Private spaceflight a race to offer rocket rides to public

By Sandi Doughton
Seattle Times staff reporter

HARLEY SOLTES / THE SEATTLE TIMES A worker in the Scaled Composites hangar at California's Mojave Civilian Aerospace Test Center cleans inside the nose cone of SpaceShipOne for its first launch in June.

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The first manned spacecraft built and launched by a private company represents the dawn of a freewheeling — and high-risk — new era in spaceflight.

Motivated by the prize and the prospect of wealth for the first companies able to offer rocket rides to the public, more than two dozen teams are competing furiously to develop commercially viable spaceships.

At the same time, federal regulators are scrambling to write rules that will protect the public, the pilots and the passengers who may pay $100,000 to $200,0000 for a trip to the edge of space.

"It's like the early days of aviation," said Dennis Parks, senior curator for the Museum of Flight in Seattle. "The [Federal Aviation Administration] doesn't know how to regulate these things."

There were no safety rules in the 1920s, when barnstormers bought surplus World War I biplanes and toured rural America, delighting crowds with their aerial acrobatics and offering rides for a few dollars. They also crashed with alarming frequency, sometimes killing or injuring themselves, spectators and passengers.

The federal government stepped in with safety requirements that essentially eliminated the daredevil antics, but didn't inhibit the growth of passenger airlines.

Tomorrow's launch SpaceShipOne opens its bid to win the $10 million X Prize with a 6 a.m. launch tomorrow in the Mojave Desert. It will be webcast live at www.xprize.org/webcast The craft was designed by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan, and the effort backed with $20 million from Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen. Its first successful test flight was in June, when the craft was piloted 62 miles high by test pilot Mike Melvill. To win the X Prize, SpaceShipOne must safely fly at least one person, and the equivalent weight of two others, to 62 miles in altitude — considered the edge of space — land the vehicle safely, and then repeat the feat, using the same spacecraft, within two weeks.

Today's space race isn't as wide open as that bygone era, but the FAA and Congress are still trying to decide how to write rules for private rocket operators that will strike that same balance, said Ken Wong, who's leading the agency's task force on commercial, human spaceflight.

"If you over-regulate, you could basically kill the industry," he said, "but at the same time our primary responsibility is to ensure public safety."

Fear of rules, disasters

Regulation can help the industry, said Joan Horvath, a former NASA scientist who now runs a California company called Takeoff Technologies that consults with space entrepreneurs.

"Good regulations create a stable environment for investment," she said, "and there's some frustration that it's taking so long to get a stable, regulatory environment."

But many of those in the thick of the race fear heavy-handed government rules will smother their fledgling enterprises. Other experts foresee catastrophe if lax regulations give safety short shrift.

E.J. (Ted) Llewellyn, professor of physics and engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, calculated that Wild Fire, a Canadian X Prize contender set to be launched from a balloon Saturday, could crash into the city of Saskatoon if something goes awry.

"If you look at the worst-case scenario, you suddenly realize that it can go a long way," said Llewellyn, who doesn't believe the Canadian government has scrutinized the project carefully enough.

At a test launch last month on Washington's Olympic Coast, two young scientists competing for the X Prize watched their Rubicon rocket break up on ignition, scattering chunks of metal debris within 100 yards of spectators on the beach.

	HARLEY SOLTES / THE SEATTLE TIMES An experimental rocket explodes upon liftoff last month on the Olympic Peninsula. No one was hurt.

No one was hurt, but the scenario could have been much grimmer had the faulty vessel veered in a different direction.

"Frankly, it's a very risky business, and it's still a whole new business," said Henry Hertzfeld, an expert in space law and economics at George Washington University's Space Policy Institute.

The fact that FAA's mission calls for it to both promote and regulate commercial spaceflights could also pose serious conflicts eventually, Hertzfeld said.

Race for a price

Modeled after the $25,000 prize that inspired Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, the X Prize organizers have collected $10 million from corporations and wealthy donors. The money will go to the first private company that sends a manned spacecraft 62 miles high, lands it safely, then repeats the feat within two weeks.

The goal is to develop a reusable craft capable of carrying people to the margin of space, but not high enough to go into orbit, which presents a much more complex and costly challenge.

SpaceShipOne, the odds-on favorite, made one successful test flight in June. If tomorrow goes well, its designer, Burt Rutan, intends to launch again Monday, which could clinch the prize.

It wouldn't end the new space race, though. Most of the X Prize competitors and several other companies currently working on rockets intend to forge on.

Phillip Storm and Eric Meier, the Forks-based entrepreneurs whose rocket disintegrated last month, are planning another attempt early next month. This time, Meier said, they'll pay more attention to crowd control.

Safety measures are really up to the pair of 26-year-olds, who call their company Space Transport Corp. For small, unmanned rockets, the FAA waives most launch rules and only requires notification so airplanes can be warned to stay out of the area. Space Transport also notified the Coast Guard, which issued a notice to mariners last month to watch out for the rocket, which was supposed to splash down by parachute a couple of miles from shore.

Because SpaceShipOne carries a pilot and has a much more powerful engine, FAA required Rutan to get a full-fledged launch license, like the kind private companies need when they send satellites into orbit.

The requirements included $3 million in insurance to pay for damages from a possible crash, and an extensive environmental review that spells out measures to protect rare desert tortoises around the airstrip.

With $20 million from Allen, the billionaire cofounder of Microsoft, the project can afford that level of compliance. But the outspoken Rutan, who is best known for designing the lightweight Voyager craft that flew around the globe without refueling, has frequently blasted the bureaucratic hoops. He told the Wall Street Journal the federal government could make it "unaffordable to fly into space."

New ground

Ensuring that unmanned rockets won't crash into cities is a relatively easy matter these days, and launch sites are located on the coast or in sparsely populated regions to make those odds even better. Since 1989, the FAA has overseen 165 commercial satellite launches with no fatal mishaps. In the worst-case scenario, it's possible to blow up any rocket that swerves off course, Wong said.

But adding a pilot and passengers eliminates that fail-safe measure and raises the complexity for regulators.

"Now that you have humans on board, should there be some kind of acceptable risk limit established?" he asked, "or should the passengers fly at their own risk?"

Safety certification for commercial aircraft is a grueling process, and commercial rocketships will probably never measure up to that level of scrutiny, said Hertzfeld of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute.

Even with all the resources of the federal government, America's space program has been fraught with accidents, from the 1967 fire that killed three Apollo astronauts to the two space-shuttle disasters. When private companies enter the field of manned spaceflight, those inherent risks could be magnified.

"With any rocket program, it's not a matter of if there's going to be an accident," Hertzfeld said. "It's a matter of when."

The first space-tourist fatality will almost certainly cripple the business, at least temporarily, he predicted.

The FAA also has proposed voluntary guidelines for spaceship pilots, with suggested training levels and medical standards, to make sure the person at the controls won't have a heart attack as the craft is about to land, for instance, Wong said.

When it comes to passengers, the agency is waiting to see what happens with a federal bill that already passed the House and is now being debated in the Senate. The measure says passengers in spacecraft should be informed of the dangers, then fly at their own risk.

Until that key question is settled, Wong said, no one will get permission to carry passengers into space.

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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