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The New Pioneers Rand Simberg 2 2 The New Pioneers Rand Simberg ot long ago, the notion of any for the private industry, to (at a mini- entity other than a govern- mum) soothe investors’ qualms. But Nment putting a payload—let no one was yet seriously proposing alone a human being—into space private human spaceflight—the idea seemed absurd to most people. After was still only to provide alternate all, the space race had been between means of launching commercial or governments, and everyone knew government satellites. Even many in that it took billions upon billions the launch industry couldn’t fathom of dollars, and a market for even then the Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business putting peo- rockets often Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots Is Boldly ple into space, failed. Who Privatizing Space other than from in the private By Michael Belfiore NASA, which sector could Harper Collins ~ 320 pp. ~ $26.95 (cloth) had the space afford such an shuttle for get- outlay on such a risky venture for ting its astronauts there. Given the such a seemingly small return? As a doubts about the market and the con- result of this understandable skepti- cerns about affordability and safety, cism, in the early 1980s, the first few it’s not surprising that the notion of commercial launch startup compa- private manned spaceflight suffered nies had to persuade both investors from what many in the emerging and government regulators that they commercial space industry called had serious and credible plans for “the giggle factor.” building private rockets. But in the last few years, the giggle In 1984, the U.S. government factor has rapidly evaporated. First, acknowledged that there was poten- a team led by engineer and entre- tial for a private launch industry preneur Burt Rutan won the $10 when Congress, at the behest of this million Ansari X-Prize in 2004 by new class of entrepreneurs and the putting a man into space with two Reagan administration, passed the consecutive flights in as many weeks. Commercial Space Launch Act. For Next Rutan’s team made a deal with the first time, the government rec- Richard Branson, the billionaire who ognized the necessity of providing a founded Virgin Records, then Virgin predictable regulatory environment Airlines, and now Virgin Galactic 88 ~ THE NEW ATLANTIS Copyright 2007. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. THE NEW PIONEERS Spacelines—which quickly took mil- mine at the Rotary Rocket company). lions of dollars of deposits from Binnie’s experience, as relayed by prospective private space travelers. Belfiore, reads like a brochure for one The new interest from investors and of the new space travel companies: the readiness of customers to fly in space have reinvigorated a private The instant the howling of the spaceflight industry that had grown engine cut off, Binnie could take his eyes off the display that had moribund in the early part of the commanded his attention since new millennium after the prospec- the drop, let his hands float from tive commercial satellite market col- the controls, and just enjoy the lapsed in the wake of the dot-com view. And what a view it was! bust. In fact, many of the investors Ahead was the fathomless black in this resurgence of private space void of space. He almost felt it as were themselves dot-com million- much as saw it: a “vast presence, aires who had either gotten out looming and yawning through before the bubble burst (such as the spaceship’s little windows,” Elon Musk of PayPal) or who had full of “menace and mystery.” survived it and thrived (such as Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Paul Allen Belfiore, who clearly spent con- of Microsoft, the latter of whom siderable time visiting a number of underwrote Rutan’s prize-winning the so-called “NewSpace” companies achievement). and talking to their founders and This new manned spaceflight employees, provides backgrounds industry is now comprehensive- and histories of the industry and ly chronicled for the first time by its leaders. While Burt Rutan was freelance journalist Michael Belfiore, fairly well known even before he a frequent contributor to Popular won the X-Prize for projects such Science. Rocketeers gives a behind-the- as his innovative kit planes of the scenes look at several of the new space 1970s and his design of the aircraft companies, most of which formed in that performed the first non-stop trip the 1990s and are only now hitting around the world, Belfiore also spot- their stride, and a few of which are of lights other, less-known pioneers. the new millennium, including Musk’s He tells the stories of Jeff Greason, Space Exploration Technologies and the CEO and one of the founders of Bezos’s Blue Origin. Belfiore vividly XCOR Aerospace, a Caltech whiz depicts the spaceflights themselves, kid who was the youngest project as described to him by participants manager at Intel; Chuck Lauer, real- like Brian Binnie, the pilot of Rutan’s estate developer and marketer for SpaceShipOne during the winning X- space tourism vehicles and hotels; Prize flight (and a former colleague of Tim Pickens, self-educated rocket FALL 2007 ~ 89 Copyright 2007. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. RAND SIMBERG mechanic with his own rocket-pow- sitting around. So design it the ered bicycle and pickup truck, and a best you can do in that two-day major contributor to SpaceShipOne’s period, and when you come in the engine; and many others. This is next time, we’ll have one sitting a book not about just rockets and on your desk.”... rocket planes, but about visionaries “So we redesigned it,” Schneider told me, “and the next time I’d and their dreams. come, Shoomp!, it had evolved to Many of Belfiore’s vignettes the thing I and some of the other accentuate the difference between fellows here designed.” what you might call the govern- ment modus operandi, with its risk The point is not so much that aversion and cautious analysis, and NASA’s way is wrong and Bigelow’s that of the entrepreneur in a hurry. right, as that, with so many new play- He describes the design process at ers doing so many things in parallel, Bigelow Aerospace: this burgeoning industry is much more likely to find new approach- Putting preliminary designs into physical form isn’t exact- es and innovation. The NewSpace ly the norm in aerospace engi- approach has much more in common neering, and it took some get- with the proliferation of aircraft con- ting used to for Schneider. At cepts in the 1920s and 30s than it NASA, Schneider explained to does with the monoculture of NASA’s me, “We would sit down and do bureaucratic approach. all the engineering first before we ever cut any metal, period.” elfiore was born too late to recall When Schneider joined Bigelow BNASA’s glory days firsthand— Aerospace as a consultant, he was he was an infant when the last Apollo amazed by Bigelow’s insistence astronauts walked on the Moon— on producing a machined part for but he was still a space enthusiast every revision of a design—and from an early age. As he explains in the skill with which Bigelow’s the book’s preface, he got hooked on machinists turned them out in science fiction, and particularly the short order....Schneider told Big- work of Robert Heinlein. The reader elow that he planned to “go ahead of Belfiore’s book gets the sense and design it right the first time” that his youthful passion for space before spending a lot of time machining parts that weren’t ulti- has been rekindled. In his eagerness mately going to be used. But Big- to delve into this new and exciting elow would have none of it. “Well, industry, Belfiore seems to have I’m not used to that,” he said. “I almost “gone native” in his enthusi- have to keep these guys busy out asm and lost an objective, reportorial there because I don’t want them distance. The most notable example 90 ~ THE NEW ATLANTIS Copyright 2007. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. THE NEW PIONEERS is his description of the vision of Bob energy by beaming it from space to Bigelow, a Las Vegas hotelier who is the ground. To be sure, SPS is an developing inflatable space facilities interesting concept, but there is no for sale or rent as hotels or space reason why he should focus on it research labs: to the exclusion of other potential future off-planet activities. While it is At forty-five feet long and quite plausible to imagine large-scale twenty-two feet in diameter, the human traffic to and from space, and BA-330 would have more habit- able volume than anything ever even a vast amount of activity in lunar launched into space in one piece. orbit, SPS is itself a step beyond that These two mockups, linked end in terms of required technologies— to end by a docking module as and other terrestrial energy solu- they might be in orbit, enclosed tions (such as nuclear power or more an interior volume larger than effective ground-based collection of that of the then-current configu- solar energy) are likely to come to ration of the International Space the fore long before beamed space Station. power becomes practical. Moreover, I found myself tearing up. “That if beaming power from space becomes is awe-inspiring,” I breathed. This practical, there are many architec- guy was actually building real tures more likely than the one Belfiore hardware, not just turning out the computer-generated concept describes, which is of 1970s vintage images that aerospace companies and based on outdated technologies.
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