New Mexico is Virgin Territory

Virgin Group chairman Sir Richard Branson announced yesterday that he's cut a deal with the State of New Mexico to build a commercial spaceport in Upham, New Mexico, about 30 miles east of Truth or Consequences, NM. He and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson are holding a press conference at 11:30 a.m. Mountain Time and I'll be telecommuting in. Watch this space for updates....

--Update at 1:15 Mountain--
Conference has just finished. Here are some important details:

*New Mexico's spaceport will be financed through a combination of state funds and a new tax referendum that will be put in front of New Mexico voters, for a total of $225 million. That money will pay for new roads, runways, launch pads, other important infrastructure.

*Virgin's current concept for the spaceport, though not finalized yet, has most of the facilities underground, partly, says VG president Will Whitehorn, to minimize environmental impact. A departing spaceship, attached to its jet plane carrier craft, would emerge from an underground hanger onto a very long runway for take off.

*100 people, called the Virgin Galactic Founders, have now paid for their $200,000 suborbital space tickets in full. That reserves them the first 100 seats on the spaceships.

*Passenger flights are due to launch in late 2008 or early 2009. Spaceport will begin construction in earnest in 2007, complete in 2009 or 2010.

*Each spaceship, dubbed SpaceShipTwo, will carry 6 passengers and two pilots (total of 8 seats) to 100+ kilometers (62 miles) in altitude for 5-6 minutes of weightlessness, depending on the precise trajectory flown.

*Passengers will stay at a resort in Santa Fe, New Mexico prior to their flights, with 3.5 days of training conducted at a facility at the spaceport.

*X Prize-winning pilot Brian Binnie will work with VG's director of operations, Alex Tai on SpaceShipTwo's flight test program. Whitehorn says they'll fly 50-60 test flights out of Mojave Spaceport, where the ships will be built, before passengers will be allowed to fly.

*The State of New Mexico commissioned feasibility studies from both Futron Corporation and New Mexico State University. Both studies concluded that the state could earn far more in revenue from the spaceport than it plans to put into it.

I'm going to try to get my hands on those studies. Also on conceptual images of the spaceport that were shown at the press conference.

Popular Science has signed me up for a one-pager on this, so I can't say much more here without scooping myself.

Big announcement from me coming soon. Watch this blog!

NASA releases RFP for private spaceships

At last, the moment the commercial space world has been waiting for: on Monday NASA posted its official request for proposals to build commercial spaceships that can send crew and/or cargo to the International Space Station.

Details here:

http://procurement.jsc.nasa.gov/cots/

Hit the "Announcement" link for the complete text of the RFP.

Two days of briefings for interested vendors are underway in Houston at this moment. Transformational Space Corporation, or t/Space, one of the best positioned players in this market, is represented there, along with representatives from an impressive list of almost a hundred other interested parties.

The winds of change are blowing at NASA, with officials from the Administrator down admitting that the agency's "traditional" means of doing business, with massive, open-ended contracts awarded to a few aerospace "primes" just isn't going to fly any more.

A crucial element of this RFP, and the one that might just set NASA free from the boondogling now threatening to eat it alive, is the stipulation that money will be awarded only to companies that can produce working hardware at a fixed price:

"Payments will be made upon the successful completion of performance milestones as proposed by the participants and negotiated with NASA. NASA's contribution will be a fixed amount and will not be increased or decreased based on the participant's ability to obtain private funding."

Participating companies will keep the right to use their ships for other, commercial, purposes, say for ferrying tourists to commercial space stations.

Gary Hudson, t/Space co-founder, tells me he's impressed with the RFP and that he's confident that private industry can rise to the challenge. He does, however, admit that the amount of money NASA proposes to award will make it a tight squeeze.

T/Space's current plans call for building an orbital spaceship for around $500 million. NASA's current total budget for this project is $500 million, which will presumably be spread out among several competing vendors.

That's partly because the agency is using the limited funds it has available to spend at its own discretion, without having to beg Congress for more. But it also reflects NASA officials' view that private industry should bear at least some of the financial risk of building the new ships.

Certainly this is a great start, one that will hopefully snowball into a real sea change for NASA as well as give a shot in the arm to the emerging commercial spaceflight industry.

--Update on 12/9/05 at 12:35 Eastern--
David Gump, t/Space CEO has just given me more detail on this; he's flying back now from Houston after the briefing. He's careful to distinguish this new NASA project, called an "Annoucement," from an "RFP," which I've been calling it.

The distinction is that an RFP is NASA's "traditional" approach to procuring hardware. This Annoucement, in contrast, will result in a Space Act Agreement being made with the winning vendors, which is very different. "The draft that they put out is very positive and very much in the spirit of doing things in the entrepreneurial way," Gump told me.

Gump also corrected my cost estimate for t/Space's proposed manned orbital spaceship: $400 million, not $500 million.

NASA wants commercial cargo ships to be developed before manned ships, so t/Space will have to do some reegineering to show how they will meet that requirement in time for the due date for proposals: February 10, 2006.

Rocket Racing League, revisited

When Popular Science sent me to the X Prize Cup in Las Cruces, New Mexico last October it was with strict orders to come back with material for future PopSci articles. It was a productive trip; number three of the resulting articles ships to the printer today. It'll be the February cover story, about the Rocket Racing League (RRL).

Also at the X Prize Cup I shot photos for a photojournalism class I've been taking. For one of my assignments I put together this photostory on a test flight of XCOR Aerospace's EZ-Rocket, which is the prototype for the RLL's Rocket Racers. Enjoy.

Spectators
John Carmack (left) and Matthew Ross of Armadillo Aerospace watch a test flight of XCOR Aerospace's EZ-Rocket in Las Cruces, New Mexico.


Safe Landing
Rick Searfoss, test pilot and three-time space shuttle astronaut, exults after a successful flight of the EZ-Rocket. The EZ-Rocket is a homebuilt aircraft whose rear-facing propeller has been replaced by twin rocket engines powered by liquid oxygen and isopropyl alcohol. It's the prototype for a fleet of rocket-powered race planes now under construction.


Gearing Up
Searfoss (49) gears up for a test flight of the EZ-Rocket.


Ground Crew
Engineers from Mojave, California-based XCOR Aerospace fuel the EZ-Rocket in preparation for a test flight in Las Cruces, New Mexico.


Rocket Fuel


Overseer
Searfoss waits for engineers to finish prepping the EZ-Rocket before he flies.


Kneeboard
Searfoss reviews his flight profile before flying the EZ-Rocket. Highlighted sections of the flight path represent rocket burns.


Taxi
A pickup truck tows Searfoss to launch position. Sitting in the truck bed are, from left, XCOR Aerospace president Jeff Greason, XCOR photographer Mike Massee, and XCOR chief engineer Dan DeLong.


Going, Going...
The EZ-Rocket in flight.


Zoom
A photojournalist takes aim at the EZ-Rocket.


Rocket Burn
Searfoss powers through a turn with both engines lit in the EZ-Rocket.


Rocket Man
Rick Searfoss, XCOR Aerospace chief test pilot and former space shuttle commander, expects to return to space in the near future in an XCOR-built spaceship now in the planning stages.

SpaceX first launch coverage

I'm listening in on a conference call for the first launch of a Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Falcon 1 rocket. Falcon 1 will carry an Air Force Academy satellite into orbit from SpaceX's pad at the Kwajalein Atoll of the Marshall Islands.

The photo above is from the SpaceX website, with the caption: "Falcon 1 Ready for Launch on Omelek Island."

Launch is scheduled for 1 pm Pacific time.

Mostly I'm hearing a loud typist clattering away, and some indistinguishable hubbub in the background, punctuated with occasional loudspeaker announcements about the rocket's status. I don't know whether they're still on schedule or not.

Also don't know whether I'm hearing the press gathering at SpaceX headquarters in El Segundo, CA and their feed of the launch site, or if I'm hearing the launch site directly. Other reporters on the line with me are trying to raise someone from SpaceX to find out what's going on. Stand by....

--Update at 12:43 pm Pacific--
Larry Williams, VP of International and Government Affairs on the line now from SpaceX in El Segundo...says countdown progressing smoothly. Coming together real well, he says, we have a nice turnout in El Segundo, lots of media. Still on schedule for 1 pm launch.

Diane Molina, SpaceX media contact, tells me I'm listening to El Segundo, not the launch site. I asked her to tell Larry to repeat the status reports coming over from Kwajalein or turn up the gain....

Larry signing off until we get closer to the launch.

--Update at 12:58 Pacific--
Williams answering questions now from a Reuters reporter. Interesting to me, since the L.A. Reuters office was my beat for commercial spaceflight last year; I wrote about Bigelow Aerospace for them, and also helped to cover SpaceShipOne's X Prize winning flights. I switched over the Wired News for news reporting because they pay better and also because Wired News stories stay on Wired.com indefinitely, as opposed to Reuters stories, which disappear quickly and often don't even have bylines.

Williams reporting an email from the launch site saying there will be a one-hour delay. Details forthcoming....

--Update at 1:30 Pacific--
Still no word on what has caused the delay.

Earlier this year I witnessed a Merlin test firing, the first full-duration burn, in fact, of the SpaceX-built rocket engine on Falcon's first stage. I'm guessing the scene unfolding now at Kwajalein is similar to what I saw at SpaceX's test facility in McGregor, Texas. Here's the story I wrote for Wired News on that.

Engineers and managers are hunkered down in a bunker at a safe remove from the rocket. Each has a large flat panel computer screen in front of him/her, monitoring the rocket's vitals. Data to and from the rocket is carried on ordinary Ethernet cables like I have here in my home office. If any of the sensors on the rockets records a problem, it will trigger a halt in the countdown, any time between now and in the microseconds before the engine fires. One of the humans also has a big, red abort switch he/she can hit at any time.

During the test I watched, a faulty temperature sensor triggered an abort in the engine's firing. The engineers were able to determine that the fault lay with the sensor, not with the rocket itself, and they manually restarted the engine, after remotely refueling the craft.

If anything on the rocket itself requires intervention, however, they'll have to scrub the flight for quite some time; safety rules require that no one approach the rocket while it's full of liquid oxygen (LOX), so the LOX will have to be pumped out before fixes are made.

--Update at 1:42 Pacific--
Williams: we're at "T" minus 20.

He's working on getting us on the phone a video feed.

Still no word on what caused the delay, but I guess they've resolved it now.

--Update at 1:50 Pacific--
Someone reporting "T" minus 10

--Update at 1:51 Pacific--
Williams confirming, "T" minus 10 minutes, and holding there for weather. Could be very short, he says, perhaps because of passing clouds.

--Update at 2:39 Pacific--
Williams: Another delay. Technicians have to refill the LOX tanks. One to two hour delay probable. They're still going to try for the 1-5 Pacific time window. Standing by now for an annoucement from Elon Musk.

--Update at 2:54 Pacific--
Williams: launch will be attempted in 1.5 to two hours.

25 people total are on the island. Six people in the launch mission control center. Standing by for more updates....

--Update at 3:18 Pacific--
Robin Snelson reporting on the conference line from El Segundo that she saw five guys around the LOX appearing to be trying to fix something on the fill line that goes to the rocket, and then the video went blank.

Williams: One hour and 15 minutes probably the earliest possible time that the rocket would launch.

They were having trouble getting LOX pressure in the upper stage of the rocket, reports Williams.

Next window would be tomorrow at 1 pm Pacific if today's attempt is scrubbed.

Williams: some issues with filling the LOX tanks. Doesn't know beyond that.

--Update at 4:50 Pacific--
Williams: "We are scrubbing for today. So our next launch window is 9 a.m. Pacific time tomorrow morning."

--Update at 4:54 Pacific--
Williams, with a correction. "We have not got confirmation on what the plan is for tomorrow." Keep an eye on the website for actual times:

http://www.spacex.com/

--Update at 5:49 p.m. Pacific--
Elon Musk has just posted an explanation for today's launch scrub at www.spacex.com:

"What happened was that an auxiliary liquid oxygen (LOX) fill tank had a manual vent valve incorrectly set to vent. The time it took to correct the problem resulted in significant LOX boiloff and loss of helium, and it was the latter that caused the launch abort. LOX is used to chill the helium bottles, so we lose helium if there is no LOX to cool the bottles."

Also:

"We are anticipating rescheduling the launch within a week at the earliest but probably longer as we need to bring in LOX and helium from Hawaii."

Make or Break

Tomorrow Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), the maverick spaceship company run by PayPal founder Elon Musk, is to launch its first rocket, a satellite launcher called Falcon 1.

I say "spaceship company" because Musk doesn't intend to stop with just launching satellites; he wants to send people into orbit and beyond--to build true spaceships. He's an idealist and a dreamer. He believes in the essential good of humanity and its ability to rise above the petty squabbles that threaten to destroy us and our planet.

Musk is an inspiration to me, along with Robert Bigelow, Burt Rutan, the folks at XCOR, and all the other idealists and dreamers gambling everything they've got to build us a better future, one in which we expand into space instead of imploding here on Earth like the civilization that built Easter Island.

Me, I'm riding on these guys coattails, just as far and as high as I can get.

It all started a couple of years ago when I knew I had to make a break for the better and become a book author.

I had three projects on my plate: a novel about a theater company on tour to the moon, a series of young adult novels about a railroad that travels through time.... And a book about the rocketeers competing for the X Prize. I decided to work on all three projects at once and the first one that started to take off would win all of my attention until it either crashed or took me somewhere.

What happened next was Burt Rutan went for powered flight with SpaceShipOne on the Wright Bros' 100th anniversary, December 17, 2003. "Hello!" I thought. "These guys might actually make it to space!"

When Rutan announced another powered flight to take place on June 21, 2004, I knew that was make or break--he was going for space, and I'd better get there on the ground at Mojave with some kind of press credential and an editor who'd run my byline. If I could do that, I knew, my X Prize book might just earn a ticket to ride.

My story on that first commercial spaceflight for the New York Post let to assignments for Reuters, New Scientist, Wired.com, and now I'm working on my third cover story for Popular Science.

And at long last my agent has submitted my proposal for a book on commercial spaceflight (naturally no longer just about the X Prize) to nearly a dozen major publishers. I could hear as early as next week whether I'm to have a full-time career interacting with the most inspiring people I've ever met, or if I'll need to dust off that YA series (the sf novel has already gone down in flames).

Meanwhile, Musk has $100 million of his personal fortune riding on tomorrow's launch. He says he'll give it at least three attempts before he'll consider throwing in the towel (and maybe dusting off one of his old schemes).

It's another make or break moment; if Musk is successful, it could change everything, just like SpaceShipOne's flights last year. And once again, I'm on the verge of breaking into the next level of my writing career. It's no coincidence; like I said, I'm riding these guys' coattails.

Watch this space starting at noon Pacific tomorrow (Saturday) for my reports on the countdown and launch as they happen.

SpaceX prelaunch conference

The conference to announce the SpaceX launch date got underway at 2:15 Pacific. Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO talking now...

Launch date is next week...

6 Falcon 1's are on the manefest. So whatever happens next week, the company will launch those. [seems to be prepping us for possible failure--a possibility with any rocket launch]

SpaceX will move on from satellite launches to manned spaceflight.

--Update at 5:21--
Exact launch date and time: 1 pm. California time, next Friday, November 25

Musk qualifies that by saying that's when the "launch attempt" will be.

--Update at 5:23--
We're launching FalconSat on a Falcon rocket. Something fairly reminescent of a Joseph Heller novel, says Musk.

I actually don't feel nervous, says Musk. I feel relief. It's been a difficult devlopment process. Nobody said this would be easy, but it's been more than that...If we have three consecutive failures, he says, we'll probably throw in the towel. Don't know who would want to fly with us if we have three consecutive failures, says Musk.

--Update at 5:30 pm (Eastern time, where I am)
A lot riding on this launch...
"I really feel that one successful launch will establish us as being fairly reliable."

Two Falcon 1s are complete, one more in production.

Going for 3-4 falcon 1 launches a year, 2 or 3 Falcon 5 launches a year. 3 falcon launches are planned for the first 12 months of operation.

Musk: We have over 200 million dollars in business committed, even before our first launch. That should go up significantly after a successful launch.

--Update at 2:35 Pacific--
approx 100 million invested in the company at this point, 98% of that comes from Musk personally. The other 2%? Friends and family says Musk.

Half of all rocket launch failures due to propulsion. 30% due to separation problems, the other 20% to other factors.

Musk: "I'm not sure at this point what to fear most. I feel good about our engines. We delayed launches a few times to put extra care into the engines, particularly the main engine. We put a lot of effort into our separation systems. The guidence system is the only part of the vehicle we've only tested in simulation, as opposed to actual operation. That has more of an unresolved question mark around it."

Musk compares this process to software development, where he made his fortune. In software development, you never run a program for the first time without finding bugs, and that's expected. You don't have that luxury with rockets.

SpaceX's second Gen rocket engine will be the biggest rocket engine in the world, though not the biggest in history. The F1 engine that sent people to the moon is no longer in production, so Musk doesn't count that.

Musk: A very significant chunk of my net worth is in this company. I don't want to give an exact figure. You can probably figure it out from what I earned by selling PayPal.

--Update at 2:43 Pacific--
Falcon 9 will cost another $100 million to develop.

[The rocket are designated by the number of engines they have in their first stage. Falcon 1 has a single Kestril engine, devleoped by SpaceX. Falcon 9 will have nine of these engines.]

Musk: The Falcon 1 is the first all-new hydrocarbon rocket developed in the U.S. in 40 years.

Safe enough for people? Not a lot you would do different to protect a person than a $100 million satellite, says Musk.

Q: What customers will you put on Falcon 9?
A: We haven't thought a lot about it because it's speculative, but big customers would be NASA, Bigelow Aerospace, which is launching its first subscale space station module next year, and potentially people who just want to go to orbit and just spend some time on orbit. Also we could do a loop around the moon, which actually wouldn't require a huge rocket. [Space Adventures recently cut a deal with the Russian Space Agency to do just that, so that may be what inspired Musk to say that.]

Q: When will you go to space?
A: I'm not doing this to go into space myself, per se. I want to help build a space faring civilization. It would have been very easy for me to pay to go to the International Space Station myself. I want to help other people get to space.

--Update at 2:50 Pacific--
Bigelow Aerospace's America's Space Prize is a tall order: you have to launch 2x in 60 days, carry five people to orbit, and demonstrate rendezvous and docking.

SpaceX's lawsuit against Boeing and Lockheed: Musk doesn't want to comment much because its in progress.

SpaceX will vigorously pursue the new commercial contracts to service the ISS that NASA has announced its intention to award by the end of this year. Musk sees Falcon 9 as the ideal vehicle for that.

ITAR: Restrictions in arms trade needs reform because they block friendly nations from collaborating with U.S. companies on rockets.

On Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' space program
Musk: "I met with Jeff Bezos a couple of times and had dinner. His motivations in doing Blue origin are identical to mine in forming spacex. There's a good chance we'll work collaboratively at some point."

--Update--
Musk: The expansion of life on earth to other places is arguably the most important thing to happen to life on earth, if it happens. Life has the duty to expand. And we're the representatives of life with the ability to do so.

Q: Do you have multiple launch crews?
No, we have only one crew that must travel from launch pad to launch pad (from Vandenberg in California, for example, to Kwajalein).

First launch of Falcon 9 will take place from Kwajalein, like this first Falcon 1 launch.

Second launch in the March 06 timeframe.

He leaves for Kwajalein on Tuesday. It's a paradise, says Musk. A nice place to be for our customers. A lot nicer than the Russian launch facilities in Kazakhstan.

25 people on the island right now.

If you imagine a small town from middle america transplanted 5,000 out in the Pacific, that's Kwajalein. Tricky for press, though.

--Update at 3:05 Pacific--
Fight sequence
Flight of first Falcon 1 will take 10 minutes, three minute burn for first stage, second stage about 7 minutes. Faring separation at about 3 minute mark. Payload release at about 10 minute mark. Upper stage will do a restart. Not necessary for this mission, but we want to test it. The first stage after sepaation continues balistically. Lands about 600 miles downrange, where there's a recovery ship waiting. Has high speed drough chute, which pulls out the main chute, will hit the water at about 25 feet per second. Recovery ship will locate it. First stage has GPS locator, plus two sonar devices, and a radio finder. "We have a lot of ways to find this stage, and we really want to bring it back, no matter what kind of shape it's in." Ship will bring it back to the harbor at Kwajalein.

DARPA, the customer, takes control of the satellite at plus 10 minutes after launch.

Q: How many days do you have to get the rocket up?
A: I'm not aware of any restrictions we have right now. It's going to happen either when we said, or fairly soon thereafter. Prelaunch checkout going extremely well. We anticipate no problems.

Q: Any dress rehearsals to work out bugs?
A: We've done a wet rehearsal, where we load propellant and do a simulated coundown. We've done everything we think we can do before launch to be ready.

Q: Which version of the Falcon would you use for the new NASA contracts?
A: Falcon 9.

Q: From which facility?
A: We suspect from the Cape (NASA's manned launch faciltiy at Cape Canaveral on Florida's east coast)

Q: When will you fly cargo missions to the space station?
A: I hope in the next 3 to 4 years.

Q from me: Have you talked with NASA about what form your contract with them might take?
A: We expect an RFP next month, contracts to be awarded in the May timeframe. They will be commercial-like contracts, different from NASA's usual mode.

--Update--
Another question from me: Are you developing a manned vehicle right now, or have you thought that far ahead yet?
A: I can't comment on that right now.

--Update--
Boeing and Lockheed can't win on a level playing field. The only way we can fail is if we're stupid. If we build a good rocket and we launch it and it's reliable, then we have a very bright future and there's very little a competitor can do to stop us.

Q: Is Blue Origin a potential competitor?
A: Not right now--they're doing virtical take off and landing suborbital vehicles. I'm very glad for companies like that.

We have to cut back on the bureaucratic drags on development. I think there's an acknowledgement at NASA of that, and we're going to see some improvements in the new contracts, which will have much less bureacratic overhead.

A traditional cost-plus contractor with NASA has an incentive to increase bureaucratic demands, because they'll get more money that way. We don't have that incentive.

Last few questions coming up....

--Update--
Q: What's next in the entreprenurial space field?
A: Lots of people doing things--Paul Allen [who funded SpaceShipOne], Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin, John Carmack with Armadillo Aerospace...Musk thinks we're heading toward a Netscape moment, when someone turns a profit, and hopefully it'll be SpaceX, and then investment capital will start to flow in.

Q from me: What's the current price for Falcon 1?
A: $6.7, which includes not only the rocket launch, but third-party insurance, range fees, other costs.
Q: That's an increase over your previous $6 million price, correct?
A: No, that price only included launch, didn't include the other expenses, which are now rolled into the price. We are actually the only launch company to publish our prices.

I'm super late now. I must go catch a plane now.

SpaceX announcing launch date tomorrow

Dianne Molina at SpaceX has just told me that the company's unmanned orbital launch vehicle, Falcon I, has a firm launch date.

The date will be announced in a press conference at SpaceX headquarters in El Segundo, California tomorrow (Friday) at 2 p.m. Pacific. I'm stuck here on the East Coast, but I'll blog the phone conference set up for folks like me who can't make it in person.

Falcon I has faced a long series of delays leading up to its maiden flight, the latest of which involved getting bumped from its planned first launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, forcing a move to SpaceX's launch complex at Kwajalein Atoll in the western Pacific Ocean.

If successful, SpaceX will drastically undercut the orbital launch market with $6.7 million launches (SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has told me that his nearest competitor charges around $25 million). Musk says he wants to become the Ford of space. "Ford didn't invent the internal combustion engine," he told me when I visited SpaceX earlier this year. "But he found out how to make one at low cost." Likewise, "We didn't invent the rocket engine; what we're trying to do is figure out how to make it low-cost."

Musk is also the only well-funded player, to my knowledge, who has publicly stated his intention to compete for Robert Bigelow's America's Space Prize, which will award $50 million to the first privately funded spaceship that can carry passengers to orbit and dock with the commercial space stations Bigelow is building.

A successful Falcon I launch, which will carry an Air Force Academy satellite on a mission to measure space plasma phenomena, will set SpaceX apart from a multitude of other companies building commercial space hardware but that have not yet launched vehicles. And maybe help me snag magazine assignments to cover the company. :)

Stay tuned!

"The Future Now"

That's the tagline I saw on the cover for the revamped Popular Science making its debut with the January 2006 issue. It went to press last week and it'll be on stands in about a month.

The mag has gotten a top-to-bottom makeover and I got a glimpse of it when I stopped in at the editorial offices a little more than a week ago. The design is streamlined, simplified, and very easy on the eyes without being slick. I think that's quite an accomplishment in this era when a lot of publishing seems to be about design for its own sake at the expense of the content.

I'll have two stories in that issue, one about a rocket powered bicycle built by Orion Propulsion's Tim Pickens, and another about the launch of suborbital tourism by Virgin Galactic and Rocketplane Ltd.

Those of you who paid special attention to my blog posts about the latter two companies are probably wondering whether what I wrote in print bears any relation to what I said here. Well, you'll just have to buy the issue to find out!

During my visit to PopSci I had a good discussion with my main editor about how the magazine decides what to cover. It's a simple as that new tagline that will go under the name "Popular Science." If it looks like it really does represent the future, in it goes. If not, well, no need to belabor the point; it just isn't included in the magazine.

Looking at my ever-growing stack of back issues (my latest eBay purchase is the May 1876 issue), I can see that Popular Science has consistently covered the most important technology stories of the day and quite a few that became big only in later years. There are surprisingly few stories about completely mad schemes (they all have at least some relation to reality), and none ripping into ideas the editors and writers felt just had to fail.

In short the magazine takes to heart the adage "If you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all." It's always been an optimistic look at the future, leaving pessimists of all stripes to other venues.

It's a great legacy, and I'm going to do my best to live up to it.

"Magnificent Desolation"

Those are the words of Buzz Aldrin as he walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969. It's also the title of a new 3D IMAX movie produced by Tom Hanks that tries to give you the feeling of walking on the moon.

It's not just hype; it really is the closest you can come to walking on the moon without actually going there. I've just seen it, and though it's pricey for a movie and it's only 40 minutes long, it's worth every penny.

The lunar landscapes are painstakingly, lovingly recreated, especially the site of Apollo 15's landing, Hadley Rille. There's some spectacular scenery there--the Apennine mountain range, the plain at Hadley, and the long, sinuous trench of the Rille itself. It's a good choice for special treatment, and 15's commander, Dave Scott, served as technical consultant on the movie.

It seems most people don't remember 15, only Armstrong and Aldrin's 11. Part of the mission of the movie is to tell the story of those other lunar landings, the ones that didn't get so much coverage, and yet were even more spectacular. Those guys on the last three flights--15, 16, and 17--lived on the moon for three days at a time.

I've spent many hours watching the TV downlink from Apollo 15 trying my damndest to imagine myself there, to see the Earth hanging over the dead, blasted landscape, to feel myself at a sixth of my normal weight. As best as I can tell, director Mark Cowen got it right. And just to prove it, he dares to show clips from the astronauts' actual footage along with the recreations. It looks seamless.

Except on one point, the only mar on an otherwise flawless production. There's sound in space in this movie. Why is it that filmmakers can't resist embellishing scenes of spaceships and astronauts with engine rumblings and, as in the scene this shot is taken from, footsteps.



When the boots of the guy playing Scott come at you the dust flies in your face. A cool effect in 3D, except that it's accompanied by the sound of pebbles raining down on you. When I heard that I was immediately yanked back down to Earth to a sound stage and some foley artist spilling sand on a microphone.

2001: A Space Odyssey proved back in 1968 that the best way to take viewers out of this world is to tell it like it is--without sound in space. (I still think that's the best science fiction film ever made, but that's another story.)

Go see Magnificent Desolation. Hell, go see it a couple or three times; I probably will. Just, if you're a purist like me, try to overlook the misguided sound design and focus instead on the gorgeous scenery.

Humbled

I've reached something of a turning point here....

Since I put my blog up only a couple of months ago, I've attracted a regular readership that draws from not just the few space fans and friends I thought it would, but also the main reporters working the field and many of the engineers and managers of the spaceship companies I write about.

I must say I was a bit unprepared for such quick success, and until last week, I blithely went along posting anything that came to mind, dashing off opinions and handling facts and research less carefully than I did for my "legitimate" print articles. I used the blog as a kind of personal sounding board to generate article ideas and think aloud about the work I did for my magazine and newswire work.

For instance, last week I banged out a post about competing spaceship companies in my usual mode. Only difference here was that I cast doubt on the feasibility of one of them. I also reported unverified hearsay as one of my data points, which turned out to be false. Man, did I get hammered by my readers. And I touched off some valuable discussion about the merits of various technologies for reaching space and how to evaluate them. All of which will help me better research my print articles.

What I should have done was to raise the concerns I had as a way to solicit the kind of feedback I ended up getting, without passing judgment before I had all the facts in. Certainly, I owe it to my readers to report on my subjects fairly and accurately and to clearly distinguish fact from opinion. I'll do better from now on.

"Prof. Langley's Flying Machine"

Continuing my little research project to see how often inventions profiled in Popular Science pan out over the years, I've just received this copy of the July 1896 issue.

Wow. Looks more like a newspaper than what we would think of as a magazine, and a low-budget one at that. Something like a high school newspaper.

But, amazingly enough, it's still recognizably the same magazine I write for today. Same entertaining mix of articles about science and technology, peppered with ads for gizmos and remedies.

My favorite article of the bunch is the one called "Prof. Langley's Flying Machine." No byline given, though the entire issue is copyright 1896 by Benj. Lillard. Perhaps he wrote all 32 pages?

"The daily press has recently contained accounts of a very successful trial of the model of an aerodrome or so-called 'flying machine,' invented by Prof. S. P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. As is well known Prof. Langley has been quietly studying the problem of aerial navigation for some time. His present machine is only a model, though a very large one. No less an authority than Alexander Graham Bell has given his signature to the statement that 'No one could have witnessed these experiments without being convinced that the practibility of mechanical flight had been demonstrated.' Prof. Langley, in giving details of the aerodrome, says that it needs no gas to lift it, and that the power is derived from a steam engine through the means of propellers."

The steam-powered aerodrome weighed 24 pounds, according to the article, had a wing span of 14 feet, was made of steel, and flew for about half a mile.

The man was on the right track, seven years before the Wright Brothers' first powered flight, and Alexander Graham Bell thought it would change the world. "Bell inclines to the idea that within five years this invention will have absolutely changed the face of warfare, will have made armies unnecessary and battle ships so much useless junk."

Check out the Wikipedia entry on Samuel Pierpont Langley.

Rocketplane update

I've just learned that Rocketplane has in fact approached the FAA about their spaceship in progress. I don't know anything beyond that at this point, will let you know when I do.

[sqeak-squeak-squeak]

That's the sound of me backpedaling just a bit. Seems Rocketplane really is serious about following through. I apologize for suggesting otherwise.

I remain skeptical about the company's plan, but I'd like to be proven wrong. I say a good healthy dose of skepticism never hurt anyone about to climb into a commercial spaceship fueled with explosive liquids. Keep the feedback coming....

Virgin Galactic vs. Rocketplane

So two spaceship companies plan to build suborbital tourist ships in the coming year. A Virgin Atlantic Airways offshoot, Virgin Galactic, and Oklahoma startup Rocketplane Ltd. both plan to offer tourist flights to space for about $200,000.

Okay, so I have 200 gs burning a hole in my pocket and I want to go to space. Who do I go with? Well, let me break it down with some info I've gathered in interviews with people from both companies:

Virgin Galatic
Ticket price: $200,000
Launch date: first tourist flights scheduled for 2008

Rocketplane
Ticket price: $192,000
Launch date: first tourist flights scheduled for 2007

At first glance, looks like Rocketplane will get me there sooner for less money. Cool. Maybe I should go with them. But let's dig a little deeper.

Virgin Galactic
Personnel: executives, pilots, and other folks drawn from Virgin Atlantic Airways, a successful airline for 21 years
Technology: brand-new spaceships built by Scaled Composites, the company that sent the first (and so far the only) privately funded astronauts into space

Rocketplane
Personnel: head engineer is a 30-year veteran of Lockheed's famous Skunk Works division, known for its innovative approach to aerospace design; chief test pilot is a just-retired NASA astronaut; other personnel drawn from various aerospace businesses
Technology: a used Learjet gutted and fitted with a rocket engine

[insert record scratch here]

Waitasec. A used Learjet? Well, actually just the fuselage and engines, according to that Skunk Works veteran, David Urie. Why? Because it's cheaper than designing a new fuselage from scratch.

The design calls for flying the ship to 20,000 feet on the jets, then lighting the rocket to get to space. It's theoretically possible, according to my contact at MIT's Space Systems Laboratory, Dr. Raymond Sedwick. But it's never been done.

And there's the rub. These guys say they'll fly paying passengers--and not just any paying passengers, but ones able to blow almost a quarter of a million dollars on a what amounts to a fabulously expensive roller coaster ride--in an experimental spacecraft built around a used business jet. Because its cheaper.

And there's more, unfortunately. Turns out the rocket engine is going to be preowned as well, of the highly explosive liquid fuel variety. That's because the built-from-scratch engine they were going to use blew up on the test stand. And something for me to follow up on: a tipster tells me that Rocketplane hasn't approached the FAA about certifying their hot-rodded Learjet--surely a requirement for following through with their business plan.

Which leads me to wonder: just how serious is this company about following through with its business plan? Better find out before you give them any money.

At the very least, arrange for a tour of their hangar and see what they're working with over there. And let me know what you find out; they wouldn't send me any photographs of the work they say is in progress.

In the meantime, I'm putting my money on Virgin Galactic.

Update on 11/14/05
Be sure to hit these two posts for corrections and clarification:

Rocketplane Update

Humbled

"Science Never Stops"

One of my interview subjects for a Popular Science article recently joked that appearing in the magazine was the kiss of death, since, he said, the mag is mostly about crackpot schemes that never come to anything.

I mentioned that to PopSci photographer extraordinaire John Carnett, who's been working for the mag a lot longer than I have. He strenuously disputed my interviewee's claim. In fact, he said, PopSci has done a great job of breaking stories of new technologies and covering their development over the course of decades.

I decided to find out for myself and buy up a stack of back issues on eBay. The May 1947, 75th anniversary issue seemed like a good place to start, since it's a look back as well as forward. There are a few wild ideas in here, to be sure, but I was amazed at how much of it's on track.

Like this artist's concept of a future rocketship in the cover story. Looks uncannily like a certain privately built craft that made headlines last year, doesn't it? And this prediction in the same story, by Harland Manchester:

"Tiny radio receivers and transmitters, with circuits printed instead of wired (see p. 101), will be as common in pockets as fountain pens, with great savings in time, gasoline and shoe leather. In short, everyone may soon become accessible to everyone else...."

The only way Manchester missed the mark in that bold claim was in predicting the longevity of fountain pens! But there's an ad for a pen that "writes on a miniature sphere" on page 53.

And, holy shit, here's a story called "Camera Coughs Out Finished Prints" about an invention by one Edwin H. Land, president of something called the Polaroid Corporation, that not only takes photographs, but develops them in one minute as well. "A model of his camera has been designed for large-scale production," reads a caption, "but plans for it are undisclosed."

Okay, so the story called "Businessman's Radio Fits in a Briefcase" is pretty funny, but it's a project for readers that has to use existing technology.

Now I can't wait to see what other PopSci predictions have come true over the years. I just hope my wife doesn't notice how my initial "just a few" eBay purchases kinda sorta got away from me at some point between the July 1897 issue and, oh my God, all these 1960's issues with space stories actually written by Dr. Wernher von Braun....

XP Cup suggestion box

Just had a very interesting conversation with the X Prize Foundation's Ian Murphy: he wants me to let him know if I have any suggestions for improving next year's X Prize Cup.

It's a great opportunity to have a hand in shaping what will hopefully become the premier event for space enthusiasts. I need some time to mull this one over, but if you have any ideas yourself, especially if you were at this year's Cup, post them here, and I'll pass them on. Or visit www.michaelbelfiore.com to find my address and email me privately.

PopSci XP Cup report

My photos and descriptions of vehicles at the X Prize Cup on October 9 just went up on the Popular Science website. It's the lead on the site for now....

I've just handed in a piece on the coming year in space tourism for the January issue, and I'm at work on a piece about the rocket powered bicycle built by Tim Pickens, president of Orion Aerospace. Popular Science is keeping me pretty busy these days.

I'm also working on what I very much hope will be the final revisions on my proposal for a book about commercial spaceflight. My agent has already sparked strong interest from more than one editor. I'm itching to hit the market as soon as possible, especially since this book proposal has been more than two years in the making.

Stay tuned...

Photos of Starchaser exploding at XP Cup

Well, not exploding exactly, now that I see it close up:

http://flickr.com/photos/robfuel/sets/1136827/

Rob Fuel is the only reporter who managed to get up close to the Starchaser rocket firing that closed the X Prize Cup last Sunday, and he got some amazing photos.

He told me in an email just now that rather than the engine simply blowing up on ignition, as the rest of us reported, the rivets blew off of the engine's backing. The engine actually fired normally for a second or two before flames erupted in all the wrong places.

Rocket Low Rider

I found this year's X Prize Cup to be something of a disappointment, more about hype than substance. And it didn't help that food was in short supply on the ground, as attested to by an attendee quoted in a report for the Las Cruces newspaper. I'm all about food at events. Feed me well and I'm happy. If there isn't good food, well....

However, schemes are already trickling in for next year's Cup that should make it more exciting.

For instance, Tim Pickens, president of Orion Propulsion tells me he's hatching plans for a rocket powered low rider pick up truck.

Here he is with Orion engineer Angie Fulmer at the Orion booth at the space symposium held in Las Cruces just before the X Prize Cup last weekend.

"You take a truck," Pickens told me as I snapped this picture. "You don't do anything to it. It's just a nice ride you buy from some teenager. They put all their money in it, and now it's a low-rider."

Then you bolt a 2,000 pound thrust hybrid rocket engine fueled by nitrous oxide and asphalt into the truck bed. Most of the time you hide the rocket engine behind the tailgate.

But when you pull up to a red light next to "some smart-Alec with a thumpin and bumpin" sound system, you can drop the tail gate and "you say 'I got your noise right here!'" and boom! light that thing up and blast off down the road in the world's most powerful drag racer.

Pickens wants to show up at the next X Prize Cup in the rocket rider with Fulmer behind the wheel to help turn heads, and then do some rocket demos everyone can relate to. Now, that I'd like to see.

There's a serious purpose behind Pickens's fun. "What it will do," says Pickens, "is it'll show the inherent safety of hybrids." Not to mention get people thinking about how they can get their own rocket to ride in. And isn't that what a rocket expo should be all about?

X Prize Cup live blog

4:36
Starchaser's rocket engine just blew up. We heard a big "pop" out here, and then instead of the nice 20-foot plume we'd been promised, we got a huge fireball, and a rolling cloud of black smoke. Starchaser CEO Steve Bennett, then on the stage narrating said, when asked what we'd just seen: Well, we thought we give the X Prize Cup a grand finish by blowing up our engine.

So ends the first annual X Prize Cup. Hoo boy.

4:18
Searfoss just made another run. Getting details now on what went wrong with Armadillo. Carmack talking now on the stage. Says everything went smoothly; the rocket's control system kept the thins steady even in winds that have forced the scrubbing of Tripoli's planned model rocket flights. But the Armadillo rocket set down just slightly off center from where it lifted off on a piece of steel plate that served as launch pad. One leg came down on the pad, the other three set down in the mud that had formed from all the rain last night. The craft tipped over, and, as it turned out, cracked a high pressure blabididy blah something.

I tell ya, my head is getting baked out here. Not used to this blazing desert sun. Mouth parched. The crowd has really thinned out now. Dust blowing across my laptop from the desert. Food all eaten here in the tent, largely, it seems, by people without press badges. "Batches? We don't need no steenkin batches."

Someone prominent in the field who shall remain nameless suggested to me before I came here that this event looked like it was going to be more hype than substance. I'm not sure that this point that he was wrong. Lots of mockups here, very few actual vehicles. And of all the stuff here, only one is actually capable of reaching space, an unmanned rocket by Up Aerospace.

The Up Aerospace guys are standing by themselves next to their rocket. "We should have built something wider," Up Aerospace pres. Jerry Larson told me, as he stood by himself next to his rather slim rocket. "That way I'd have more shade."

Thing is, when you get close to their rocket, you can see that that it's made to fly, not just look cool. The aluminum body is finely machined, smooth, solid to the touch, without rivets or obvious welds. I commented on that to Larson. "Yeah," he said, "that's because it's real."

2:22 p.m.
Armadillo just launched the first of their rocket flights. Turns out we had a pretty sucky view here at the media tent--Starchaser's trailer is in the way. We saw it take off to about 20 feet, translate sideways, and then descend behind the trailer again. What we didn't see was that it tipped over when it landed, fell on its side. I caught a glimpse of it on the video feed we have here, but they didn't give us a reply. I'm going to hit the media stand over by the jumbotron for the next flight, which still going ahead as planned. On the feed I can see that the craft is right side up, ready to go again. Heading over to jumbotron...back in a mo....

1:35 p.m.


1:15 p.m.

Searfoss just made his first EZ Rocket flight. There'll be one more before the day is out. Far as I can see, it went off without a hitch. Just beautiful. Definitely a crowd pleaser. Pretty windy here, but apparently that wasn't a problem.



Greetings from the media tent at the first annual X Prize Cup in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I've got a good view of the runway where XCOR's EZ Rocket will take off later, and also a direct shot of the stand where John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace and Steve Bennett's Starchaser will fire their rockets. They're about a half mile from here to comply with FAA regs, but I'll see what I can do with my telephoto.

It rained hard through the night and some of us were seriously worried that the event would be washed out. Happy to report that's not the case, though are a lot of low-lying clouds. Rick Searfoss, who will be flying the EZ Rocket, told me low clouds could be cause to scrub his flight. I'll keep you posted on that.

Everyone's in a great mood here. A cop at the gate told me 10,000 tickets have been sold. The souvenir tent was mobbed immediately when the gates opened. I grabbed a couple of X Prize Cup lapel pins and an Ansari X Prize program from last year--pretty sure this stuff's going to sell out.



Just before the gates opened Brant Sponberg of NASA's Centennial Challenges and Innovative Procurements announced a new partnership with the X Prize Foundation. NASA is planning two new centennial Challenges. These are NASA-awarded prizes inspired by the X Prize. Details are to be forthcoming, but Sponberg told us the basics:

One prize is tentatively called the Suborbital Payload Challenge. It will be a cash prize for a reusable rocket capable of lofting a payload into suborbital space. Sponberg didn't say how high NASA wants it to go, but he said it will be higher than the 100 km altitude of X Prize class vehicles.

The second one will be called the Suborbital Lunar Analog Challenge, for a vertical-take-off-and-landing rocketship that can fly to a to-be-announced velocity. The idea is to develop technologies that would be useful for NASA's planned manned lunar lander. Seems to me Armadillo Aerospace is a shoo-in for that one. Don't know if Carmack and crew have heard about it yet.... I'll pop over to their tent after I post this to find out what they think of it.

All previous centennial Challenges have had cash prizes below $250,000. Sponberg says these two new ones will be for larger amounts, but again he didn't say just how much larger.

Prepping for the X Prize Cup

Greetings from Las Cruces, New Mexico!

The X Prize Cup goes down at the airport here on Sunday, and I'm snapping photos and writing about it for the Popular Science website. Also gathering story ideas for future issues.

XCOR Aerospace's Rich Pournelle invited me to join the XCOR crew on the tarmac today for prep work on their EZ Rocket.



This rocket powered airplane will be flown at the Cup by former shuttle astronaut Rick Searfoss. Since it's the only manned vehicle to be flown at what will become an annual air show for spaceships, it's pretty much the main event as far as I'm concerned.

So it was a no-brainer for me to blow off a press conference held at the same time and take Pournelle up on his invitation. So glad I did, too, because I got to see Searfoss do a practice flight.



I also got to stop by the hanger where John Carmack's Aramadillo Aerospace crew was prepping their vehicle.



Armadillo's vehicle is a 10-foot-tall technology demonstrator for their planned one-man suborbital spaceship, which Carmack says could launch as early as next year.



Very cool stuff, and though I don't know yet what happened at the press conference, I'm sure I had a lot more fun than my colleagues who went to that.

I'm walking something of a fine line here with my blog, since I'm committed to blogging the XP Cup for PopSci.com, and I don't want to scoop my own story.

However, I have a pretty good idea of what my editors at PopSci want, and I think I can reserve that stuff for them and only cover the stuff they don't want here. For instance today's prep work--it'll be old news by the time PopSci posts my stuff for them on Monday, at the earliest.

After I got the PopSci assignment, was planning not to blog here at all, just to play it safe, but XCOR's Dan DeLong told me today that he told the XCOR folks left back home in Mojave to keep an eye on my blog for news from the Cup. I don't want to disappoint! And I don't think anyone else will be blogging from the Cup, so it looks like it's up to me.

Stay tuned!

Rocket Racing League

I wasn't able to get to the press conference after all--too much prep to do before heading to the X Prize Cup on Wednesday. But two of my editors from Popular Science went to the annoucement of Peter Diamandis' latest venture, and I've gotten the scoop from one of them.

Diamandis is starting a rocket racing league, like the Indy Racing League (IRL). The first event will be held next September. Teams will race rocket planes based on the XCOR EZ Rocket design. Races will be held around the U.S., and then the top teams will face off at the Reno Air Races.

Initially XCOR will build 10 rocket racers. My editor tells me that these babies will cost $1 million each, so that will be a nice boost to XCOR's finances. I'll find out more when I see the XCOR folks at the XP Cup.

These rocket racers will not leave the atmosphere. In fact the EZ Rocket's ceiling is 10,000 feet, according to Aleta Jackson at XCOR. Eric says that the rockets can only burn for up to four minutes, though they can start and mid-flght. Once they burn through their fuel, they'll taxi in for a quick, auto-race-style servicing, during which they they'll be refueled.

The significance of this as I see it isn't whether or not these planes will reach space, but that the races will further the technologies needed for safe, routine spaceline operations.

Engines that can start and restart mid-flight, vehicles that can be quickly refueld, not to mention be reused, and are safe enough to operate around crowds--all of this will help the emerging commercial spaceflight industry.

MSNBC's Alan Boyle filed this report after the press conference.

The Rocket Racing League launched its Web site today.

Doom Rocket Man Preps for Liftoff

That's the title of my latest story for Wired.com on the upcoming X Prize Cup. It'll run as the top story through the weekend.

In it I mention that X Prize chairman Peter Diamandis is launching a new venture on Monday. I've managed to uncover its name: Rocket Racing Inc.

In this photo from XCOR, you can clearly see the spiffy new Rocket Racing logo. That's an actress in the cockpit of the EZ Rocket, filming a promo that will be released at a press conference Diamandis is holding on Monday in NYC to announce the new venture.

I'll be there, and I'll report on it here immediately afterwards. Stay tuned!

da Vinci Project still racing to space

Just got off the phone with Brian Feeney, head of the GoldenPalace.com Space Program Powered by the da Vinci Project (say that 10 times real fast).

This is an all-volunteer effort out of Toronto to launch Feeney into suborbital space aboard a space capsule and booster rocket combo from the bottom of a high altitude balloon.

For a while last year it looked like Feeney might be Rutan's only competition for the X Prize, with a license from the Canadian government to launch on October 2, just two days before what turned out to be Rutan's final X Prize winning flight. It was not to be, but Feeney got himself a lot of press that way because everyone loves a good race story.

Brian tells me he and two other members of his team will be at the X Prize Cup this October 6-9 in Las Cruces, New Mexico, along with the actual space capsule "in tow," not a mockup. He also pointed out that the da Vinci Project web site has been completely redesigned, and updated with information about the group's orbital space plans.

Feeney and the da Vinci Project were part of discussions earlier this year to help form the New Mexico Spaceport Authority now being formed. More on that exciting project in a later post. Stay tuned...

Carmack says he might reach space next year

Last night I spoke with John Carmack, head of former X Prize contender Armadillo Aerospace. He's also the programming genius behind best selling games by ID Software such as Doom and Quake. He and his crew will be at the X Prize Cup this October 9, flying a ten-foot tall remote controlled rocket. The machine is a demonstrator for a one-person suborbital spaceship the group is building right now. Carmack tells me he may go for an unmanned test flight before the end of this year, with subsequently higher and faster unmanned flights through next year, leading up to a manned flight by the end of 2006.

The manned ship will carry only one person. On its first manned flight will be Armadillo's Russell Blink. Blink won't so much fly the ship as hang on tight for the ride; the gimbal-steered craft will need machine-fast reflexes to guide it, so it'll be mostly computer controlled. Blink will hold a dead man switch which, if released, will trigger the abort mode, a powered landing. It will also have parachutes for an emergency landing in case the rocket motor fails.

The ship will take off and land on its tail like the science fiction rockets of old. After reentry, instead of deploying parachutes or gliding down on wings, it will fire up its rocket engine again. This is the flight profile of the McDonnell Douglas DC-X, or Delta Clipper, which was a test vehicle for a planned single stage to orbit craft.

Carmack tells me he always envisioned a one-person craft, rather than the 3-place ship required to win the Ansari X Prize. Now that Scaled Composites has won the X Prize, Carmack says he's free to revert back to his original plans. He likes much better the idea of flying lots of one-man missions, rather than fewer multi-person missions. He'll entertain offers to pay for rides on his vehicle, and he's planning to pursue government contracts for his company. "We're really on the cusp of having significant capabilities here," he told me last night.

My PopSci cover story now on the Web

My October cover story for Popular Science on t/Space is now up on PopSci.com. Full text and all images from the print version. Enjoy!

Also I've just landed an assignment to blog from the X Prize Cup for PopSci.com. It's an exclusive they have, so I won't be blogging the event here. I'll post a link here when the time comes, though.

Just received a digital SLR camera and I now have two weeks to learn how to use it. Also starting an online photojournalism course. First assignment: photograph the X Prize Cup. Oh, and, incidentally, have the photos posted to the Popular Science Web site. I guess there aren't many beginning photojournalists who get to jump in feet-first like that!

Ex-shuttle pilot to fly rocket plane at X Prize Cup

I'm gathering info in advance of some articles for Wired News on the upcoming X Prize Cup in Las Cruces, New Mexico October 6-9. This is the first annual space expo put together by X Prize founder Peter Diamandis. The idea is that in future years it will be the Indie 500 of spaceships, with head-to-head competition between rocket builders and pilots to see who can fly the highest and fastest and the greatest number of passengers to orbit.

This year it looks like only one vehicle will be piloted, a rocket-powered Long-EZ airplane developed by XCOR Aerospace and dubbed the EZ Rocket. At the controls will be Rick Searfoss, who was chief judge for the X Prize. He's also an accomplished test pilot and a veteran of three space shuttle missions, one of which, STS-90 in 1998, he commanded.

Searfoss tells me the new commercial space industry is where the action is. Retiring NASA astronauts, he told me just now on the phone, generally have two choices--either to go work for big aerospace companies, or to "descend into management" at NASA. Neither option appealed to him; he wanted to fly in space again, and he feels XCOR gives him a good shot at it.

Flying the EZ Rocket gives a good taste of what's to come; XCOR is planning a suborbital space plane that will take off from a runway under rocket power. Should be a good show on Sunday, October 9. Searfoss is due to blast off at 1:30 and 4:30 p.m.

NASA's new spaceship - updates

UPDATE
Second-to-last question, from a writer from Popular Mechanics: What role with commercial providers (Elon Musk, etc.) play in this new plan? Griffin says he wants to use them if they're available, for servicing of the International Space Station. NASA's ideal job, he says, will be to focus just on expanding human presence outward into space, on exploring. He'd like to leave the routine operations in low Earth orbit (LEO) to private enterprise, if possible.

UPDATE
Griffin saying now that the new vehicle will "have a ten times higher factor for safety" than the shuttle. Says shuttle has 1 chance in 220 of being destroyed on each mission. New vehicle will have 1 chance on 2,000. Easy to see how he got the shuttle safety record, because it's based on actual performance. Don't know how he can figure the safety record for a vehicle that doesn't exists yet.

UPDATE
"This is not new money. This is about a budget that keeps NASA" constant. Also says they won't take money from science programs. That's just plain not true. Money already being cut from NASA science programs like crazy to support this. "We do not take one thin dime" out of exisiting science programs, we take it from manned space programs.

UPDATE
Porcupines mating: Griffin says that's how they'll develop CEV at the same times continuing to run shuttle. "It's like the old joke: How to porcupines mate? Very carefully. We have a transition path from shuttle to shuttle-derived...."

UPDATE
CEV can carry up to 6 astronauts to International Space Station. So it will replace shuttle for crew transfer to ISS.

UPDATE
New vehicle, called the CEV, to come online in 2012. Shuttle to be retired by 2010. Leaves two-year "gap in manned spaceflight capabitilty is inevitable," Griffin says.

UPDATE
Griffin: Where we go on the moon will be largely driven by science.

UPDATE
NASA not going to ask for more money from Congress. Going to take money from existing budget/programs, i.e., shuttle and space station. There's the rub, as far as I can see; NASA's stretched thin now, so I don't see how they're going to keep all three programs running simultaneously.

UPDATE
Blog not updating properly...trying this in a new post:

Griffin: It's very Apollo-like. Think of it as Apollo on steroids. It's 50% bigger than Apollo.

Cost: Much, much more than I thought. Griffin's in Q&A session now. First question, the most obvious one: how much is this gonna cost: $104 billion dollars for the first moon mission with people, spread out of 13 years. Yow.

NASA's new spaceship is updated Apollo

Griffin: It's very Apollo-like. Think of it as Apollo on steroids. It's 50% bigger than Apollo.

Cost: Much, much bigger than I thought. Griffin's in Q&A session now. First question, the most obvious one: how much is this gonna cost: $104 billion dollars for the first moon mission with people, spread out of 13 years. Yow.

NASA admin Griffin just presneted new spaceship plans. It's essentially Apollo, NASA's original moonship. But this one can fly four people to the moon instead of two. It will land on land, not water. But otherwise looks the same: capsule plus service module, even given the same name: Command and Service module.

NASA's new spaceship - update

Press conference on NASA's post-shuttle plans begins at 11:00 a.m., Eastern Standard Time. Access it on NASA TV, if you get it, or on the Web at:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

I just got off the phone with a NASA press officer, and he tells me supporting documents will also be available online. Should appear on the main NASA press page at:

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/index.html

NASA's next-gen spaceship

Details have been leaking for a while now, led by the Orlando Sentinel's Mike Cabbage last month, but NASA's finally planning an official press briefing next week, possibly Monday, to give us the word on what form its big-budget shuttle-replacement will take.

NASA administrator Mike Griffin briefed the White House on the plan on Wednesday and will brief Congress tomorrow, according to this report from space.com. The space.com story also confirms that the new spaceship will use shuttle-derived technology, ostensibly to make the project easier and the final vehicle safer, but we all know what kind of safety record the space shuttle has. The real reason for using shuttle technology is to keep all of the existing shuttle contractors and the politicians beholden to them in the money.

And what a lot of money it will be. According to the space.com article, NASA wants to spend a total of $10 billion for a new space capsule and launcher. Not sure where they plan to get all that money, since they'll be shoveling billions of dollars into the space shuttle at the same time, but perhaps I'll find out in next week's press briefing.

NASA's secret space plan

Here's the cover for the next issue of PopSci, featuring my story on t/Space. Should be on stands within a week or so.

I love the look of this thing. It's like a pulp magazine of the 1940s. "Cannibalistic spider sex can make you a genius!" Fantastic. There's no denying that this is a popular magazine!

I used to dream of writing for the science fiction pulps like my idols Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and the rest. But except for a handful of small press zines that languish with the poetry mags on the bottom racks, the pulps are dead and gone; science fiction short stories just aren't popular literature any more.

Science fact, however, certainly is, even stuff as speculative as anything run by Astounding Stories back in the day.

Seems I've arrived, just where I've always wanted to be. It's a great feeling.

NASA hurricane damage update

I'm on a conference call right now with Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for Space Operations, and Bill Parsons, NASA's senior official in charge of the hurricane relief effort, getting an update on the impact of Katrina on NASA.

Here's what I'm getting so far:

Estimates to repair the two NASA facilities hit by the hurricane:

$600 million Stennnis Space Center
$500 million Michoud Assembly Facility

These costs include not only repairing the physical structures, but also housing the hundreds of workers who are now homeless.

The schedule is blown for returning the shuttle to flight. Before the hurricane, estimate was for a March 2006 launch. Now officials refuse to speculate on a date. "We don't have a schedule," says Gerstenmaier.

Special projects

I once knew a guy named Michael Dust. He had these business cards that looked like they were hand-cut from cereal boxes. They were stamped with Dust's name, and the title "President," along with the legend "Special Projects." I haven't seen the guy in years, and I'm sure I wouldn't even recognize him on the street. But I'll never forget his cards.

I guess those cards made such an impression on me because we all have our Special Projects, those wild-haired schemes we dream will make us rich and famous or somehow change the world. Usually we don't tell people about them because we're afraid they'll laugh at us. Not Michael Dust. He stamped them on his homemade business cards. I loved the audacity of that.

In the spirit of Michael Dust, I thought I'd share with you some of my Special Projects in progress. These are stories in the commercial space world I'm actively tracking and which will be the subjects of upcoming magazine and newswire stories of mine (as well as a lot of activity on this blog):

X Prize Cup. This is the first annual spaceship show put together by X Prize founder and president Peter Diamandis. It'll take place October 6-9 this year, in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I'm going with Wendy and baby Amelie to make a family vacation out of it as well as a business trip. Some of the folks who competed for the X Prize, along with some new-comers will show their work in progress. As well as writing about the event, I'll shoot photos as the first assignment for a photojournalism course I've sign up for. Look for the photos here on the blog as well.

Virgin Galactic. I met the president of Virgin Galactic last spring at the International Space Development conference in Washington. Very friendly guy, and a very articulate spokesman for the company, which wants to send the first paying tourists into suborbital space within three years. Lots that hasn't been written about them yet, and they've been very busy lately....

Bigelow Aerospace. I wrote a cover story on Robert Bigelow's commercial space station operation for the March issue of Popular Science. Since then Bigelow's made real progress toward a first launch early next year. Bigelow filled me in on some of his latest Special Projects on the phone recently, and I think some updates are in order.

SpaceX. This company looks at long last ready for a first launch before the year is out, possibly even by the end of this month. Unfortunately, that first launch will take place in the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific--not exactly easy to reach. Even so, I'll be following it closely since that first launch, if successful, will tremendously boost the company's credibility, put it on the road to profitability, and pave the way for SpaceX chief Elon Musk's Special Project for sending people to Mars.

Stay tuned....

Shuttle tanks spared, NASA still boondoggled

New Scientist says Lockheed Martin's space shuttle external fuel tank factory got through Hurricane Katrina with only minor damage. That leaves the space shuttle program free to continue boondoggling along toward its next in-flight disaster. If it can ever get off the ground again.

SpaceRef has just leaked the text of a speech NASA head Mike Griffin is to deliver to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) tomorrow. Griffin will confirm that the shuttle won't be cancelled any time soon and that the agency's next-gen spaceships will be based on shuttle technology. Seems to me there's more politics at work there than sound management; lots of people making lots of money off shuttle don't want their cash cow to die, no matter what the cost to taxpayers or astronauts.

Meanwhile, the release of NASA's blueprint for its Vision for Space Exploration has been held up as government officials squabble of how much it's going to cost, according to NASA Watch. NASA can't pull off President Bush's scheme to send people back to the moon and then on to Mars while continuing to pour billions of dollars into the shuttle; the money's just not there.

So where does that leave NASA? Firmly on the ground as far as I can see, unless a side bet Griffin briefly mentions in his speech gains some traction:

"As I stated earlier this year, one strategy NASA will employ to meet our future needs is to utilize, to the fullest extent possible, commercially-developed cargo resupply and, ultimately, crew rotation capabilities for the International Space Station. Indeed, we will issue this fall a request for proposal for such capabilities, with the development to be done on a commercial basis, much like that in the commercial communications satellite market. This is a priority for NASA. Utilizing the market offered by the International Space station's requirements for cargo and crew will spur true competition in the private sector, will result in savings that can be applied elsewhere in the program, and will promote further commercial opportunities in the aerospace sector."

In other words, Griffin wants to hire entrepreneurial companies as a hedge against the price gouging of the big aerospace firms that now have a lock on NASA's spaceflight operations. It's a good plan, but Griffin's got a lot of political inertia working against him. The moment of truth will come with this request for proposal to be issued this fall. Hopefully it will represent a substantial opportunity for the emerging commercial spaceflight industry to work side by side with NASA. If not, I'm going to return my full focus back to commercial spaceflight--that's where the real action's going to be.

Shuttle about to be hit while it's down

The major hurricane that's about to hit New Orleans also has a major space shuttle facility in its sights. If this facility is destroyed it will very likely spell the end of the shuttle, and perhaps NASA's big-budget shuttle replacement as well.

The facility is Lockheed Martin's external tank production facility, where all of the space shuttle big orange fuel tanks are built and serviced. It was foam flying off these tanks that destroyed space shuttle Columbia two and a half years ago, and that grounded Discovery after its last flight in July.

Political support for the shuttle program is already weakening. If the tank production plant is severely damaged or destroyed, shuttle supporters may not be able to muster the support for rebuilding, especially since NASA has already spent over a billion dollars trying without success to fix these tanks. The big-budget shuttle replacement, as currently conceived, also depends on the tanks, so that might go out the window too. All of which would give small, entrepreneurial companies like t/Space a clear shot at building America's next spaceship.

See reports from SpaceDaily and SpaceflightNow.

The Space Journalism Association

That's Eli Kintisch on the left, receiving the first annual Space Journalism Prize from founder Sam Dinkin at the International Space Development Conference in Washington last May.

Sam had this radical idea that all the space journalists should band together to keep each other up to date on developments in the field, exchange ideas on how to cover the big stories, and generally harness the power of the press to help boost the new commercial space industry. Read all about it in Sam's essay for The Space Review.

Sam put his money where his mouth was by fronting the first $1,000 Space Journalism Prize out of his own pocket. Poor Eli thought maybe he was the victim of an elaborate practical joke; he could hardly believe someone he didn't know would give him a fist full of cash just because his X Prize coverage for the St. Louis Post Dispatch was among the best reporting on commercial spaceflight last year. I enjoyed his reaction, and then I took this photo.

Sam also collected contact info for many of the top space journalists, and then sent the list to me and a couple of others to organize. It's the beginning of what could become a powerful force in the new industry; the press has a lot of influence on public opinion, and hence the cash flow and legislation that will drive the industry.

For instance, when (not if) the first fatality happens in commercial space, overly sensational coverage could doom the industry even as it gets off the ground. On the other hand, thoughtful reporting will put it in proper perspective as the normal, if tragic, growing pains of a new industry. The Space Journalism Association could help shape the direction of such coverage starting now, before a crisis hits.

When I was trying to get a science fiction writing career off the ground a few years ago, I used to dream about the old days, back in the '30s and '40s, when Asaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and the other giants of the field first started meeting regularly. If only I could have been around then, I thought. My dream has come true; I get to be one of the few shaping an organization that young bloods coming up in 10 or 20 years will clamor to join. It's a heady feeling.

NASA to hire private spaceships

It's a scoop! I nabbed it for Wired News, and it's today's lead story.

Read all about it at Wired.com, or, after today, at http://www.wired.com/news/space/0,2697,68528,00.html.

In essence, NASA's going to start hiring private spaceship companies like transformational Space Corporation (t/Space) to send its crews to orbit. It's a huge shift for NASA, and possibly the only thing that can save its manned space program.

The shuttles are down until at least next March according to the latest reports. Coincidently, that's when Lockheed Martin and a team made up of Boeing and Northrop Grumman are due with their concepts for NASA's big-budget next-gen spaceship. Concepts. No actual hardware, or even finished designs.

Meanwhile, t/Space has spent the last year building and testing hardware for an orbital spaceship it wants to hire out to NASA on a contract basis. If fully funded, they'll get to orbit way before the big guys.

To anyone who stops and thinks about the situation for more than five minutes, and that includes NASA administrator Mike Griffin, hiring lean, hungry space startups to get NASA off the ground again quickly and affordably makes a hell of a lot more sense than relying soley on fat, monolithic aerospace primes whose executives' salaries burn up more NASA money than t/Space's entire annual budget.

Lots of heavy-duty politics going to fight this one, though. Griffin can only do so much with the money directly under his control before he has to turn to congress to get this new program fully funded. And a lot of powerful dudes in Congress have a vested interest in keeping the (very lucrative) status quo, no matter how many astronauts have to die along the way.

Meanwhile, the Russian Space Agency has pulled way ahead of NASA, also as I report on today's Wired News. After today, hit http://www.wired.com/news/space/0,2697,68529,00.html.