The rapid growth of New Space

For several years, entrepreneurs have been aspiring to develop a new approach to the space industry and targeting a reduction in launch costs. Is the private sector going to revolutionise human space flight?

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket awaits its maiden flight on its launch pad in Florida. The young company is eventually hoping to break into the world of human space flight in orbit, creating a first in space history for a private company. Credit: SpaceX

At the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, not far from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, the Falcon 9 rocket stands on its launch pad. Designed and made by the company SpaceX, it could shortly become the first private means of transportation for astronauts on NASA’s behalf. When we take into account the fact that SpaceX was founded by 39 year old Elon Musk who made his fortune on the Internet, it is not difficult to work out that a new type of pioneer has decided to head for the stars!

The State takes charge
What a contrast with the beginnings of astronautics where those who spoke of the possibility of journeying into space were at best seen as eccentric dreamers... Staying with the United States, the pioneer of liquid-fuelled rockets Robert Goddard (1882-1945) was faced in the 1920’s with jeers from the press and had to make use of funding from the private Guggenheim foundation to finance his prototypes. Just before the Second World War, his innovative rockets reached an altitude of 2,000 m and his work interested... German engineers! When Robert Goddard voiced his concerns to Washington’s military forces, no-one paid him any attention and when the conflict with Germany broke out, he was put to work on airplane engines... Today, one of NASA’s centres is named after him in tribute.
It must be said that with the fearsome V2, the Nazis showed that a rocket could be a frightening weapon, capable of carrying a bomb great distances and at unheard-of speeds. Following the Second World War, the States commandeered a now strategic domain: whoever masters rocket technology, masters the means of sending an atomic bomb to the other end of the planet. The confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Bloc even took the form of a race to space which was to culminate with the manned lunar missions of the Apollo programme. Thanks to the federal administration, NASA, Washington pipped Moscow to the post, despite the Russians having won the great space firsts hands down (notably the first satellite with Sputnik and the first man in orbit with Yuri Gagarin).

SpaceShipOne: developed by Burt Rutan’s American company Scaled Composites, this is the first spacecraft totally financed with private funds to have crossed the space frontier. Credit: Scaled Composites

The private sector wants to do better!
Over the years, the private sector successfully became involved in the most profitable activities of the space industry, namely predominantly telecommunications and imagery from orbit. Human space flight, however, remained state controlled due to the budgets that were required. And yet, with the arrival of the 2000’s, entrepreneurs have made known their intentions to make money out of sending men and women into space. Investors even envisaged transforming the Soviet, and later Russian, Mir station into a space tourist centre or a laboratory housing private research programmes. But the ageing orbital complex was deorbited by Russia who wanted to concentrate on the International Space Station in which it was a partner with the United States, Japan, Canada and Europe. Nevertheless, companies aspiring to change the rules of the game by drastically cutting the cost of launching continued to flourish, especially in the United States. This was encouraged by the XPrize, created in 1996. This competition intended to award a 10 million dollar prize to the first company that could fly a spacecraft capable of going into space and of repeating the flight within 14 days. The idea behind the XPrize was brilliant as it set a reasonable objective: the aim was not to place a spaceship in orbit, but to complete what is known as a suborbital flight, which means exceeding an altitude of 100 km (the space frontier) and coming back down with no obligation to go into orbit around the Earth. As in Robert Goddard’s time, this challenge never failed to attract a great deal of mockery... We have to admit that some competitors did not actually appear that credible, their concepts seeming particularly hazardous on paper.

Richard Branson (left) and Burt Rutan with SpaceShipTwo: for 200,000 dollars they are offering to make you an astronaut by 2012; a flight that does not go into orbit but that exceeds an altitude of 100 km. Credit: Virgin Galactic

But, despite the fact that certain observers had already passed sentence by forecasting that the XPrize would never be won, on 21 June 2004, the SpaceShipOne rocket plane designed by aircraft manufacturer Burt Rutan and piloted by Mike Melvill became the first privately financed spacecraft to reach space by exceeding an altitude of 100 km. Consequently, SpaceShipOne was in the running to win the XPrize! On 29 September and on 4 October of the same year, it accomplished the two flights specified in the rules and easily won the 10 million dollar reward whilst British billionaire Richard Branson announced loud and clear that he was launching Virgin Galactic which would be offering a space tourist service based on a bigger version of the victorious SpaceShipOne. As spectacular as this announcement was, it was but the visible part of what is known in the United States as New Space.

John Carmack (right, with white shirt), creator of the successful video game Quake and founder of Armadillo Aerospace. Together with his team of space enthusiast engineers and volunteers, he developed an automatic spacecraft which won NASA’s Lunar Lander Challenge in 2008. Credit: Armadillo Aerospace

Space start-ups
Other companies were wanting to get into this up-and-coming market. And, although John Carmack, the gifted computer scientist who made his money with the video game Quake, did not win the XPrize that he coveted, he continued to support his company Armadillo Aerospace which since 2000 has counted itself as a space start-up. Putting human space flight to one side for the moment, he concentrated his team’s efforts on NASA’s Lunar Lander Challenge. Inspired by the success of the XPrize, the agency has laid down a challenge which consists of developing a spacecraft capable of making a series of short automatic flights between two points, 100 m apart, using only the force of a thruster to move (wings are not allowed). This means pioneering innovative and less costly solutions for future lunar spaceships. Armadillo Aerospace managed to win the 350,000 dollar prize in 2008. There are other entrepreneurs, like Jeff Bezos, founder of the online sales website Amazon, who prefer discretion.

New Shepard belonging to the company Blue Origin founded by Jeff Bezos, creator of the online sales website Amazon. Autonomous (it does not release rocket stages during its ascension), this spacecraft is initially targeting suborbital flights in order to offer a space tourist service similar to that of Virgin Galactic by 2012. Credit: Blue Origin

His space company, dubbed Blue Origin, is working on a conical-shaped vehicle, the New Shepard (named after the American astronaut), theoretically capable of exceeding an altitude of 100 km. His claimed purpose is suborbital space tourism like Virgin Galactic. However, contrary to Richard Branson’s company which skilfully maintains a media buzz, Blue Origin demonstrates a virtual silence. Robert Bigelow, who made his fortune through his hotel chain Budgets Suites of America, has chosen yet another approach.

Bigelow Aerospace’s Genesis II module in orbit. This company, created by a rich American hotel manager, is aiming to create a private space station which would use inflatable module technology. Credit: Bigelow Aerospace

Whilst his New Space colleagues are trying to develop new means for reaching space, he is devoting his energy to accommodation in orbit in order to create the hotel of the future; and as far as Robert Bigelow is concerned, it will inevitably be in space! With this in mind, he is perfecting inflatable module technology, an idea that NASA once envisaged. Bigelow Aerospace currently owns two inflatable spacecraft in orbit, Genesis I and II, which were launched by a Russian rocket in 2006 and 2007. These two unoccupied modules, 4.4 m long and 3.2 m in diameter, are being used for testing solutions that the billionaire would like to apply to his project of a space station for tourists or private businesses wanting to conduct experiments under weightless conditions.

Bigelow Aerospace’s control room, not far from Las Vegas. As part of its financing for Genesis I and II, the company sold “seats” aboard these two modules on the Internet; thus making it possible to send small objects such as photographs into space. Credit: Bigelow Aerospace

The second space age in danger?
This is obviously not a comprehensive coverage and there are other initiatives. They no doubt explain why the committee chaired by Norman Augustine, and tasked by the White House with reviewing the future of American human space flight, handed in its report at the end of 2009 in the belief that NASA could now envisage entrusting the sending of its astronauts into orbit to the private sector. And although this assessment is not shared by all, it would be wrong to deny that an impetus, symbolised by all these young space companies, is manifestly underway. To date, the nearest to achieving its aim would appear to be SpaceX with its Falcon 9 rocket which is shortly to make its maiden flight. Contracted to NASA, the company is hoping to prove that it can carry freight to the International Space Station by means of its automatic Dragon capsule. Should it be successful, SpaceX will land a contract worth several billion dollars! In the longer term, Elon Musk’s company wants to develop a manned version of the Dragon and consequently become the transportation company for the American Space Agency’s astronauts.

Elon Musk posed in front of his Falcon 9 rocket when it arrived at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. After having revolutionised payment over the Internet with his PayPal system, this young entrepreneur is intending to do the same with space! Credit: SpaceX

But this scenario has not convinced everyone. Top of the list are the elected representatives and senators of Florida, where NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is situated and from where the space shuttles blast off; they believe that it is too soon to “privatise” human space flight in this way as the requirements involved make any commercial profitability hazardous. They are even going so far as to demand the reinstatement of NASA’s Constellation programme, cancelled by President Obama, in order that the agency might finish developing Ares I and the Orion capsule. They are afraid that, if the private sector fails, America will find itself without any autonomy as regards sending its astronauts into orbit in the absence of Ares I and Orion. However, there are those who believe that a more insidious danger could threaten the New Space movement, or "second space age". So as to meet NASA’s requirements, these currently rebellious and combative, young start-ups could fall into the same administrative excesses as the agency and its long-standing subcontractors, nipping any hope of revolution in the bud... But New Space still has its supporters despite the opposition and these warnings. All of these space start-ups maintain that America is going to promote the emergence of a new economic sector, that of private human space flight. Can such an astronautical revolution succeed? Such is the challenge that the rapidly growing New Space start-ups are attempting to take up.

Published on 26 March 2010