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.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
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.
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.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
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.
Friday, May 05, 2006
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.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
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.
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.
Friday, April 28, 2006
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."
"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."
Thursday, April 27, 2006
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.
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.
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