Rocketeers complete

Today I handed in the first draft of Rocketeers, my forthcoming book on commercial spaceflight. All 117,007 words of it, including endnotes. That's 389 manuscript pages, for those of you who don't get paid by the word. Or, probably about 320 pages in the published book.

Getting the manuscript in to my editor at Smithsonian Books today puts me right on schedule for the planned July 31, 2007 publication date. Just in time to take a little breather for the holidays, too.

Once I get my editor's feedback, I'll have to get cracking on rewrites and fact checking. And gathering photos for the photo spread, which will be in full color, I'm happy to report. And putting together an index.

Still a lot of work to be done, but the biggest chunk of it is behind me--three years of research and a year of writing. Whew!

Here's an updated chapter list:

Foreword (by a celebrity)
Prologue: Full Circle (origins of the book)
Chapter 1: Space or Bust (the X Prize)
Chapter 2: Go! (X Prize competitors)
Chapter 3: The Homebuilt Spaceship (SpaceShipOne)
Chapter 4: SpaceShipOne, Government Zero (winning the X Prize)
Chapter 5: NASA Hitches a Ride (X Prize aftermath)
Chapter 6: The 200G Roller Coaster (first commercial spacelines)
Chapter 7: Orbit on a Shoestring (SpaceX)
Chapter 8: Budget Suites of Outer Space (Bigelow Aerospace)
Chapter 9: Spaceport! (spaceports)
Chapter 10: The Sky's No Limit (the future)
End notes
Index

t/Space still flying

Just got off the phone with David Gump, president of Transformational Space Corporation (t/Space), a finalist for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Gump confirms that t/Space is still in operation despite losing out to SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler for NASA money to develop commercial spaceships for supplying the International Space Station.

It was t/Space that got the COTS ball rolling by suggesting to NASA that it pay t/Space for meeting milestones on the way toward developing a new spaceship that NASA would hire rather than owning and operating itself.

If t/Space didn't meet a milestone, NASA could walk away from the deal without losing any more money. If the company succeeded, NASA would end up with a lower-cost spaceship than one built under the traditional cost plus contracts that have resulted in tremendous cost overruns in the past. Which would leave NASA free to spend most of its efforts on its return-to-the-moon mission while continuing to meet its obligations for Space Station.

In exchange for a mere $6 million in NASA study money for coming up with ideas for paper spaceships, t/Space went balls-out and built actual, flying hardware instead to prove the viability its proposal. See my Popular Science article on t/Space for more details.

The same month (June, 2005) that t/Space successfully demonstrated a novel method for air launching spaceships, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin announced that he would seek proposals for building commercial spaceships using the exactly the money-for-milestones scheme proposed by t/Space. No coincidence, I think.

Gump says he and his company have a tougher road ahead of them without development money from NASA but that he intends to compete for contracts to service Space Station after the Space Shuttle retires in 2010. "There are customers in the national security sector who were disappointed that we weren't one of NASA's selections and are continuing to want to utilize us," Gump told me, "and there are commercial customers that we've met with and would use us as well." No deals have been cut yet for development money, though, so stay tuned for specifics.

Meanwhile, t/Space's booster provider, Air Launch LLC, is making steady progress toward building satellite launchers under Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Air Force contracts. Scaled up versions of these launchers will comprise t/Space's boosters, so t/Space isn't just stuck in a holding pattern waiting for money to come through--development is continuing.

Dr. Space

I'll be on Dr. David ("Dr. Space") Livingston's "The Space Show" to talk about my forthcoming commercial spaceflight book tomorrow night!

If you're in the Seattle area, you can tune in to KKNW at 1150 AM at 7 p.m. Pacific time, Tuesday November 14. Otherwise, hit the Web/Podcast at www.thespaceshow.com (where you'll get a bonus half hour).

If you don't know about The Space Show, you're in for a treat. Dr. Livingston routinely interviews most of the major players in the emerging commercial space industry and a whole lot of other folks who have had a major influence as well. Last night he had on Ed Mitchell, an Apollo moonwalker who has fascinating things to say about the spiritual benefits of space travel.

Another great thing about The Space Show is that in-depth interviews is all it does, so you get extended discussion with space entrepreneurs you can't get anywhere else. Short of calling these folks up yourself, you just can't get any closer.

Speaking of calling, you can ask me questions on the air during the show at (866) 687-7223. You can also send questions to be relayed to me on the air by Dr. Livingston to drspace@thespaceshow.com, or by instant chat via AOL IM,ICQ, or CompuServe to user name "spaceshowchat."

Book cover finalized

I think it's a clean, elegant design that tells the story. How do you show some exciting rocket hardware on a book jacket without favoring any one project or builder? That's how. The designers had a tough assignment and I think they pretty much aced it. Also, all that big print should show up well on Bigelow's space module. What do you think?

SpaceShipTwo interior mockup unveiled

I'm at the Javits Center in New York City for Wired magazine's NextFest 2006, where the Virgin Group's chief Richard Branson (center), Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn (left), and V.P. of astronaut relations Steve Attenborough this morning unveiled an interior mockup of Virgin's planned tourist spaceship, SpaceShipTwo.

The Virgin crew stressed that the interior was a concept only, but that it was very close to the design being built by Scaled Composites in Mojave California. The outside of the ship will be kept secret until its expected unveiling by Scaled late next year. A model of SpaceShipOne hung above the mockup to give a sense of scale.

SpaceShipTwo's passenger cabin will enclose 1,000 cubic feet, which felt spacious when I stepped inside it (shoes off first, please, entreated Virgin employees).

There's Branson, sans shoes, along with Alan Watts, the very first Virgin Atlantic frequent flier with enough miles (two million of them) for a trip to space.

After dropping from a jet-powered mother ship and firing its single rocket motor to reach space, the six passengers on board will be able to unbuckle their restraints to float free in the cabin.

Virgin initially planned a tether system to reel passengers back into their seats in time for the spaceship's reentry after four or five minutes of weightlessness. It's a simpler design without tethers, said Whitehorn. Preflight training will help passengers return to their seats, and even if they don't make it in time they will still be able to lie down on the floor for an equally comfortable reentry, said Whitehorn.

A bulkhead separating the passenger cabin from the two pilots in the cockpit will keep flying passengers safely away from control panels.


Though not part of the mockup, four big round analog dials will show passengers their speed, in multiples of the speed of sound (Mach), their g loads, altitude, and probably mission elapsed time, though Whitehorn wasn't completely sure about that last one when I asked him.

A display will show exterior camera views of the spaceship throughout the flight, while windows all around the fuselage will give passengers the best possible views as the ship slowly rolls at the top of its suborbital arc.

New book title, release date

The sales and marketing folks at Smithsonian Books had a good point: the original title for my forthcoming book on commercial spaceflight was going to be a mouthful for anyone trying to order it.

I like the sound of "The Entreprenauts," but people reading it don't know how to pronounce it, and people hearing it don't know how to spell it. So we decided together on "Rocketeers."

Some people might think that name applies exclusively to the 1991 Disney movie called The Rocketeer, but that movie was actually based on a Dark Horse comic of the same name by Dave Stevens. And neither work has a monopoly on the name. Merriam-Webster says:

Main Entry: rock·e·teer
Pronunciation: "rä-k&-'tir
Function: noun
1 : one who fires, pilots, or rides in a rocket
2 : a scientist who specializes in rocketry

Sure seems like a good fit to me.

Not that I mind the comic book reference; I've been reading comics since I could read, and if you want to know just how much of a geek I really am, consider that I've privately assigned the space entrepreneurs I've been covering to DC and Marvel comic book heroes. (Actually its pretty easy to pair these guys up. What millionaire space entrepreneur and DC superhero both drive awesome cars and have taken winged creatures as their symbol? Which rocketeer and Marvel hero are both gruff loners with massive sideburns? Ahem. Anyway....)

The good people at Smithsonian Books also wanted a more descriptive subtitle, so here's the full title we came up with:

Rocketeers: How a visionary band of business leaders, engineers and pilots is boldly privatizing space

We have a release date too: July 31, 2007.

The cover is in the final stages of design and I should get a look at it any day now.

First blogger in space

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft lifted off early this morning carrying Anousheh Ansari, who helped to fund the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for the first commercial spaceship.

Not only is Ansari the first woman to pay her own way into space, she's also the first blogger. The blog is presided over by X PRIZE founder and chair Peter Diamandis. Diamandis will post emails and photos from Ansari during Ansari's eight-day visit to the International Space Station via a $250,000 data link paid for by the foundation. Diamandis's own commentary is a also a rare treat and not to be missed.

Ansari says space fans will get a chance to chat with her in person at this year's X PRIZE Cup in Las Cruces, New Mexico late next month.

Flying my stuff

Check out the spiffy new banner above, from Bigelow Aerospace's "Fly Your Stuff" program. Bigelow's next space launch, currently scheduled for January 2007, will carry the cover of my book about commercial spaceflight. The book is due out next year from Smithsonian Books/Harper Collins. More news on that soon.

Meanwhile, if you want to fly an image or a small object to be photographed in space and displayed on Bigelow's website, now's the time to do it. Yesterday, Bigelow released the reservations that hadn't been claimed by then. Means a bunch more slots are available now. Get one for $295 until November 1 or until they're all gone, whichever comes first.

No, I didn't get my slot free, and Bigelow isn't paying me for the banner. Like it says, I'm just thrilled to be on board. And, well, hell, how could I resist doing the first book promo in space?

October PopSci out with two stories by me

You should be able to find the October issue of Popular Science on stands starting around now. I have a one-pager about Bigelow Aerospace's Fly Your Stuff program on page 48 and a three-pager about the Lunar Lander Challenge beginning on page 38. Sorry, no links available to the articles yet.

I mention the Bigelow piece first because I'm most proud of it. Robert Bigelow is running an honest-to-God space program, with actual hardware now in orbit, and for all the right reasons.

He wants to turn a profit, sure, by building orbiting space complexes for lease to anyone who can afford it. But he also wants to inspire as many people as he can to look up, as in beyond our current political and environmental problems, to consider, even for a moment, that we human beings are capable of fantastic things, if only we put our differences aside and work together.

In one little step along the way, he's opened the cargo manifest of his next orbiting test vehicle, currently slated for a January launch, to anyone with a spare $295. That price gets you a photograph or golf ball-sized object floating around on camera in the Genesis II, which is a 1/3-scale model of the habitable modules that Bigelow plans to launch by 2012. Your money back if you don't see yourself or your keepsake in space via Bigelow's website within 90 days of launch.

I think that's very cool, for two reasons. One, for a relatively small amount you can help support the emerging commercial space industry by buying a real service, and two, it'll give ordinary people a legitimate sense of ownership in a successful space venture.

Lockheed Martin gets Apollo 2.0

...and the crowd yawns. "I doubt that in the coming months and years I will be commenting much on Orion or the other shiny, precious projects in Mr. Griffin's Constellation," says Clark S. Lindsey, one of my favorite bloggers. I'm absolutely with him on that. Three point nine billion in NASA funny money through 2013, an additional $3.5 billion from 2009 to 2019, and hundreds of millions more for incidentals, according to the New York Times. And they won't stick to that budget, because as Warren E. Leary and Leslie Wayne point out in their Times article, "there is little incentive to stay within budget once a contract has been awarded."

All this for a manned lunar landing that will accomplish little more than was done by project Apollo almost 40 years ago. Orion, as NASA administrator Mike Griffin himself admits, is just "Apollo on steroids." It's still a throw-away capsule design to be built without consideration for cost or sustainability. NASA will throw these rockets at the moon, plant more flags, maybe pull up a few Chinese ones, and go back home. There's some lip service being paid to having Apollo 2.0 act as a stepping stone to Mars, but I don't think that idea is being taken very seriously by anyone. Can someone correct me if I'm wrong?

No, this looks to me mainly like a giant corporate welfare project designed to keep Big Aerospace and certain congressional districts happy.

Orion will plod along racking up cost overrun after cost overrun, while the entrepreneurial space community will surge ahead. You want to see some real action in space, check out Space Adventures, with its planned commercial lunar flyby mission. Odds are it'll handily beat Apollo 2.0 back to the moon, and for a tiny fraction of the cost.

Funny, Leary and Wayne don't even mention NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, ostensibly designed to give the burgeoning entrepreneurial space community a leg up in supplying NASA with commercial orbital spaceflights. Is that because with a measly $500 million spread out over five years and two competing companies it's too insignificant for serious consideration?

My own sneaking suspicion is that now that NASA has carefully selected the best of the commercial orbital space programs it will transform that miserly carrot into a stick as soon as it looks like either SpaceX or Rocketplane Kistler is in danger of leaving Lockheed Martin in the dust.

Book update

As regular readers of this blog know, I'm writing a book for Smithsonian Books/Harper Collins on commercial spaceflight. It's called The Entreprenauts: Visionaries and Daredevils of the New Space Age, and it's due on shelves next summer. That means I have through this year to write it. Since we're more than halfway through the year, it's a good time to take stock and see how well I'm holding to schedule.

As it turns out, I need to step up the pace. Actually, I need to hit the afterburners. I'll make it, but I have to cut back on non-essential activities. Like, unfortunately, blogging.

Much as I hate to do it, I'll need to tune into current events in the commercial space arena quite a bit less, and focus mainly on each chapter of the book as I write it. Means I'll be more of a spectator and a cheerleader for companies and people I happen not to be writing about in the book at the moment, and less of a reporter.

I'm still holding out for one last big spectacular trip I might possibly take before I have to turn in the book, but from here out I'll be traveling a lot less and writing the book a lot more until that sucker's done.

The field is moving way too fast now to keep track of all of it for the book, and I have to face it, there's no way this book can be up-to-the-minute. Best I can do is give a good treatment of the launch of the new space age, show some of what's been happening up to a certain, largely arbitrary cut-off, and use that to extrapolate where I think it's all heading. The result, I believe, will be an enduring, and entertaining, record of a truly important historical movement.

Meanwhile, tune into this blog every other week or so for my occasional posts on what's happening with the book and for glimpses of the people and machines I'm writing about--not necessarily breaking news, but stuff I think you'll find interesting.

August PopSci out now

...at least in digital form. Hit www.popsci.com, then click the "Digital Edition" link on the left side of the page to subscribe. For 10 bucks a year; it's hard to go wrong.

My Rocketplane feature isn't the cover story, as I (mistakenly) reported earlier, but it does get mention on the cover. Comments welcome, especially from Rocketplane folks; I haven't heard from them yet.

I'm just back from Mojave, where I got a chance to meet the Masten Space Systems folks and sit in on a test of the 500-pound-thrust, lox/alcohol fueled engine that will power their Lunar Lander Challenge vehicle this October at the X Prize Cup. Dave Masten and his people are still setting up their shop and test area, and like all the other engineers and other new hires flooding into the area, searching for housing.

I also dropped in on XCOR to check on the progress of the X-Racer (still on track for a debut at the X Prize Cup). XCOR is working on two other major projects besides the X-Racer: the Xerus suborbital spaceship, and a methane powered rocket engine for NASA, suitable for use on the space agency's planned Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV).

Build a lot, test a lot

That's the philosophy of John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace in Dallas, Texas, where last night I was treated to a test firing of the group's newest ethanol-and-liquid-oxygen powered rocket engine.

The photo above is from a test a couple of months ago, from Carmack's blog, taken by team archivist Matt Ross. It gives you a good sense of the setup for static tests.

After they finish filling the lox tank at right, the team retreats into the building and lowers a pair of steel garage doors. Call them blast doors. Carmack sits at a folding table just inside, where he fires the engine with a video gamer's joystick and monitors it on a laptop computer.

The beast roaring outside for a few seconds made the trip worthwhile for me all on its own. The lower panel of the blast door just above the engine shook and rattled and on a TV monitor a gorgeous jet of bright blue flame shot through with shock diamonds stabbed the air.

Here's some video of a test from the Armadillo website.

Carmack and his crew are at the point now where they're milling new ignition plates and building other components almost as fast as they can burn them up in static fire tests.

They're hard at work prepping for the Lunar Lander Challenge set for this October in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Their 600 pound Quad Vehicle, pictured below in another grab from the Armadillo website, will balance on the flame of the 5,000 pound thrust engine I saw being tested.


Carmack's getting serious about turning Armadillo from a band of dedicated amateurs into a profit-making company, and he's already lining up some business deals that could mark a real turning point for the company, even apart from a win at the Lunar Lander Challenge.

And as his team gains proficiency at building engines and flying unmanned craft, his ambitions are soaring; 64 of those 5,000 pound thrust engines, he told me, could send a payload into orbit.

Off to L.A. today for a visit to Mojave Spaceport tomorrow. Stay tuned.

SpaceShipOne, model airplane

Jeff Foust has some excellent commentary on yesterday's second anniversary of SpaceShipOne's first commercial spaceflight.

Meanwhile, I've been learning about the world's first homebuilt spaceship's roots in model airplanes. Burt Rutan, the ship's designer, has spoken of finding his best workers for SpaceShipTwo from among the ranks of model airplane builders rather from the traditional aerospace industry, and no wonder.

SpaceShipOne can trace a direct line of ancestry from the model airplanes Rutan built as a grade-schooler in the 1950s. In fact the very name of Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, comes from the concept of building scale models of bigger airplanes out of composites made of fiberglass and other high-strength cloth and glue--materials dedicated amateurs used to build Rutan's first airplane designs in their garages.

No, as Jeff sadly points out in his commentary, you still can't fly an X Prize class ship into space. But you can fly its tiny cousins, and a hell of a lot more cheaply.

Check out Dan Kreigh's WildRC.com for some eye-popping videos of these little machines whirling around in the Scaled hangar in Mojave California, and then if you're inspired, pick one up for just a couple hundred bucks.

Kreigh is a structural analyst at Scaled. Along with other work on SpaceShipOne, he designed and applied the spray-of-stars pattern on the spaceship's nose. And he builds and sells radio controlled model airplanes of the same carbon fiber construction as the spaceship itself. Kreigh reports, however, that the one-of-a-kind model of SpaceShipOne pictured above is not for sale.

Bigelow on COTS

Receiving money from NASA's new Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program will disqualify a company from winning Robert Bigelow's America's Space Prize, Bigelow confirmed for me yesterday.

Under COTS, NASA has allocated $500 million to be spent over five years to help entrepreneurial space companies develop spaceships that can send crew and/or cargo to the International Space Station. The space agency is expected to select companies to receive the first installment of this money by summer's end.

Robert Bigelow also has a vested interest in helping private enterprise reach orbit; he expects to launch the first commercial space station, now under development in North Las Vegas, by 2012.

But he doesn't have a way to get people and supplies there, which is why he launched his $50 million America's Space Prize in 2004 for the first private spaceship capable of docking with an orbital outpost.

America's Space Prize is not compatible with COTS, however. "One of the conditions of that was that federal money would not be allowed into that program," Bigelow told me of his prize. And that includes COTS money. "I still think that rule helps to level the playing field."

Bigelow to launch space fans to orbit, this year

"Your picture here!" That's the word from Robert Bigelow, who's just filled me in on the launch of his program to involve the public in his commercial space station program.

On June 16, he'll use a Russian Dnepr rocket to launch a 1/3-scale Genesis model of his planned commercial orbital space station. That much has been public for a while. What I didn't learn until just now is what will be on that module.

Freefloating inside will be 1,000 photocards and small personal objects contributed by Bigelow employees. If all goes well, those items will be continuously blown throughout the pressurized module in a kind of space collage. Six onboard cameras will stream video to Bigelow's new website, which will launch tomorrow or Friday. Seven external cameras will provide views of the Earth from space and the outside of the module.

If that doesn't get even the most disinterested member of the public at least intrigued about the possibilities of space travel, I don't know what will.

But it gets better. Subject to a successful launch of the first module, Bigelow will launch a second Genesis module in September, and that one will contain photos and other small items contributed by anyone who cares to pony up $295.

Think of it. For the next five years, while Genesis hurtles through its 550-kilometer-high orbit, you could fire up your Web browser, click the appropriate link, and watch the ultimate psychedelic space show--hundreds of photos, golf balls, belt buckles, rings, medals, you name it, twirling and spinning in zero gravity, and every once in a while, your smiling mug, or your daughter's, or your husband's, will peek out of the milieu for all the world to see. Hell, make it your screensaver. Or project it on a wall for a party. All for the price of an iPod, which if you bought now would just be an expensive paperweight in five years anyhow.

Phase one of the new website, outlining this program, launches by week's end. Keep an eye on it for details on how to make reservations. Also look for photos of Bigelow's just-completed mission control center in Las Vegas.

"We've been busy," said Bigelow with his characteristic flair for dramatic understatement when I expressed my astonishment at his recent activity. And how.

Bigelow wants me to give him feedback on his new Web site after it launches. Let me know what you think of it, either here or via the email address on my website, and I'll pass it on.

Diamandis wins $500,000 Heinlein Prize

Just got a press release from the X PRIZE Foundation's Ian Murphy about the inaugural Heinlein Prize--$500,000 to individuals helping to commercialize space. X PRIZE founder Peter Diamandis will get the award at a dinner in Houston on July 7.

The Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust administers the award, which honors the memory of science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein. Heinlein's work inspired legions of people to go to work in the field of space travel, including yours truly.

In the press release, Diamandis cites Heinlein's story "The Man Who Sold the Moon" as one of his prime influences. "In fact," he says, "I flew it as personal cargo aboard SpaceShipOne during the winning Ansari X PRIZE flight on October 4th, 2004."

Heinlein's young adult novel Rocket Ship Galileo was the first novel I ever read (because it had pictures), and it had a tremendous impact on me. I was then six years old, and from then on I wanted to write about space travel. I've sometimes wondered what would have happened if that first novel had been a romance....

Heinlein's work is characterized by ordinary people cobbling together ordinary resources to do extra ordinary things--like go to the moon. In Rocket Ship Galileo, three high school students and a nuclear physicist build a moon ship just because they can. It must have seemed possible in 1947, when that book came out. Then in the 1960s, NASA convinced everyone that only massive government programs could send people into space, and stories about people building spaceships in their back yards went by the wayside.

Now, finally, in the 21st century, science fact has caught up with the science fiction of the 1940s and 1950s. Private citizens are now building space ships for real, in large part because the winning of the Ansari X PRIZE proved it was possible. I can think of no person more deserving of an award called the Heinlein Prize than Diamandis.

NASA to pick COTS winner(s) August 8

NASA's schedule calls for awarding Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) funding for servicing the International Space Station with private spaceships on August 8.

Six commercial space companies have made it to the final round for consideration by NASA, but as Gwynne Shotwell, business development manager for Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), one of the finalists, cautioned me today, "It's not a win yet until we get an award. It's not clear whether they're going to pick all six."

I've heard speculation from other reps at companies among the six finalists that anywhere from one to three companies will get funding from NASA to aid development of their spaceships-in-progress, but no word yet from NASA on the actual number.

NASA's next step is to begin negotiations with the finalists. SpaceX has its "kick-off telecon" tomorrow.

NASA makes first round of cuts for COTS

No one I've spoken with is going on record yet, but I'm hearing from reliable sources that NASA made the first round of cuts for its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contracts with phone calls this morning.

Out of an estimated 24 companies that applied for NASA's new program to supply the International Space Station with crew and supplies, an unofficial six have made the first round of cuts, my sources tell me. Companies reported to have made this cut are:

Andrews Space
Rocketplane Kistler
SpaceDev
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX)
SpaceHab
Transformational Space Corporation (t/Space)

No money will be awarded until NASA makes the final round of cuts, possibly in June or July, when one to three of these companies will get money out of a $500 million pot NASA has allocated to servicing Space Station with commercial spaceships.

My own feeling is that COTS is NASA's best hope for maintaining its manned presence in space. NASA has relied on the Russian Soyuz spaceships for space access since space shuttle Columbia broke up on reentry in February 2003.

NASA has flown only one shuttle flight since then, its much heralded "return to flight" mission last July. Even after $1 billion in fixes, that flight was marred by the same flying external tank foam problem that doomed Columbia, and the shuttles were again indefinitely grounded.

Meanwhile, a cadre of small, nimble companies has been making steady progress toward comparatively inexpensive commercial access to space.

Stay tuned.

--UPDATE at 5:35 ET--
The sixth and final company on my list, SpaceDev, has fallen into place.

--UPDATE at 7:21--
Just heard from Chuck Lauer, new business development manager at Rocketplane. He confirms that Rocketplane Kistler is a finalist for COTS. He says he's very encouraged by the fact that Big Aerospace stayed off the list; it shows that "NASA has really seen the value of New Space." Referring to the big, multibillion dollar contracts to be awarded to major aerospace firms for building NASA's new manned moon ships, he says that NASA should go further, and "take $500 million out of the Lockheed-Boeing welfare fund" to fund more entrepreneurial space efforts.

SpaceShot gaining momentum

Sam Dinkin, CEO of SpaceShot, the just-launched online game giving away rides to suborbital space as prizes, told me at the ISDC yesterday that his best customer has plunked down $500 in SpaceShot's first month of operation. Space-Shot.com got 15,000 page views on launch day last month, representing 5,000 unique visits, said Dinkin.

Not bad for a venture awarding rides on a vehicle that has yet to fly, and a strong indicator of the tremendous potential demand for suborbital spaceflights among those not wealthy enough to buy $200,000 tickets outright. Dinkin's identified a way to tap that market, essentially allowing those of ordinary means to pool their resources to send selected hopefuls among them into space.

The game costs $3.50 per play, which involves predicting the next day's weather in Central Park. Predict better than others playing, and you advance through rounds of play, bringing you ever closer to a ride on the suborbital Rocketplane XP under development by Rocketplane Kistler. Dinkin has a deal with the company potentially worth hundreds of flights, including a guaranteed block of flights in the vehicle's first six months of service.

Dinkin won't tell me how much he paid Rocketplane to reserve those seats, but he's hedging his bets; the money's in escrow, and he can pull it and put it with another provider if Rocketplane doesn't fly. Dinkin's covering his customers too, as explained in the official rules:

"In the event that a given winner cannot participate in such a flight, through medical or other causes, or technical problems with the spacecraft, winners agree to accept the alternative prize of $150,000 instead. SpaceShot may revise this figure downward in $5,000 increments for new wins when a player receives the cash alternative prize."

Nice.

Virgin Galactic's got a play-for-spaceflight plan too, but it hasn't launched yet. In fact it seems somewhat...neglected, with its website promising that the games will begin "in Autumn 2005."

Virgin and its spaceship contractor Scaled Composites have first-mover advantage in this space (literally), having launched the first commercial spaceship in 2004, but Rocketplane, along with SpaceShot, seem poised to catch up fast. And that competition can only be good for potential customers of both ventures.

Lunar Lander Analog Challenge launched

Greetings from the International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles, where X Prize founder Peter Diamandis and NASA second in command Shana Dale have just opened the Lunar Lander Challenge.

This is the first of NASA's X-Prize-inspired prizes to crack a million dollars, for which NASA had to get congressional approval.

The X Prize Foundation is administering the prize for NASA, and competitors will fly vehicles at this October's X Prize Cup in Las Cruces, NM.

Winners will have to demonstrate the ability to build ships that can land on the moon's surface.

Demo a rocket, manned or otherwise, that can fly to 50 meters altitude, translate sideways to a landing point 100 meters away, land on rocky, simulated lunar terrain shut down its engines and then launch again (refueling is allowed) to return to the original launch point, and $1.25 million could be yours.

Prizes for lesser accomplishments are available too, ranging down to $150,000.

Tellingly, the video clips Diamandis played of hovering and landing rockets were both from John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace, which has been working on vertical takeoff/vertical landing rockets for a number of years now. In fact the Lunar Challenge seems tailor-made for Armadillo, which demoed the only vertical takeoff rocket at last year's Countdown to the X Prize Cup. Check for complete rules at www.xprize.org.

--UPDATE AT 6:10 P.M. PACIFIC--

David Masten of Masten Space Services says he's in for the Lunar Lander Challenge. So that's two companies I know about now throwing hats in the ring already.

Masten also confirmed a rumor I'd been hearing around Mojave Airport: that his company is setting up shop there in June.

Pictures from the rocket factory

Check out Alan Boyle's excellent writeup of a tour of SpaceX he took with other ISDC attendees yesterday.

While the tour was going on, I got a briefing from SpaceX propulsion chief Tom Mueller for my book. After the tour I also caught up with CEO Elon Musk at his desk. Musk told me that all of SpaceX's activities are pointed in one direction--building the infrastructure to land people on Mars.

After we talked, Musk turned me loose on SpaceX's main shop floor to take photographs. Enjoy these as a visual complement to Boyle's article.


Merlin 1C, the nextgen SpaceX engine coming together on the bench.


Falcon 9 components under construction






Dragon crew capsule mockup. Musk tells me it's been a fairly low-key side project ongoing in parallel with Falcon development. Musk plans to fund Dragon development with revenue from Falcon launches, then pursue Robert Bigelow's America's Space Prize and NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contracts.




Falcon 9 fuel tank caps.





Machinist Quang Dang at work.




Shop floor.

Rutan speaks

Last night in Mojave I saw SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan give a talk to high school students who'd made 4.0 grade averages. Rutan told them what to expect as they came out into the workforce.

"When you get back from four or five years of college, Mojave's going to look a whole lot different. Now, that's really quite something to say, because if you go back five years ago, Mojave didn't look a whole lot different."

In fact, the place hasn't changed much since Rutan moved there to set up shop in 1974. He said he regretted not doing more to help the town over the years. "I remember being quoted in a magazine once saying it's a crummy little desert town, and I've had to face up to that quote for a long time. But have to say, I live in that crummy little desert town, and I think it's very special."

Now, though, real progress is on the way. Rutan said he's identified $1 billion in private money committed to the blossoming commercial spaceflight industry around the world, and that's just what's been publicly pledged.

"You can also conclude that most of the folk, if they had any brains, would not announce what they're going to do, and what commitments they're going to do, and to tell their competition what they're going to do. And you can guess, and you'd guess right, that roughly three or four times the amount of money that you see being committed is actually being committed."

What's that mean for Mojave? "I think there is a reasonable chance that Mojave will be for space flying what Silicon Valley is for the big industries of the last two decades."

The first order of business is to attract the workforce needed to build up this new industry, and Rutan's been having a very hard time doing that, not the least of reasons for which is the effect Mojave has on many newcomers.

"We used to keep a record of this," explained Rutan, "and that is: if you come from out of state to work at Scaled composites, how long continuously does your wife cry after she sees Mojave? [Laughter from the audience.] The record was seven and a half weeks. I like to think that even though it hasn't looked a lot better since I got here in '74, that a lot of that's going to change.... There needs to be better housing here, and there needs to be some other things to do such that people look forward to living here."

In addition to hiring all the help he can find to build new spaceships, Rutan's also building up Scaled's physical plant. "We have already more than doubled our shop space just in the last eight months on Mojave airport and we'll be building one or two new buildings over the next six to nine months." Eventually a hotel, a space passenger terminal, and training facilities that include a centrifuge will support two to four spaceflights a day out of Mojave Spaceport.

As for the question on everyone's mind, what SpaceShipTwo will look like, Rutan gave little away. "We are back in hiding, like we normally are. Occasionally you'll see some promotional stuff coming out of one of the spacelines, but we in general don't feel that's the right thing to do. So don't expect us to be doing any announcements or promotions or inviting the press in to look at our progress and so on. We feel it's best to let our competition think that we've quit. You just get a lot more fun showing somebody stuff that they don't expect. I will not talk about the schedule of our program, because if I get late I have to hunt up all those people and tell them why I'm late."

He did say that SpaceShipTwo's larger size relative to SpaceShipOne will allow passengers to float around the cabin. Instead of rocketing to space from the skies over Mojave as SS1 did, SS2 will drop from its White Knight 2 carrier plane over the Pacific Ocean. It'll boost into space while pointed back toward land so that by the time it leaves the atmosphere it'll be over the San Joaquin Valley north of Bakersfield, California. It'll reenter north of the town of Tehachapi, to glide back to landing where it took off at Mojave Spaceport.

The spaceship will be able to travel 200 miles from boost to landing, and the thinking is that flying over ocean, land, mountains, desert in a single flight will give passengers the best possible views.

Taking a jab at the proposed Southwest Regional Spaceport in New Mexico, Rutan said "Some people have read the papers and think we're all moving from Mojave to New Mexico. That's not true at all. I have no intention of going to New Mexico; I don't think it'd be a very good place to do a spaceflight. I believe when I get out of the atmosphere I want to see the oceans and the mountains, not just the kind of crap you can see from New Mexico."

Radio Mojave

If you want to find out what's going on in Mojave, California, birthplace of the commercial space age, stop in at the Radio Shack on Highway 14 and ask for Jim.

Jim Balentine, the warm, big-hearted owner, grew up in Mojave, and with little prompting, he'll tell you about the days when the airport was just a closed military base. When he was a kid, he and his friends raced land sails up and down the runways and played in foxholes left over from military maneuvers.

Mojave is a fun place to live, says Jim, especially if you love airplanes. Just hang around long enough and you'll see craft unlike any others in the world. Jim took photos of SpaceShipOne's carrier plane, White Knight, months before its official roll-out.

Jim's on the airport board and he's a general aviation pilot himself. He'll be glad to sell you a CB scanner and tune it to the airport tower for you.

He sees a bright future for the airport, and by extension the town itself. Commercial spaceflight could turn into one of the world's biggest industries, he says, and Mojave will continue to foster its greatest innovations, though its capacity for passenger spaceflights will be limited. That's because the airport's mission is to focus on flight test, not routine operations.

Jim pointed me to the air/spaceport's mission statement on its website:

"Foster and maintain our recognized aerospace presence with a principle focus as the world's premier civilian aerospace test center while seeking compatibly diverse business and industry."

That last, about "compatibility," is key. Too much routine traffic, and businesses conducting flight tests will have to look elsewhere for unrestricted airspace.

Mojave rising

One of the things I'd like to do in my book is show how the emerging commercial spaceflight industry is changing a dusty little frontier town in California.

Mojave has been a crossroads all its life, a stopping place on the way to someplace else. Mule teams, trains, trucks, airplanes have all left their indelible marks on the town. Now it's a crossroads to space. This newest mode of transport has set in motion what could become the biggest transformation of all.

I'm spending time in and around Mojave this week to try to capture the character of the place and where it might be heading. I've been talking with locals, people who grew up there as well as those who moved there anywhere from 8 years to three months ago. Some highlights from yesterday's visit:

--Quote of the day (from a new resident): "Mojave is a toilet bowl." Perhaps half of the 3,000 residents are unemployed and drug use is a problem says the new resident. A lot of the town's buildings are in various stages of collapse. At first glance, you wonder why the hell anyone would choose to live there. And yet....

--It's a true frontier town, an edge, with all that entails. Another person I spoke with yesterday moved there 8 years ago and now it's home and she loves it there. You can see over the horizon in Mojave, look over the edge of the world and begin to see what might lie beyond. That puts an electric charge in the air that I can feel even on a day trip.

--The place is on the upswing. New single family houses are going up on the edges of town, and developers can't keep up with demand from engineers and others hiring on to new space companies like Scaled Composites and XCOR. One new hire I talked to at XCOR spent three weeks trying to find some place to live, any place.

--Too much development, and of the wrong kind, could ruin the features of Mojave that make it ideal for commercial spaceflight. Yet prosperity must include development. So there's tension between those forces. Ideally, says one of my contacts, Mojave will become a destination for space tourists, media, and spectators, who will spend money there, and then leave.

UPDATE AT 1:35 FROM MOJAVE AIR/SPACEPORT: Bill Deaver, editor and publisher of the Mojave Desert News has just set me right on a couple of points...Unemployment here is only 8 to 10%. And something that really pisses him off is East Coast journalists breezing through here and calling the place "dusty." Oops! Sorry Bill!

One-man space bureau

I don't know how he does it, but Jeff Foust, an analyst at Futron Corporation, has managed to establish himself as a one-man space bureau covering everything from space tourism to NASA space probes and space law. And he's damn good at it.

Foust's Spacetoday.net distills the important space news from around the Web several times a day--a feat which in itself prompted me to ask him about his staff. Which he doesn't actually have; it's all him. Foust's online Space Review does feature contributions from other writers, but he writes for that one too. I never leave home without Space Today; it's my home page. I also look to the Space Review for some of the best commentary in the field.

Foust also runs a political space blog and, now, a personal spaceflight blog at personalspaceflight.info. He's blasting away on that one now, even as I type this, reporting from the Space Access conference in Phoenix. Needless to say, it's already one of my must-read blogs, along with Clark Lindsey's HobbySpace, Dan Schrimpsher's SpacePragmatism, and Rand Simberg's Transterrestrial Musings, among others.

And all this with a day job. Okay, I'm jealous. But I bet he doesn't have a 10 month old baby daughter who loves cheese and shrieks with delight at a dog wagging its tail. She's mine. All mine.

Rocketplane on the runway

I'm on assignment now for a Popular Science feature on Rocketplane-Kistler. I have Rocketplane's Chuck Lauer to thank for that one--he just kept at me until he got me out for a visit to Rocketplane HQ in Oklahoma. And boy, am I glad he did.

As far as the press is concerned, Rocketplane has been something of a dark horse in the suborbital tourism market, overshadowed by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and his contractor, Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites. But that's about to change.

Virgin's planning for a rollout of its SpaceShipTwo tourist vehicle in late 2007. Rutan himself tells me he doesn't like to publicly commit to dates as a general rule because he doesn't like to break promises. Seems prudent, given the delays common in the rocket business.

That said, Rocketplane is planning for test flights in early 2007, with the first revenue flight before the year is out. If they make it, they'll beat Virgin to the punch and generate a lot of great press in the process. Judging from the quality of people I met in Oklahoma, I'd say they have an excellent shot at it.

Rocketplane Passenger Number One, Reda Anderson of Los Angeles, thinks so too. I spent a good bit of time with her in Oklahoma and I learned a lot from her about the customer perspective on the emerging commercial spaceflight industry. For example:

--Weightlessness isn't an important part of the experience for Anderson. She figures she can take a parabolic flight like that offered by Zero-G Corp if she wants to go weightless. No, it's the view of Earth from space she's after, and so she doesn't care whether she's able to get up from her seat on her suborbital flight or not.

--Anderson is into "world-class events." Like being one of the first on a suborbital passenger ship. And diving to the bottom of the ocean to see the Titanic wreck firsthand, which she did last summer. These kinds of pioneering experiences often come with primitive accommodations, and she doesn't mind that a bit. She's not after a resort experience on these trips. If she has to pee in the bush on a trip through the wilds of South Africa, why then, so much the better; it's part of the appeal.

--Being able to quiz engineers at length about the choices they're making during the design process, thumping on test hardware, asking pointed questions about the risks involved, all were important to Anderson in deciding to put her $20,000 deposit with Rocketplane. She made her money in real estate, not intangibles like stocks, and she likes to invest in things she can touch and see up close. As I found out myself, that's Rocketplane all the way.

In fact, with SpaceShipTwo coming together behind locked doors, it looks to me like Rocketplane's going to be where the action is in commercial spaceflight in the coming months. Watch them closely.

SpaceShipTwo development is closed to the press, but I don't know whether prospective customers have access. I have a query into Virgin on that and I'll let you know what I find out.

Did I mention Anderson's 66 years old? She wanted me to guess her age, which I refused to do for fear of offending her. I needn't have worried since I would have guessed mid-fifties.

Virgin Galactic and Orion Propulsion updates

I've been on the road with my wife Wendy and baby Amelie since last week, first hitting Nashville for the Women in Aviation conference, with a detour to Madison, Alabama for a visit with Orion Propulsion. Now we're settled into Southern California, within striking distance of Mojave. We'll be here through the International Space Development Conference in L.A. in May.

Brian Binnie, one of the test pilots for Scaled Composites who won the X Prize in 2004, gave an entertaining talk at the conference about the fun aspects of space travel. His was a wonderful counterpoint to more staid talks by shuttle astronauts Eileen Collins and Hoot Gibson, with whom he was paired.

Someone recently sent Binnie a video of a dance party that popped up in Mojave the night of Binnie's X Prize winning flight, complete with laser light show. Binnie played that intercut with video from his flight along with some suitably psychotronic music ("Voyages by Chandelier" by Casino Mansion). When SpaceShipOne's engine ("howling like a possessed cat," said Binnie) cut off and the spaceship sailed into the "mystery and menace" of space, as he put it, the music went silent too. It was an inspired presentation and it got a lot of applause from the hundreds of people in the audience.

Over lunch afterwards, Binnie told me and Wendy that SpaceShipTwo is under construction and that the simulator is up and running. He's pleased with the way the new ship handles in the simulator. Design improvements over SpaceShipOne (differently shaped wings, for instance) and the ship's greater weight will make for a smoother piloting experience, he said.

The new design won't be unveiled to press or the public until the new carrier plane is also built. Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn, who had to miss the conference due to an ear infection, told me by email just now that nothing will be shown until late 2007, just before flight testing begins.

Orion Propulsion chief Tim Pickens showed me around his fabrication and development plant just a couple of hours' drive from Nashville, and took me to lunch at the Italian fast food joint where he first sketched out SpaceShipOne's propulsion system on a napkin for Burt Rutan. Soon after that meeting with Rutan, Pickens went to work at Scaled Composites as head of propulsion for SpaceShipOne. Back at the office, he showed me his working papers from Scaled to prove it.

Orion has no investors, and is completely self-sustaining. It got off the ground with a contract from AirLaunch LLC to build rocket engine test stands (ongoing), and now also runs engine tests and builds engines and test stands for a multitude of other companies.

Pickens and Orion chief technical officer John Bossard showed me a proposal for a propulsion system in progress and then treated me to a test firing of an engine built for it. The company constructed the engine to send along with the proposal to one of their potential customers.

I've been sworn to secrecy on what the system is for or who might buy it, but I can tell you it was worth the price of admission alone. These guys aren't just talking about cool stuff, they're actually building it, and at a profit too.

Instead of trying to build full-up spaceships like other entreprenurial space companies, they're building the systems that make those other companies go. Selling shovels to the miners, as Pickens puts it, and staying out of the inevitable polics and in-fighting that arises between government, contractors, and private companies. Very smart.

Advent going for COTS

I spoke yesterday with Advent Launch Services' Jim Akkerman, and he told me that his company has submitted a proposal for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program (COTS).

Advent was an X Prize competitor with a methane/liquid oxygen powered vehicle that would launch from the Gulf of Mexico and return to a water landing. FedEx pilot and son of Mercury 7 astronaut Gus Grissom, Scott Grissom, had signed on as the ship's pilot. But a fire during an engine test in 2003 put the brakes on Akkerman's X Prize attempt.

Undaunted, Akkerman went back to work on his initial plan for an orbital vehicle, shown here. Working on his NASA pension with donated supplies and work space, Akkerman completed a 20,000 pound thrust methane/LOX engine for the orbital vehicle. NASA's Stennis Space Center has it now, to test modifications they're making to allow them to test methane-powered engines as well as hydrogen engines.

Akkerman tells me he built that engine for about 1,500 bucks, hand-crafting the parts for it himself. He was a propulsion engineer at NASA for 36 years before retiring, or "graduating," as he puts it, in 1999.

He says that to make the COTS requirements, he'll have to produce an engine that delivers 30,000 pounds of thrust, but he thinks he can boost the pressure on his existing engine to get that.

His connections at NASA have helped him to some degree, as in gaining access to Stennis, though he continues to express the frustration he felt as an engineer there trying to advance cheaper, more efficient designs against bureaucratic inertia. He's excited about COTS, though, feels it represents real change for the better at NASA.

The tests of Akkerman's engine at Stennis could begin as early as June, though Akkerman's not holding his breath, given the glacial pace typical of NASA projects. In the meantime, Akkerman and colleague Glenn Smith, former deputy manager for Space Shuttle Systems Engineering, are at work on their ship's reaction control system for maneuvering in space.

"Riding Rockets"

Anyone who still believes the Space Shuttle isn't an unnecessarily dangerous ride to space should pick up Mike Mullane's recently published Riding Rockets.

Not only is the book a great read, superbly written by an apparent natural at the craft, but it's a body blow to the NASA establishment who insist on pouring good money after bad into a system that should have been scrapped long ago. Not that Mullane would have passed up any chance to fly it. As he so succinctly puts it on page 30, he and his fellow class of 1978 astronauts wanted to fly so badly that "If someone had told us our chances of being selected as an astronaut would improve if we sacrificed our left testicle, we would have grabbed a rusty razor and begun cutting."

But he doesn't let that hold him back on telling it like it is regarding NASA's God-like hubris in designing a spaceship powered by a dangerous solid fuel booster design without a usable escape system and covered by heat shielding so fragile that the machine earned the nickname "glass rocket." As Mullane says on page 34, "While no member of the shuttle design team would have ever made the blasphemous claim, 'We're gods. We can do anything,' the reality was this: The space shuttle itself was such a statement. Mere mortals might not be able to design and safely operate a reusable spacecraft boosted by the world's largest, segmented, uncontrollable solid-fueled rockets, but gods certainly could."

Along with some of the most evocative and poetic descriptions of the Earth as seen from space I've yet read, Mullane recounts the butt-clenching fear he and his colleagues felt while strapped in waiting for liftoff, knowing all too well that every launch of the space shuttle was a game of Russian Roulette. "We were all the same," Mullane says of himself and his crewmates. "Anybody who wasn't terrified getting ready to fly a space shuttle must have chased a couple Valiums with a fifth of vodka."

But the book's purpose isn't to bash NASA; it's a brave, unflinchingly honest account of one astronaut's journey from childhood into space, by turns laugh-out-loud funny and hauntingly sad; I'll never forget Mullane's reconstruction of the Challenger crew's last two and a half minutes.

Mullane was to be Dr. David Livingston's guest tonight on The Space Show, but he's had to reschedule. Mullane and Livingston are now hashing out a new date, and Livingston will let me know as soon as its finalized. I'll pass it on here.

--UPDATE on 3/21/04--
Got the word today from Livingston:

"Mullane is set for The Space Show on Sunday, April 16, 12-1:30PM Pacific Time."

To listen, surf to http://www.thespaceshow.com/ and click the "Listen Live" link, or click the archived show in the Program Archives on that same page to listen after the show airs.

The Entreprenauts (again)

I've been gently reminded that I haven't actually revealed much about my forthcoming book, The Entreprenauts: Visionaries of the New Space Age. Not so terrible, I guess, except that I promised that I would.

I'll give you a rough sketch of it now, fill in more details as my year of writing rolls on. Actually I conceived of this entire blog mainly as a running commentary on the topics covered in the book as I write the book, so stay tuned, please.

First some stats....

Title: The Entreprenauts: Visionaries and Daredevils of the New Space Age
Publisher: Smithsonian Books/Harper Collins
Publication date: Summer 2007
Manuscript due date: Early 2007

I started my professional writing life as a science fiction writer, so my sensibilities lean toward stories that move, even in nonfiction. I like interesting characters in action. I'm not so crazy about long stretches of exposition, "info dumps," in the parlance of sf writers. Can't really avoid those in nonfiction, of course, but I work to keep those at a minimum, and to use them mainly to advance the story; in this case, the story of commercial spaceflight.

That also means I'm focused exclusively on actual people building actual hardware. I've had my fill of NASA-style viewgraphs and promises that turn out to be empty. This book will tell the story of commercial spaceflight through the words and deeds of engineers, machinists, business leaders, and pilots building and flying real hardware designed to send real people into outer space.

It's a good story, even a great one, on a par with anything from the typewriters of Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and all the other sf greats who inspired me to become a writer. I don't pretend to be at the level of those guys at their peak, but I do have a huge advantage over them: I don't have to make anything up. I can pick up the phone or hop on a plane to talk to the characters of my book. The people I'm writing about and the machines they're building are much more exciting than anything I could make up, anyway, because they're real.

I also believe in the promise of the commercial space age--that is a future powered by cheap solar energy and other resources from space, and the power of personal spaceflight to change life on this planet for the better.

So those are my biases. I'll get those out of way in an extended introduction showing how the events of October 4, 2004, the day the X Prize was won, changed my own life for the better.

Next up, in chapter one, a draft of which I'm finishing now, I'll have a treatment of the founding of the X Prize, background on Peter Diamandis and some of the other founders, and the day in 1994 when Diamandis and Gregg Maryniak took a Cessna 172 up on an aerial tour of Manhattan and started thinking about the early days of aviation and the prizes that laid the foundations of the modern aviation industry.

Next I'll tell the stories of some of the X Prize competitors, including Brian Feeney of the da Vinci Project, with whom I spent a week in 2003. Then I'll move on to the development of SpaceShipOne and Rutan's brainstorm that led to the building of the world's first privately funded spaceship. I plan to devote a chapter each to the two X Prize winning flights. I want to put readers in the cockpit for those flights, to recreate the actual experience that the book is all about. That gets us to the book's mid-point, the core, which is a treatment of the suborbital tourist business SpaceShipOne launched and the people involved in that effort.

The second half of the book will present detailed portraits of many of the other major players in the field--Elon Musk and SpaceX, Robert Bigelow and Bigelow Aerospace, XCOR and the Rocket Racing League.... I can't hit everybody with the kind of detail I want for this book--there's just too much activity in the field at this point, so I'll have to focus on just a few. That's a great problem to have, though, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Finally I'll finish the book with a speculative chapter on what the future might look like 25 years from now, after the industry has found its main markets and has begun to mature. I'm looking forward to really cutting loose in this chapter.

In fact, since it will be the only truly speculative section of the book, I'm considering put it in the form of an annotated science fiction story. What the hell, it's my book, so I can do what I want, right? I have a really cool unpublished piece about a guy whose job it is to repo rockets from businesspeople who can't make their payments. That one might make a good foundation....

My Rocket Racing article now on Popsci.com

Thanks to Clark Lindsey at HobbySpace.com for pointing out that my February Popular Science cover story is now available at PopSci.com. At the moment it's the top story. It should enjoy long life on this page.

"All systems go" for New Mexico spaceport

That's the word from Rick Homans, head of economic development for the state of New Mexico. I phoned into a press conference he gave this afternoon in which he reported that the New Mexico legislature this morning voted to approve spending $100 million in state funds to build the nation's first purpose-built commercial spaceport.

"It's all systems go for the spaceport," Homans told reporters. "We're all very tired and we're all very relieved.... For this whole project to make it through in such good shape...really says a lot about the support from the legislature. There all kinds of things that could have gone wrong that didn't go wrong, so we're thankful for that. Myself and my staff here, we're all passionate about this project. We believe in it, we believe it's good for the state of New Mexico, and we work on it heart and soul. We knew we had a lot at stake during this legislative session; it was a 'yes' or 'no' vote on building a spaceport and launching this new industry in this state. We're happy we got a thumbs up and that we can move forward and fulfill this dream for the state of New Mexico."

Next step is to issue an RFP, some time in March, for the architecture and engineering of the spaceport, said Homans, with a view toward completing design of the spaceport by the end of this year, and bids going out to construction firms to start building by first quarter of next year.

That's contingent on getting an FAA license for the spaceport. To that end, Homans and several other state officials are heading to Washington early next week for talks with FAA officials. They'll also be soliciting additional funding from the federal government.

"We've always viewed this as a project of national significance because it really supports the new U.S. space program and space policy," said Homans.

Homans also reported that the spaceport's inaugural launch, by UP Aerospace, originally scheduled for March 27, has been pushed back to mid-May.

"The Moonlandings: An Eyewitness Account"

When I saw the subtitle of this book I was skeptical. After all, how could someone who hasn't been there write an "eyewitness" account of landing on the moon?

Turns out, though, Reginald Turnill offers a fascinatingly unique perspective on the Apollo era--that of a journalist in the press pool at Cape Canaveral when the moon rockets lifted off.

That perspective especially interests me because I'm a space journalist who missed out on the Apollo era; Turnill puts readers there at the Cape for the thunder of liftoff and the nail-biting drama of landing on the moon, but he also gives us journalists scrambling for the best hotels at the Cape, the mad dash from there after a launch to get to mission control in Houston, and the fierce competition for limited satellite bandwidth to file stories. All of which makes for a captivating read.

Turnill was the BBC's aerospace correspondent during the Apollo flights, well known in Britain for his print, radio, and TV reporting. He got to know many of the astronauts and other major figures of the first space age well, and kept up with them long afterwards.

Among many other memorable sections of the book is Turnill's account of his complicated relationship with Wernher von Braun, the architect of the moon rockets. Most American space enthusiasts know that von Braun also helped to engineer the precursor to the moon rockets, the V2, for Nazi Germany. But though that fact is more or less academic to us Yanks, it was anything but to Turnill and his countrymen and women who suffered under the V2's onslaught during World War II. From page one of the first chapter:

"My own encounters with von Braun started in the late 1950s. The impact in 1944 in Sydenham, south-east London, of one of his first V2 rockets had hastened the arrival of my younger son, and for two years I could not bring myself to shake his hand. After that I was surprised to find quite a warm professional friendship developing between us."

Some of Turnill's insights into the characters of other major space age figures seem especially relevant to the commercial spaceflight industry of today, with its emphasis on sending ordinary people into space. For instance, a section from one of his original reports:

"...it was [Alan Shepard's] ability to face the glare of a television world with a combination of modesty and assurance that really won the hearts of the Americans. We've just seen Yuri Gagarin do exactly the same thing. Like Shepard, he made us feel there was no reason why we should not be spacemen too. All that's needed is a little knowledge and careful training. Supermen were superfluous."

That statement could just as easily apply to Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie, the first commercial astronauts, who blasted into space more than 40 years later.

Apologies to Granger

Oops! I called the RRL's Granger Whitelaw "George" in my Rocket Racing League report on Wired.com, posted today. Working to get it corrected.... Meantime, throw 'em if you got 'em; I deserve it--at least until I get this thing fixed.

--UPDATE at 12:45 ET--
Problem fixed. That'll teach me to proofread more carefully before I ship a story. Now it's a good article.

My editor at Wired News says its the most detailed piece on the recent RRL developments he's seen. I guess we're both biased, but I think I did manage to pack a lot in there and still make it an entertaining read. See for yourself and let me know what you think.

Rocket Racing League Intros First Team

Just got out of a press conference in New York where Peter Diamandis and Granger Whitelaw introduced the first team of their Rocket Racing League (RRL), Leading Edge Rocket Racing. Robert "Bobaloo" Rickard and Don "Dagger" Grantham, both F-16 fighter pilots as well as entrepreneurs, founded the team with rocket racing in mind as the next great challenge for fighter pilots, who, Rickard says, will be rendered obsolete by robot vehicles in 10-15 years. That's Rickard in the flight suit shaking hands with RRL CEO Granger Whitelaw as Peter Diamandis, RRL cofounder and X Prize chairman (left) and Grantham look on.

After putting down their initial $100,000 deposit to secure their place as the RRL's charter team, they'll have to come up with $1.1 million more for the X-Racer itself, which is set to debut October 19-22 at this year's X Prize Cup. They'll also have to pay $500,000 in fees for a full race season, the first of which is to launch next year. Those prices make RRL team ownership a bargain compared to auto racing, which can cost a team $18 million a year, says Whitelaw, a former Indycar auto race team owner.

Want to own your own RRL team? Nine more slots are open, and the RRL is taking applications. Apply here:

http://www.rocketracingleague.com/team_form_team.html

The RRL is also looking for race venues. Two are set--the annual Reno Air Races, and the X Prize Cup, but the RRL is looking for four more venues thorughout the country. If you're an airport looking to add some rocket powered excitement to your life, fill out a form here:

http://www.rocketracingleague.com/company_venue.html

Finally, you can get a crack at naming the first of the X-Racers, now called somewhat prosaically the Mark-1 X-Racer. The RRL is taking suggestions for names now, here:

http://www.rocketracingleague.com/contest.html

The ten best names will be selected by a judging panel in June and posted online for fans to vote on, with the winner announced at the X Prize Cup. Winner gets a year's worth of free race passes and some cool gear along with the fame and the glory.

My PopSci editor on CNN today

If you can get near a TV today between 1 and 1:30 pm Eastern Time, tune into CNN Headline News. My features editor at Popular Science, Eric Adams, will be on to talk about the Rocket Racing League. I might be able to upload a clip of it afterwards...probably highly illegal, but what the hell, I'll see how it goes. Will post an update here in any case.

--UPDATE at 2:41 Eastern--
Eric did a great job laying out the concept of the Rocket Racing League in just a couple of minutes--an eternity on TV, but not much time to explain a complex subject. He talked fast, and hit all the main points. He must have practiced. :)

Got a clip of it here (6 megabytes).

Windows Media file, unfortunately for you Mac and Linux folks out there; an MPEG file would have been just too big for my Web host. Anyone wants to host a 27 Meg MPEG file, I have it; just drop me an email (my contact info is at www.michaelbelfiore.com).

NASCAR with Rockets!

The February Popular Science has just hit the stands with my cover story on the Rocket Racing League. The RRL and the folks at XCOR, the RRL's builder, say they're happy with it, which makes me happy.

Lots of great photos by Mike Massee, who shoots for both XCOR and Scaled Composites, as well as some very cool conceptual art by Nick Kaloterakis.

PopSci editor in chief Mark Jannot devotes his editor's letter to the story. Opening line: "Peter Diamandis is a visionary." Indeed.

I'll track XCOR's and the RRL's progress as they build the first of the League's rocket powered race planes, the X-Racer, which is scheduled to debut at this year's X Prize Cup in October. The X-Racer's development is great timing for my book on commercial spaceflight, which I have through this year to write.

The XCOR/RRL story is a perfect example of the entrepreneurial companies I'll cover in the book: small company in the desert building revolutionary machines by hand, a new business founded by the man who made the idea of private spaceflight mainstream, a former space shuttle commander staking his career on the private sector and his faith in it getting him back to space...great stuff.

More details on the book coming up....

"The Entreprenauts"

It's not my title--my next door neighbor gave it to me a couple years back. And it's not original to him. But it's the name of my book on commercial spaceflight. And now I've got a publisher: Smithsonian Books/Harper Collins. Full working title: The Entreprenauts: Visionaries and Daredevils of the New Space Age.

My agent, Linda Loewenthal of the David Black Literary Agency in NYC, cut the deal just before Christmas. It's been more than two years in the making.

Two years ago I approached Linda with a proposal to write a book about the $10 million X Prize. That was before Scaled Composites won the prize with the world's first private manned spaceflights. Before the mainstream took the idea of private spaceflight seriously. And before I had any credibility in this field whatsoever. If you had published some articles on this topic, said Linda, you might have a chance.

Shortly after that, on December 17, 2004, Brian Binnie took Scaled's SpaceShipOne on its first powered flight. Holy shit, I thought, these guys are really going to do this! When Scaled announced the first attempt to reach space in a private manned spaceship, I was ready with a stack of editors to call for an assignment to cover it. I knew that if I could get to Mojave with press credentials doors would open for more assignments and I'd get the cred I needed.

The New York Post gave me my break with a "curtain-raiser" story shortly before the flight. For good measure, I also picked up a magazine story assignment from a local arts and culture mag here in New York's Hudson Valley. It was totally inappropriate for the mag, which covers the local arts scene and politics. The editor just loved the idea of private spaceflight and he couldn't resist it. Surprised himself as well as me, I think.

That first spaceflight was on June 21, 2004, and it changed everything. There I was, proudly wearing a press badge that said "New York Post" on it. One of the other reporters there asked me what my beat was, what I write about. "Commercial spaceflight," I told him without hesitation. "I write about commercial spaceflight." He laughed at me. "Ho, ho, ho. Sure is a lot of that going on!" he cracked.

Now, after turning in my third Popular Science cover story in 12 months on that subject, along with countless reports for Reuters, Wired.com, and more, no one laughs when I tell them what my beat is.

I rewrote my book proposal, now about the rise and probable trajectory of commercial spaceflight and went back to Linda with it. I think it's safe to say she was blown away by what I had accomplished in such a short time. But I think it's more a testament to what a force this industry is becoming than my own abilities. Plenty of other writers could have done the same; it's just that I was one of the few freelancers who took the subject seriously enough to stake a career on it at the right time.

I have a year to write the book. My publisher and editor believe in the industry's inevitable rise toward the stars as much as I do. The same institution that houses such historically important air- and spacecraft as the Wright Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, the Apollo 11 Command Module, and SpaceShipOne, now has the first comprehensive book on commercial spaceflight as well. They're targeting summer 2007 for publication.

In my next post I'll give you details on what the book will cover. Don't go away.