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.