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Space.com:
Monday's Private Spaceflight: Historical Milestone or Stunt Flying?
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 06:00 am ET
19 June 2004
A privately built rocket plane is ready to streak through the sky over Mojave, California desert on June 21. Project officials herald it as the first non-governmental piloted flight to leave the Earth's atmosphere.
Built by Scaled Composites of Mojave, California, SpaceShipOne is set to become the world’s first commercial manned space vehicle. Investor and philanthropist Paul Allen and aviation technologist Burt Rutan, head of Scaled Composites, have teamed to create the program.
If all goes according to plan, the hybrid motor-propelled rocket plane will carry its pilot some 62 miles (100 kilometers) into suborbital space above the Mojave Civilian Aerospace Test Center, a commercial airport in the California desert. Gliding to a landing strip stop, "it will signal that the space frontier is finally open to private enterprise," explains a Scaled Composites release about the flight.
Propelling an individual to such heights is no slam dunk. It’s a risk-taking proposition. In fact, one test mission of the rocket plane last year ended in a landing mishap. Nobody was hurt and the vehicle was quickly patched up to soar another day.
But as SpaceShipOne arcs its way skyward, just how wispy or long-lived of a trail will the project leave in aerospace history books? Will it be remembered as a defining moment in human spaceflight or a stunt?
Economical, reliable, safe, and routine
The suborbital rocket plane is a leading contender among a worldwide cadre of teams vying for the Ansari X Prize, patterned after the Orteig Prize that spurred American aviator Charles Lindbergh to make his historic trans-Atlantic flight in 1927.
For a group to claim the Ansari $10 million cash award, it must fly a privately financed and built craft able to propel three people up to 62.5 miles (100 kilometers) altitude, return safely to Earth, and then repeat that trip within a two week period.
"SpaceShipOne represents the expansion of the human spaceflight private sector into an area in which only government programs had previously been active," said Roger Launius, chairman of the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
Launius said a key for Rutan and his team is achieving suborbital travel that is relatively economical, reliable, safe, and routine. "Unfortunately, that won't be demonstrated solely by the two X Prize flights," he said.
Point-to-point travel
But if SpaceShipOne attains economic viability, safety, and other operational goals, Launius thinks it could hasten the day of another type of public transportation: hypersonic point-to-point service on the globe.
There is great potential in a hybrid air and spaceplane that would enable ordinary people to travel between New York City and Tokyo in about one hour, Launius told SPACE.com.
"I believe the spaceplane concept has enormous promise and will find reality within the first half of the 21st Century," he said. "Most important, spaceplanes promise passengers an opportunity to travel around the globe with greater speed and ease than anything available today. In the process, these passengers will become the first space tourists. It may well be that Rutan's work may well materially advance this possibility."
While taking nothing away from Rutan and his team’s grappling with suborbital hypersonic flight, Launius underscored the fact "there is a world of difference, literally, between suborbital and orbital operations."
Government money
The role of both government and private sector in advancing aerospace technology is flagged by aviation and space historian, Thomas Crouch, Senior Curator for the National Air and Space Museum.
"The Orteig Prize inspired Lindbergh, but the single most important element of his aircraft -- the engine -- had been developed with government money," Crouch noted. "Enthusiasm is fine, but almost never enough to achieve a difficult technological goal. If it had not been for the rise of the ballistic missile and the geopolitical importance of the space race, flying to the Moon would still be only a dream," he said.
Crouch admires the effort of Rutan and his team, wishing them all the best.
"I doubt, however, that his success will mark the advent of a Golden Age of space tourism and commerce," he said.
Orbital flight: big market
The portent of private rocket ships hauling ticketed passengers to the edge of space, and eventually into Earth orbit, is another belief shored up by the succession of SpaceShipOne flights to date. But how real is that scenario?
While no government funding is normally thought of as a "good thing" by private rocketeers, it has been disastrous for public space travel, said Ivan Bekey of Bekey Designs, Inc., Annandale, Virginia.
A former NASA advanced planner and technologist, Bekey said that with government encouragement, if not material support, Rutan’s step into space could have taken place 20 years ago. "By now we could have a vibrant public space travel commercial business with many economically viable companies. After all, there is little if no new technology in the Rutan vehicle," Bekey said.
"While all the hoopla goes on, suborbital flights will never amount to a big business," Bekey added, "because the costs will be very high for the few minutes’ experience." Furthermore, the difficulties and costs are enormously larger for orbital flight, he said.
"The market surveys that have been done show that only with orbital flight, and destination places such as orbital luxury hotels, will the market be big," Bekey emphasized.
"NASA is at fault," Bekey said. Had NASA done as good a job as Rutan has, public space travel could have taken two decades ago, "and the U.S. today would be the world leader in a new space industry with a huge market," he said.
Stunt flying
SpaceShipOne’s rocket powered flight to the edge of space mimics in certain ways the suborbital trial runs of the U.S. Mercury space capsule project of the early 1960s.
For example, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard was shoe-horned into his Freedom 7 Mercury spacecraft on May 5, 1961 and hurled to an altitude of 116 statute miles by a Redstone rocket. That quick, up-and-down flight lasted all of 15 minutes, with Shepard strapped inside his capsule splashing into the Atlantic, but helped clear the way for America’s entry into orbital spaceflight the following year.
SpaceShipOne’s high-altitude run is more like Lindbergh’s "stunt" flight than Shepard’s step in a planned program of space exploration, said Jerry Grey, Director for Aerospace Policy at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
"SpaceShip One uses appropriate hardware for a stunt flight -- simple, rugged, and adequately tested, and almost certainly qualified for the requisite second flight -- but it will probably not evolve into economical transportation for multiple flights carrying several passengers," Grey said.
Psychological and technical demonstration
Grey pointed out that the suborbital trajectory, although it does require re-entry capability, does not impose the more severe conditions of re-entry from orbit, nor does it demonstrate on-orbit control and operability.
"Hence I can't see it as the real precursor to space tourism, whereas Shepard's was clearly the precursor to Apollo," he said.
Similarly, Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, Grey said, "was a fine piece of invention and makeshift engineering, but it had little or no impact on the development of the DC-3 or even the Ford Tri-Motor, which ushered in true commercial passenger aviation."
These views aside, however, Grey saluted the SpaceShipOne project. "As a psychological and technical demonstration of what can be done in human space flight by the private sector, it will be invaluable to open the future path to true space tourism. And in itself it is a remarkable demonstration of private-sector astronautical development, as were Rutan's previous demonstrations in aeronautics."
Arthur Clarke, noted science fiction author and prognosticator of the future, had this tongue-in-cheek view of SpaceShipOne’s role in history: "I told Orville, and I told Wilbur -- it'll never get off the ground!"
On the fly! White Knight totes SpaceShipOne into sky above Mojave sands in early shakeout test. CREDIT: Scaled Composites
Business end of SpaceShipOne includes hybrid rocket motor, along with a novel tail section. CREDIT: Scaled Composites
Pilot Mike Melvill controls SpaceShipOne during sixth glide to a desert landing strip. CREDIT: Scaled Composites
Mojave Airport is headed for spaceport status. Image Courtesy: Mojave Airport
Just after landing SpaceShipOne on May 13 flight. Pilot Mike Melvill describes the experience while Scaled Composites chief Burt Rutan and crew chief Steve Losey listen. Note color stripes on leading edge of wing to measure aerodynamic heating on the craft's thermal protection system. Scaled Composites