There exists an unbreakable bond between space activism and science fiction fandom. Many pro-space groups were born at science fiction conventions, inspired by the genre. SF encourages space activism with stories of space travel, space settlement, and scientific discovery in general. SF Cons were and still are a great place for fans to meet, plan, discuss ideas, and form groups. These included the legendary L5 Society, National Space Society, Space Frontier Foundation, Planetary Society, Space Access Society, Artemis Project, and other groups. SF cons also allowed pro-space groups to network, grow, and get the word out about the space movement, and the importance of becoming a space faring civilization with people both living and working in space. SF literature also inspired many to become engineers, scientists, technicians, space buffs, and geeks in general. The diversity of the SF community led to the creation of numerous pro-space organizations, each with a different mission plan. (See author’s note for a listing of the major pro-space societies, their web sites, and mission statements.)
Robert A. Heinlein, SF grand master, inspired generations of fans with his stories of the future. Heinlein is known for his famous proclaimation, “Reach low orbit and you’re halfway to anywhere in the Solar System.” The point of Heinlein’s maxim is that the same amount of energy it takes to go from Earth’s surface to Earth orbit is roughly equivalent to the energy required to travel from Earth orbit to the planets. The point is that if you can get to orbit, you have the capacity to also reach most of the solar system.
The Space Age began in 1957, when Sputnik was launched into low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union. This fueled a space race between the United States and USSR, culminating with the US landing on the Moon in July 1969. Since 1957, every astronaut or cosmonaut launched into space has flown on government rockets. In 1996, tired of waiting for governments to complete the vision of man living and working in space, the Ansari X-Prize Foundation <http:// www.xprizefoundation.com> offered $10,000,000.00US to the first private company to create a rocket that could reach sub-orbital space and successfully repeat the process. The X-Prize Foundation was inspired by the Orteig Prize that Charles Lindbergh won in 1927 by successfully flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Cash prizes have been used throughout history to encourage the development of new and innovative naval, flight, and other technology, and space may be following a similar path.
In 2004, the first civilian astronaut flew a privately built spacecraft to sub-orbital space, and we got a lot closer to achieving the goal of a space faring civilization, and a private company called Scaled Composites, LLC <www.scaled.com> won the ten million dollar Ansari X-Prize doing it. Scaled Composites was started by Burt Rutan, a near legendary experimental aircraft designer and pilot. The company was also heavily backed by Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft Corporation. On October 4, 2004, Scaled Composites won the X-Prize by being the first private company to fly a manned spacecraft to an altitude of 328,000 feet twice within a fourteen day period. The first flight was flown by Mike Melvill, who holds the honor of being the first civilian astronaut to go to space. For the second flight, Brian Binnie was at the helm, making the all important repeat flight to clinch the coveted X-Prize.
Mike Melvill has the right stuff, like the NASA astronauts of legend. But like all true heroes, he is the first to deny it. Melvill is a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, and has won their top award twice. When asked how he became interested in flying and space travel, he tells a tale that many science fiction fans can identify with. “I, like you, watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the Moon, and was lucky enough to meet those guys, so they’ve been a great inspiration to me.”
While working for a company that made cardboard box manufacturing equipment, Melvill convinced his bosses to send him to flight school in order to reduce the cost of his frequent flights around the country on commercial airliners. But his first flying lessons were far from successful. “I had a lot of trouble in the beginning. My first lesson was only ten minutes long, and then I threw up, and we had to land. My second lesson wasn’t much better, lasting about fifteen minutes before I threw up again.” But Melvill didn’t give up, sticking to his guns, smiling about how his instructor helped him cure his weak stomach. “Ultimately, my instructor said this was ridiculous. You’re not getting anything done. I’ll take over the controls. Go open the door and throw up, and then we’ll continue with the lesson.” Melvill laughs when telling the story, and how he finally got his unruly stomach under control standing in front of an open airplane door several thousand feet off the ground while the air roared by, heaving up his guts. “You can’t make me sick in an airplane anymore, not after that.”
Melvill went on to earn both a private and commercial pilot’s license. His love for flying increased and he wanted to share the thrill with his family. “It’s very expensive to rent a plane, so we couldn’t afford to fly very often.” This led Melvill to build his own plane, leading him to Burt Rutan, and eventually his current plum assignment at Scaled Composites.
The two men first met at the yearly convention of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Fly-In in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. “I went because someone told me that you could build a plane for a lot less than buying one, so I headed to the convention to see what was available.” Melvill chose a set of plans from Burt Rutan, taking the plans back home, building the flyer in his workshop. “I was actually the first guy to complete one of Burt’s planes, mainly because I had the resources of a machine shop, and had been communicating with Burt by phone and by mail.”
Once the home built plane was complete, Burt invited Melvill to his shop at the Rutan Aircraft Factory in Mojave. He helped Melvill flight test the new aircraft, and become familiar with its performance capability. “Burt put me in the back seat of an identical plane. First, he flew around the field, showing me how the aircraft handled. Then he put me in the front seat, letting me fly it around, and then he got out and let me solo.” This gave Melvill the experience to go back home and have a successful first flight with his newly built aircraft.
Melvill flew his newly built plane on company junkets, taking it to service clients in several states. On the return leg of one business trip, he flew the plane to Rutan’s Factory, letting the designer see the finished product. “When Burt saw the plane, he offered me a job right then and there.” Melvill speaks proudly, “I’ve worked for Burt since 1978, and watched the company grow over time. We developed a lot of different airplanes together, and he thought that I had a talent for flight testing.”
When Rutan started Scaled Composites, he left Melvill in charge of the Rutan Aircraft Factory, further cementing their relationship. “We ran RAF for about a year, until Burt closed it down, then he brought us over to Scaled Composites.” At Scaled, Melvill did the bulk of flight testing for the new startup, doing the first flights for ten of Rutan’s new designs. At the time of this writing, Melvill is currently a partner in Scaled Composites, and its general manager. Under Rutan and Melvill, the company has grown to employ 140 people.
Rutan has a reputation for designing airframes that push the envelope, and one day he approached Melvill with the dream of a lifetime, about building a lightweight craft that could reach into space. The vehicle would not be capable of reaching orbital velocity, but would be powerful enough to fly to about seventy miles altitude, a region considered space according to the rule books, an achievement that so far had not been accomplished by a private company. “I honestly thought he’d lost his mind at that point, as that seemed like such a huge leap for us to take.”
Rutan had successfully designed, built, and flown many innovative and lightweight aircraft, but this was a quantum leap ahead of anything else they had done in the past. It took Rutan five years to develop the design of the new system, thinking of all the possible ways to get the mission done, everything from launch to re-entry.
Rutan developed a two-stage system to get the prototype vehicle SpaceShipOne off the ground and into space. The first stage was not a rocket, but a plane called the White Knight. The White Knight has a wingspan of about ninety feet, and is powered by two engines from a T38 jet. The mid-section of White Knight’s fuselage is high off the ground so that it can carry another smaller craft, SpaceShipOne. The White Knight is analogous to the first stage of a rocket assembly, and only exists to carry SpaceShipOne to fifty thousand feet altitude, drop her, and then land back on the runway. Once the White Knight releases SpaceShipOne, she fires her rocket motor, flies to sub-orbital space, and then lands on a standard runway after the mission. Melvill speaks proudly about the concept: “SpaceShipOne works because if you launch her at fifty thousand feet, the atmosphere is very thin at that altitude. So, you can accelerate a light and relatively weak structure to high speed. The atmosphere is very thin, and you can accelerate very rapidly because you don’t have as much air hammering away at the structure.”
SpaceShipOne’s fuselage is in the shape of a .45 caliber bullet, and is comprised of lightweight carbon fiber and epoxy. She has a twenty foot wingspan, with seating for three. The pilot sits up front, and there are two side-by-side seats in the rear for passengers. Once SpaceShipOne is dropped from the White Knight, she accelerates to mach 3.3 in about eighty seconds. The engine is then powered down, and the ship coasts to roughly seventy miles up, officially entering the bonds of space. When asked what the ride was like, Melvill smiles, “Rocket motors don’t accelerate gently. They’re either on or off, and when they’re on, they’re running full blast!”
Rutan also developed a unique solution to the tremendous heat created by atmospheric friction when re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Rather than using a heat shield, such as the system of tiles used on the Space Shuttle, SpaceShipOne’s wings and tail section fold forward to create drag to slow the ship. “It’s like a badminton shuttlecock that falls to ground very slowly.” During the re-entry phase of the flight, SpaceShipOne functions like a glider, similar to the Space Shuttle, but much lighter, and is brought to a landing on a conventional runway.
Melvill was determined to come back from the flight with undisputable video footage to prove that SpaceShipOne had actually reached all the way to space, and that he was in free-fall. Acting on the premise that it might be easier to get forgiveness rather than permission, he came up with an interesting idea, one that NASA astronaut John Young could not fail to be proud of. For the record, Young, an astronaut who walked on the moon and flew the first Space Shuttle flight, is also known for smuggling a corned beef sandwich aboard the Gemini 3 space capsule in 1965. Young’s stunt caused complete and total horror among NASA Mission Control, as engineers and scientists contemplated thousands of tiny little crumbs floating into the sensitive computers and instruments. In the spirit of John Young, Melvill opened a bag of M&Ms when SpaceShipOne attained zero gravity, causing the multi-colored candies to float around the cabin in weightlessness on camera, resembling little flying saucers, proving to all the world that the craft really was in micro gravity. “This really caught the media’s attention, and I got a lot of accolades from people outside the company for doing it.” But when asked how the powers that be at Scaled Composites reacted, Melvill hints that he did receive some good natured teasing from his co-workers. He got off light, though. Young’s sandwich smuggling incident drew him an official reprimand from NASA, and literally launched a congressional investigation. When asked, Melvill wasn’t worried about the little chocolate candies causing problems aboard SpaceShipOne, because they are easily squished. For the record, he used plain rather than peanut M&Ms for the freefall demo.
Scaled Composites plans to build a larger craft, one capable of carrying more passengers. They have teamed up with Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic Airways <www. virginatlantic.com>, creating a new company, Virgin Galactic <www.virgin galactic.com>, to cater to the emerging space tourism market. Melvill is confident that tourists will want to go to space for the sheer adventure, “This is a spectacular ride! You watch the blue sky turn to black. You can see the planets when you get up there, as well as the brighter stars. The excitement of riding a rocket to space is incomparable!” At the time of this writing, Virgin Galactic has thirteen thousand tourists signed up to take a ride to space for the sum of one hundred ninety thousand dollars per ticket.
Other private companies are hoping to follow in the footsteps of Scaled Composites. Among them, XCOR Aerospace <www.xcor.com> has built and flown the EZ-Rocket, a fast and highly maneuverable rocket-powered aircraft. The engines are fueled with isopropyl alcohol and liquid oxygen, and are environmentally friendly. XCOR is also planning to build a craft capable of reaching sub-orbital space for paying tourists in the near future, and is seeking additional funding.
Opening for business in June of 2002, SpaceX <www.spacex.com> is a private company, working on building rocket boosters that they claim will significantly lower the cost for getting to space. Their first two launchers, Falcon I and Falcon V, are mostly re-useable rockets, capable of lofting 670 kg or 6,020 kg respectively into low Earth orbit. The company hopes to use their rocket boosters to launch satellites and other payloads into space at a profit.
Other competitors in this new private sector space race come from all over the map and include Armadillo Aerospace <http://www.armadillo aerospace.com,> a small company building a computer controlled rocket called the Black Armadillo. The current design of the craft carries no passengers, but the development team plans to build a manned version in the future. Canadian Arrow <www.canadianarrow.com> is taking a “don’t reinvent the wheel” approach. They are resurrecting the German V2 Rocket technology for peaceful purposes to send paying passengers into space. The da Vinci Project <www.davinciproject.com> is one of the most unconventional space launch companies. They plan to use a reusable balloon to carry their Wild Fire MKVI rocket-powered passenger craft to about twenty-five kilometers altitude, fire the engine, and boost to sub-orbital space. The company is comprised of over five hundred volunteers. Rocketplane Limited, <www.rocketplane. com>, is a team working on a four-seater rocket-powered airplane capable of reaching space. The plane will boost to the limits of space, spend about four minutes in zero gravity, then land on a conventional runway. Starchaser Industries <www.star chaser.co.uk> is a project to build a passenger-carrying rocket ship, one that takes off vertically, and then lands by parachute five miles downrange, after spending a few minutes in zero gravity at the limits of space. The designers hope to use the rocket ship to fly passengers to space for short tourist hops.
Everyone agrees that we must drastically reduce launch costs, and many believe the best way to accomplish that is to jump start the power of the private sector. The X-Prize is trying to encourage private companies to build hardware, fly it, and succeed. Some believe the government should take their lead and get out of the way, and turn loose the private sector. Allen M. Steele, a hard SF writer specializing in near-term space stories, says, “If I was a legislator, I would put together an omnibus space bill that would establish tax and commercial incentives for private space exploration. I would also ease regulations and offer seed money to new space startups.”
