pad to support, in part, suborbital,
: passenger-carrying spaceline operations, as well as efforts now
: under way at XCOR Aerospace, Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space
: Systems, among others.

: Bolstered by the success evident in entrepreneurial start-up
: ventures is Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, said Rick Bachtel, general
: manager of Huntsville, Ala., operations. "What I see in the future
: is not government funding as much as it is going to be commercial,"
: he said.

: To that end, Bachtel told Space News that his company has spun off
: a smaller group called Power Innovations to harness inventive and
: entrepreneurial ideas.

: Bachtel said the approach is to tap the firm's 3,000 to 4,000
: engineers and bring ideas into the smaller group to spin off
: innovative technologies.

: "We have to recognize that a venture might have a good business
: case, but may not go somewhere. But I might be able to combine it
: with a couple of other thoughts and come up with something
: different. That's usually how a lot of the breakthrough or
: disruptive types of things are," Bachtel suggested.

: Band of brothers

: Prior to taking his NASA administrator post, Mike Griffin was the
: former deputy for technology of the Strategic Defense Initiative
: Organization and a leader in getting the DC-X program started.

: Calling those who built and tested the DC-X a "band of brothers,"
: Griffin said: "It is people that make the hard work of aerospace
: engineering indistinguishable from magic," he told meeting
: attendees.

: "Today a small private team can accomplish suborbital human
: spaceflight, a feat that once took the resources of a government to
: achieve," Griffin said. "I'm personally convinced that manned
: orbital flight is within reach — just barely — of private
: enterprise today."

: Griffin said the United States has not followed up the DC-X with
: the kinds of technology investments that could revolutionize space
: transportation. "We need better propulsion, better materials...we
: need more investment into the technology of operations, which is at
: least half the cost," Griffin said. "We need to create new
: paradigms in thinking of how we operate, just the way DC-X did.
: That doesn't come for free. And right now, policy makers don't seem
: to be willing to allocate that kind of money," Griffin said.

: Gary Payton, deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space
: programs, drew lines between the work 15 years ago on DC-X and
: today's quest for Operationally Responsive Space.

: Payton, a former shuttle astronaut, also worked in the Strategic
: Defense Initiative Organization as well as served as NASA's deputy
: associate administrator for space transportation technology where
: he initiated, planned and led the Reusable Launch Vehicle
: technology demonstration program, which included the DC-XA flight
: test project.

: "The military needs short notice, quick response, easy changes to
: the launch vehicle's ascent guidance," Payton said, in order to
: reconstitute lost space assets. "Sounds like it fits some of things
: we were doing in DC-X."

: Work started on DC-X in the early 1990s "is coming home to us
: through a variety of systems that could play a big role in our
: Operationally Responsive Space program," Payton said.

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"The Stealth Rocketeers"
MSNBC
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/08/08/1256356.aspx

: Last week was a good week for Virgin Galactic, a not-so-good week
: for SpaceX, and a fantastic week for XCOR Aerospace, which provided
: the engine for the Rocket Racing League's first custom-built aerial
: racer. The rocket plane performed without a hitch three times
: during last week's EAA AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wis. - marking a
: new milestone on XCOR's stealthier route to outer space.

: While Virgin Galactic and SpaceX aren't shy about talking about
: their future plans, XCOR (based in Mojave, Calif., just down the
: street from where Virgin Galactic's White Knight Two was rolled out
: for the first time last week) usually stays in the background.
: That's partly because the company does so much work for clients who
: prefer to speak for themselves, such as the Rocket Racing League,
: NASA or the Defense Department.

: XCOR's strategy is to build on the rocket work it does for others
: to get to its eventual goal of producing its own spaceships. For
: example, the single kerosene-fueled engine on the Bridenstine DKNY
: Rocket Racer that was demonstrated last week lays the groundwork
: for the four-engine Lynx Mark I rocket plane that XCOR plans to fly
: in 2010.

: XCOR spokesman Doug Graham said the rocket racer's engine won't be
: identical to the Lynx's engine, "but it's very close to what it's
: going to be."

: The big difference is that XCOR installed its propulsion system
: into an existing Velocity airframe for the Rocket Racing League,
: but will be building the whole plane for the Lynx project.

: Develoment on track

: XCOR laid out its plans for the Lynx back in March, and Graham said
: the development effort is still on track. Test flights are due to
: start in early 2010, but Graham said he couldn't predict when
: passenger service will start.

: Each of the Lynx Mark I's engines is projected to have twice the
: power of the 1,500-pound-thrust engine on the rocket racer. That
: should be enough to bring the Lynx up to an altitude of 38 miles
: (61 kilometers).

: Technically, it's not spaceflight, because you won't cross the
: internationally recognized 100-kilometer boundary line for outer
: space. But the flight profile would give you about 90 seconds of
: weightlessness and a thrilling 4 G's of acceleration on the way
: down. (Shuttle astronauts typically experience 3 G's.)

: The Lynx's two-seater cockpit doesn't give you enough space to
: float around like you would aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo.
: But you'd get the feeling of riding shotgun alongside the rocket
: pilot. You'd still see a broad Earth curving beneath the dark sky
: of space, and you'd be looking through the cockpit's wrap-around
: windows instead of SpaceShipTwo-style portholes.

: "It's designed for the view, it's not designed for low gravity,"
: XCOR's vice president and chief engineer, Dan DeLong, explained at
: the Oshkosh air show.

: A builder, not an operator

: How much will it cost? XCOR won't be setting the price, because
: it's positioning itself as a aircraft builder rather than a tour
: operator. However, the company expects that tour operators (likely
: including Virginia-based Space Adventures) will be able to charge
: less than $100,000 for a half-hour flight. In comparison, Virgin
: Galactic's price tag for a suborbital space tour is $200,000.

: Just as the rocket racer sets the stage for the Lynx Mark I, the
: Mark I is designed to set the stage for a Mark II space plane that
: would cross the line into outer space. The time frame hasn't been
: announced for that next step, but Graham said "it's actually not as
: far down the line as you might think."

: The spaceworthy version of the Lynx will incorporate some
: additional innovations, including XCOR's patented "nonburnite"
: composite material, which will be used in the fabrication of the
: future craft's cryogenic liquid-oxygen tanks. XCOR is planning to
: build those tanks right into the space plane's wings.

: It may sound like a giant leap, but XCOR has a knack for breaking
: down giant leaps into more manageable small steps - just as the
: company has done with its propulsion system.

: "You're no longer having to promise something that still has to be
: developed," Graham explained. "It's something that's already
: flying."

: And XCOR's executives are making sure they'll be able to fly on
: whatever they produce. Even though the Lynx cockpit may look small,
: DeLong said it was being designed to give extra space for
: passengers who weigh as much as 280 pounds. That way, even a big-
: boned aerospace engineer (or, for that matter, aerospace
: journalist) will be able to take a ride.

: "We just want to go," DeLong said.

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"PayPal Co-Founders Invest $20 Million in SpaceX"
SPACE.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080805/sc_space/paypalcofoundersinvest
20millioninspacex

: Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Chief Executive Elon
: Musk recently accepted a $20 million investment from Founders
: Fund, a $220 million venture capital firm managed by his fellow
: PayPal co-founders.

: "Founders Fund has a track record of investing in companies with
: the potential to revolutionize industries. We are pleased to be
: included in their portfolio and welcome [Founders Fund managing
: partner] Luke Nosek to our Board," Musk said in an Aug. 4
: statement. "Founders Fund shares the SpaceX vision of creating a
: world-class company that will shape the future through
: technological innovation."

: Nosek, like Musk and two of Founders Fund's other three managing
: partners, was a co-founder of PayPal, which was sold to online
: auctioneer eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

: Musk first mentioned an outside investment in an Aug. 2 message to
: employees released shortly after the Falcon 1 rocket's latest
: launch failure. The privately financed rocket has launched three
: times since March 2006 but has yet to reach orbit.

: In his message, Musk said he had accepted the investment "as a
: precautionary measure to guard against the possibility of flight 3
: not reaching orbit." Musk did not quantify the investment or
: identify the investor in that message, but said the money, combined
: with existing cash reserves, would enable SpaceX to continue
: launching Falcon 1 while developing the larger Falcon 9 rocket
: along with Dragon, a reusable capsule designed to carry cargo to
: the International Space Station.

: Falcon 1's latest launch occurred at 11:34 p.m. Eastern time
: following an earlier abort and appeared to be going well until a
: video transmission from the rocket stopped two minutes and 11
: seconds into the flight. A SpaceX announcer said there had been a
: vehicle anomaly and abruptly signed off. SpaceX officials later
: said the first and second stages of the rocket failed to separate.
: Musk has made no public statement since the launch failure beyond
: the message to employees, which was read to reporters and posted to
: the company's Web site.

: SpaceX spokeswoman Diane Murphy said Aug. 4 that the company would
: hold a media briefing "as soon as we have definitively determined
: what went wrong."

: According to U.S. Army Lt. Col. Harold A. Buhl, commander of the
: Army's Reagan Test Site in the Kwajalein Atoll, the rocket safely
: splashed down in the Pacific Ocean "well east" of the Marshall
: Islands.

: "There was no command flight termination action taken as the system
: ceased powered flight following the anomaly, and the track to
: splash was within the cleared maritime area," Buhl said in an
: Aug. 4 e-mail. "There was never any risk to personnel or property
: as the area was completely contained as open ocean — no habitated
: islands or aviation/shipping lanes."

: Lost in the failure was Trailblazer, an experimental satellite
: built by Poway, Calif.-based Space Dev for the Pentagon's
: Operationally Responsive Space Office, along with a NASA solar sail
: experiment and a payload adapter demonstration for the Malaysian
: space agency.

Mark Reiff

FYI,

"Rocketeers Try, Try Again"
MSNBC
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/30/1176167.aspx

: PlanetSpace may not have kept up with the ambitious spaceship-
: building schedule it set out three years ago, but the U.S.-
: Canadian venture says it's moving ahead with concepts for a new
: suborbital craft as well as an orbital launch system.

: On the suborbital front, the company is working on a quarter-
:scale, turbojet-powered version of its Silver Dart hypersonic
: glider that will be tested as an unpiloted aerial vehicle.
: Meanwhile, on the orbital front, PlanetSpace says it has teamed
: up once again with Lockheed Martin and ATK to repitch a
: proposal for resupplying the international space station.

: SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, two companies that beat out
: PlanetSpace in earlier NASA competitions, say they have also
: submitted proposals.

: Suborbital flight: Beyond the graphics

: Unlike those two other companies, PlanetSpace has not yet
: launched anything into outer space - which has led skeptics
: to complain that the company is more about computer-generated
: graphics than it is about actual hardware.

: PlanetSpace has a few things going for it, however: Its
: chairman, Indian-American entrepreneur Chirinjeev Kathuria, has
: made millions in other ventures related to telecommunications
: and medical equipment - and his cash helped keep Russia's Mir
: space station on life support for a few extra months in the
: year 2000. Its president and CEO, Geoff Sheerin, has drawn upon
: his hands-on experience at Canadian Arrow to work out technical
: details and help out with partnerships.

: One of Sheerin's current projects is aimed at turning
: PlanetSpace's suborbital dream into a scaled-down reality: The
: Silver Dart is based on the U.S. Air Force's FDL-7 design of
: the 1960s, which was proposed as a military space plane but
: never made it past testing.

: PlanetSpace envisions using the Silver Dart as a suborbital or
: even orbital craft that could be blasted into space on top of
: a rocket and glide back down to a landing, like the space
: shuttle. To verify computerized simulations of the craft's
: aerodynamics, the company plans to test the quarter-scale
: version of the plane as an UAV at Canadian and U.S. sites,
: Sheerin said.

: He said the UAV measures just less than 13 feet long and 6 feet
: wide, and weighs in at 200 pounds. Propulsion will be provided
: by three turbojet engines.

: "This bird will fly this year," Sheerin said. "It's being worked
: on right now."

: Going for 'the real contract' in orbit

: On the orbital side of the operation, PlanetSpace's biggest
: selling points are its partners:  Lockheed Martin Space Systems,
: which has been involved in NASA missions ranging from the space
: shuttle program to the Pluto-bound New Horizons probe; and ATK,
: which makes the shuttle's solid-rocket boosters. Both those
: companies play roles in NASA's next-generation space effort as
: well as PlanetSpace's Plan B for space station resupply.

: Earlier this year, the trio of companies put in a bid to pick
: up $171 million in the second round of NASA's Commercial
: Orbital Transportation Services program, or COTS. That program
: is aimed at supporting the development of private-sector
: launch systems for sending cargo (and perhaps crew) to the
: station during the agency's 2010-2015 "spaceflight gap."

: PlanetSpace lost out to Orbital Sciences in February, just as
: PlanetSpace lost out to SpaceX during an earlier round in the
: COTS competition. But Kathuria said the trio of companies will
: try, try again to win a piece of NASA's $3.1 billion station
: resupply contract.

: "That's the real contract," Kathuria told me.

: Kathuria said PlanetSpace's proposal was submitted in time to meet
: today's deadline, and spokesmen for Orbital and SpaceX confirmed
: that they filed proposals as well.

: It's safe to assume that all three companies will be offering the
: options they laid out for the COTS competition: For Orbital, that
: would be the Taurus 2 rocket and the Cygnus spacecraft; for
: PlanetSpace's group, that would be ATV's Athena-style rocket and
: Lockheed Martin's Orbital Transfer Vehicle; and for SpaceX, it's
: the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon capsule.

: NASA is due to select the winners by Nov. 28, and the five months
: between now and then could get interesting. Here are other tidbits
: from the commercial spaceflight scene:

: - SpaceX: SpaceX is preparing for its third test launch of the
: Falcon 1 rocket from Omelek Island in the Pacific Ocean. Launch had
: been planned for late June, but was delayed due to a defect found
: in an engine nozzle. The next launch opportunity runs from July 29
: to Aug. 6. One of the scheduled payloads is a NASA-built
: experimental solar sail called the NanoSail-D. Other experimental
: payloads include NASA's PreSat nanosatellite and the Pentagon's
: Trailblazer experimental sensing satellite.

: - Spacehab: President Jim Royston confirmed that his company was
: letting its unfunded COTS agreement with NASA lapse, and that
: Spacehab did not submit a proposal for the NASA resupply contract.
: But Royston told me that work is continuing on the Allsat
: multipurpose satellite service system, and that vehicle may well
: make an appearance someday at a space station near you. Spacehab is
: concentrating on how the space station can be used as a national
: laboratory for microgravity research, he said.

: - Virgin Galactic: Mojave Skies photoblogger Alan Radecki passed
: along a series of photos of the WhiteKnightTwo mothership under
: construction at Mojave's Scaled Composites shop, courtesy of Virgin
: Galactic. Flight Global's Rob Coppinger presents a "spy picture" of
: WhiteKnightTwo with the wing attached. WhiteKnightTwo, which
: eventually will carry the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane up to
: 50,000 feet for its air launch, is due to be rolled out for public
: display on July 28.

: - Blue Origin: Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos generally keeps his
: private space effort under wraps, but he touched upon Blue Origin's
: future in an interview aired by NPR's "On Point" program. (Jump to
: the 37-minute point.) "Bezos confirmed suspicions some of us have
: had that he is presently developing a second testbed vehicle to
: follow up on the flights of the small 'Goddard,'" industry observer
: Charles Lurio said in The Lurio Report. One or two more test beds
: will follow before commercial service begins, Bezos said. Will Blue
: Origin hit its 2010 schedule? "We'll have to wait and see," Bezos
: said. Lurio said "it may be legitimate to ask if Blue Origin is
: going to skip suborbital commercialization in favor of going to
: orbit."

- Elsewhere: Transformational Space (a.k.a. t/Space) and
: Constellation Services International, which both have unfunded COTS
: agreements with NASA, say they're not putting in proposals for
: space station resupply. Rocketplane Kistler originally had COTS
: funding, but lost it and isn't taking part in the latest
: competition either. "I hope that the process leads to resupply of
: the space station in a financially reasonable, regular and
: repetitive manner," George French, Rocketplane's chairman and CEO,
: told me.

Mark Reiff

FYI they spelled my name incorrectly, it is Radley, not Bradley.  Oh
well.

Best,

CFR.


--- In commercialspaceplace@yahoogroups.com, markreiff <no_reply@...>
wrote:
>
> FYI,
>
> "How to Win the Google Lunar X Prize and Beat NASA to the Moon"
> Popular Mechanics
> http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4265261.html
>
>
> The Launch Vehicle
>
> Prepare to enter a murky, secretive world where commercial launch
> providers' brochure claims may be suspect and prices are "very
> negotiable," according to space consultant Charles Bradley.

FYI,

"Challenges Ahead for New Space Investors"
SPACE.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080619/sc_space/challengesaheadfornews
paceinvestors;_ylt=ArL9mA8UxCCJ8rot68jWVM8E1vAI

: New startups hoping to make their mark on the space industry still
: face high entry barriers just to cover their initial costs,
: investors said Wednesday.

: The high cost and risks associated with new commercial ventures,
: as well as the bureaucratic government hoops they have to jump
: through, provide substantial barriers for nascent companies
: aiming for space, experts said during the 2008 Space Business
: Forum here presented by the Space Foundation, a non-profit
: advocacy organization.

: According to the foundation's Space Report 2008, the space industry
: generated about $251 billion in revenue worldwide in 2007, an
: 11 percent increase from $225 billion in 2006. About 69 percent of
: that 2007 revenue was the result of commercial activity, according
: to the report.


: "If anything, the market is a little bit hesitant," said Thomas
: Watts, managing director for equity research for the investment
: firm Cowen & Company, LLC. While investors might be open to
: established private firms going public today, new companies may not
: be so lucky. "Investors are open to it, but at the same time, I
: think there's a wait and see attitude to new ventures," he said.

: High operations costs remain a major barrier, investors said. That
: is particularly true at the start when major investment in basic
: launch or spacecraft development infrastructure is required before
: returns can be seen.

: "There's some parts of the business, on the operations side, where
: you're talking about significant investments of capital up front,"
: said Hugh Evans, a partner with Veritas Capital, an investment
: firm, adding that there will always be interest in affordable
: launch providers. "Some of the trends we find attractive are
: obviously the declining costs of being able to launch satellites."

: Newt Gingrich, chairman of the Gingrich Group and a former speaker
: of the U.S. House of Representatives, said the bureaucratic red
: tape inherent in approving space assets for flight — particularly
: at NASA — is a major obstacle for newcomers to space industry.

: "We need a fundamental, real change in how we're approaching
: space," Gingrich said. "We need a change that allows Americans to
: participate, not just bureaucrats."

: Gingrich said the risk-adverse focus of NASA and space-oriented
: government offices has stymied progress in both commercial and
: government-sponsored exploration efforts.

: "We have adopted an insane model of being so risk averse that we
: spend so much time and money on avoiding error that we avoid
: achievement," Gingrich said, noting that if the country today
: tolerated risk as well as it did in the first 25 years of
: aviation, "we would have a colony on Mars by now."

: Gingrich said tax-free cash prizes for major accomplishments, like
: a $1 billion purse for the ability to repeatedly launch and land a
: recoverable orbital spacecraft, could do wonders for spurring
: private innovation. If the prizes are set to be budgeted only in
: the year they are won, rather than set aside for years until a
: winner comes forward, then it might be more palatable for
: lawmakers, he added.

: "I am passionately committed to prizes," Gingrich said. "The great
: power of prizes is simple; they allow anybody anywhere who's
: competent to try and solve a problem."

Mark Reiff