Private space race hits bumpy road

Alan Boyle Science editor • Profile • E-mail

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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