Space Economy

Florida is synonymous with the space program, and Lockheed Martin's replacement for the space shuttle will be assembled and launched from Florida. The U.S. has not designed and built a new space vehicle in two decades, but the shuttles are nearly worn out. The new launch vehicle is a more traditional rocket design that will carry six crew to earth orbit.

Liftport Group is testing a 1 mile high carbon fiber ribbon as part of its engineering efforts to design and build a 62,000 mile high space elevator that uses robotic lifters to ferry supplies and people up into Earth orbit. NASA has offered a cash prize for working prototypes that meet certain specifications.

NASA has announced a series of new cash prizes for companies that are able to introduce new space systems that meet the agency's specification. Like the popular X Prize that led to the creation of several private spaceship firms and the successful flight of Bert Rutan's SpaceShipOne, these new awards are designed to encourage the development of new space systems developed without the red tape and overhead of government research.

The FAA continues to develop rules for space tourism, with a final set of recommendations expected in July. Virgin Galactic expects to begin regular commercial space flights in less than four years, and the FAA is trying to establish ground rules to safely manage commercial space flights.

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of Amazon.com, is funding a space start up with offices in Texas, and what is likely to become a spaceport in west Texas. Bezos is apparently building a rocket ship that takes off and lands vertically, unlike the space plane designed by Bert Rutan for Virgin Galactic.

SpaceX is a start up space freight company going after the heavy lift market, as opposed to the passenger/tourism market being pursued by Virgin Galatic. SpaceX has a blog that is updated regularly and provides a wealth of information about ongoing company launches, technical details, and logistics.

Even more interesting is the opennness of the company in discussing problems. The company has had several problems that have delayed the December launch of a rocket, and the blog provides a lot of detail about what the problems are and why.

The last time I checked, there were four or five states (including my home state of Virginia) that were toying with the idea of a spaceport. But New Mexico may have won the first race (there will be more than one spaceport in the country).

Initial tests by the Liftport Group of Washington state of their robotic lifter went well, and the company says the next test could use a mile high fiber composite ribbon.

Arthur C. Clarke, the writer and scientist who developed the concept of the geostationary satellite, writes in The Time of London about the potential of the space elevator.

The Liftport Group, which is a private company building a space elevator, has received FAA approval for preliminary testing. The company will use a ballon with a one mile high tether to run tests of the lifting mechanisms.

One of several space elevator efforts, the projects will use super-strength carbon nanotube cables that run from the ground to low earth orbit. Centripetal force and counterweights will keep the cable rigid and anchored in one spot. The space elevators will dramatically lower the cost of getting people and materials into orbit.

In a widely reported AP report, NASA set new IP TV records with the launch of the space shuttle. Almost a half a million people watched via a Webcast, which is much higher than the record AOL broke just a few weeks ago with the Live Aid concert.

It demonstrates two things. First, there is a strong and continuing interest in space, and it's encouraging that there is more interest in space than in aging rock stars. We'll avoid the very serious U.S. problem of not graduating enough scientists and engineers for the time being.

Second, it shows the continuing rapid advance of IP TV. Half a million viewers is more than many cable shows have at any given time, so the Internet is well positioned to displace the old Manufacturing Economy television distribution system.

Embarrassed, perhaps, by the success of garage entrepreneurs and visionaries like Bert Rutan, NASA has proposed a new two stage approach to getting to, from, and around space. Instead of trying to design complex one-size-fits-all vehicles like the now rattletrap Space Shuttle, NASA is proposing to partner with a whole group of private sector designers and firms to build two new space vehicles.

Space Exploration Technologies, Inc., or SpaceX, has received a $100 million dollar Air Force contract to build and supply launch vehicles for the Defense Department. This could be a breakthrough for the emerging Space Economy, as the Department of Defense had apparently decided it can't keep all its launch eggs in the costly technology of the sixties (traditional booster rockets) and the now thirty year old Space Shuttle.

The Space Economy continues its upward trend (literally). NASA appears to have awoken from a deep sleep with an ambitious new program to use the private sector to build next generation space exploration vehicles for low earth orbit (the space station), the moon, and Mars.

SpaceShipOne won the $10 million X Prize by being the first private space vehicle to make a round trip to suborbital space twice in two weeks. But more money has been put up by hotel mogul Robert Bigelow. Fifty million is the next prize, for the first private spaceship to take five people to orbit twice in two weeks.

A crucial step in the developing space tourism business occurred when the House passed a bill approving taking tourists into space.

At issue is the potential risk. Investors in the space business don't want huge lawsuits hanging over their heads, and the bill would allow companies to take tourists into space under the same "at your own risk" liability that other dangerous sports like mountainclimbing, hang-gliding, and skydiving have--you sign a waiver if you want to jump out of an airplane.

NASA's X-34A scramjet broke every speed record in the book by traveling at nearly Mach 10, or about 7,000 miles per hour. Scramjets have been studied and under development for years, but they were mostly theoretical--no one was really sure they would work.

Scramjets, in addition to some military uses, offer an alternative to expensive and heavy chemical rockets for getting into space. One more signal for the emerging Space Economy.

I keep hearing a lot of scepticism over my reporting on the emerging Space Economy. This article on the accomplishment of SpaceShipOne and future plans helps illuminate the growing potential.

• Virgin Galactic, a division of Virgin Airlines, has already contracted with Scaled Composites, the company that built SpaceShipOne, to build five more five-seat versions for commercial use.
• Initial flights will continue from Mojave, California, a rural community that used to be in the middle of rural nowhere, but is now the first commercial spaceport in the world. However, Virgin Galactic has already indicated spaceports will be added as needed in other parts of the world.
• An annual X Prize competition has already been announced that will create incentives for additional companies to get into the spaceship business. New Mexico, which used to be in the middle of rural nowhere, has had its eye on space for years, and X Prize competitions will be held at the New Mexico spaceport--that translates directly into increased cash flow into the state.
• Oklahoma has formed a Space Industry Development Authority and is building a spaceport.

If you are inclined to think there are more pressing problems on earth than getting tourists into space, you are both right and wrong. This is not some pie in the sky program for rich tourists--this is the beginning of the greatest economic boom in human history.

Remember the personal computer and the Internet? Those two little innovations touched off the second biggest economic boom in human history, but what enabled those two developments was the integrated circuit.

Guess where the IC (integrated circuit) came from? The sixties era space program. Anyone involved in economic development who thinks going to the moon was a waste of money needs to go back to the history books--not to study science, but economics. The moon was a bargain, because the money spent by the government to get reliable IC circuitry for the Apollo spacecraft was paid back many times over by the resulting IT boom that started in the late seventies and ended around 2001.

Bert Rutan's SpaceShipOne won the $10 million X Prize by sending a ship into suborbital space twice in two weeks. The second of two successful flights took place today, and Mojave, California will likely become a historical milestone alongside Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

I've been writing for some time about the emerging Space Economy. Almost ten years ago, Virgin Atlantic, the big British media and airline company, registered "Virgin Galactic" as a trademark.