On January 23, 2008, Burt Rutan and Richard Branson unveiled the new designs of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and its carrier aircraft, White Knight 2. This engaging animation gives you a sense of what a suborbital trip on SpaceShipTwo might be like.

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STS-98 Space Shuttle Atlantis landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The view is from the Commander’s Head-Up Display (HUD). Notice the incredibly steep descent angle (~20deg) and the pre-flare maneuver on final approach.

In his book, Entering Space, Dr. Robert Zubrin argues that just as the survival of early humans depended upon their ability to adapt to the harsh environments into which they migrated, so too does the survival of our modern society depend on our mastery of the solar system, and our continued push to explore and expand. “Societies, like individuals,” says Zubrin, “grow when challenged and stagnate when not.”

Fifty years after the Wright Brothers first flight in 1903, commercial aviation was a thriving entity. Boeing launched the revolutionary 707 jet airliner in 1958. Today, millions of people travel by air each year. In the almost fifty years since the first manned space flight on April 12, 1961, fewer than 500 people have flown in space. That’s akin to the number of people who have stood on the summit of Mount Everest. What’s the problem?

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Should the government finance the exploration and settlement of the final frontier? Or should it be left to private individuals and corporations? This question has plagued the aerospace community since before the Apollo program. Here’s my two cents.

I think NASA’s COTS program is a step in the right direction. Governments should, in my opinion, always bear the financial risk inherent in scientific research and the exploration of frontiers. That’s what they’re there for.

Currently, there is no motivation for private industry to finance an extremely risky endeavor such as a Mars mission or colony. And, as the aerospace industry is currently structured, with behemoths like Lockheed and Boeing accustomed to the cost-plus nature of defense contracts, there is also very little incentive for anything to be done quickly or cheaply — especially when the government is footing the bill.

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Note: This is an old list of NewSpace links that I compiled way back in the Principia 1.0 days, and it’s just now making the transition over to the Labs. My apologies if some of the links are broken!

News Articles

• Space Tourism Taking Shape, CNN.com.
• $100 Million Moon Trip: Space Tourism’s Hot Ticket, National Geographic News.
• NASA Launches Startups for Ships, Wired News.
• Race for Next Space Prize Ignites, Wired News.
• How We’ll Get Back to the Moon, NASA.
• X Prize Losers: Still in the Race? The Space Review.
• SpaceX and The First-Launch Crisis, The Space Review.

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by Robert C. Truax, January 1999

Copyright © 2000 Aerospace America.   Reprinted with permission.

The story of turbopump rocket development is an interesting one of trial and error. Many sidelines were explored before the objectives of light weight and high performance were finally attained with the main engines for the Shuttle. Russian rocket development followed a somewhat similar path, and the end result was very similar: a topping cycle with high combustion chamber pressures.

But turbopump engines, whether high pressure or low, were a mistake from the very beginning. They simply are not worth what they cost in time and money. In all the early development efforts, pump-fed systems were preceded by a pressure-fed version. In every case, the mission was accomplished and the program goals met before the development of the pump system was completed. After the X-I broke the sound barrier with its pressure-fed rocket engine, who ever heard of the D-558-2 — powered by a pump-fed engine?

Technically simple two-stage launchers with pressure-fed engines and ocean recovery offer the economical operations that have escaped our high-technology turbopump rockets for more than four decades.

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