ARLINGTON,
Virginia
- The day of private-sector spaceships leaping from low Earth orbit to the Moon
is not too far off.
That's the vision of Peter Diamandis, Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of the X Prize Foundation. He was the sparkplug behind the
$10 million Ansari X Prize claimed last year by the back-to-back flights to the
edge of space by the piloted SpaceShipOne - built and backed by private funds.
In early October, Diamandis is leading the "Countdown to the
X Prize Cup" - a showcasing of the emerging personal spaceflight era, to be
held in southern New Mexico.
"For the first time ever...the power to go to space is now
resident within the hands of individuals, not in the hands of governments,"
Diamandis explained before an audience attending the closing ceremonies of the
24th International Space Development Conference (ISDC), held here
May 19-22, and sponsored by the National Space Society.
Bee-line
for the Moon
The personal spaceflight revolution now underway is spawning
a suborbital travel market that will lead to passenger traffic headed into Earth
orbit, Diamandis said. "In the next five to eight years we will have the first
private orbital flights occurring," he predicted.
Diamandis added that something very natural will happen when
private orbital flights arise. "When you're in orbit you are two-thirds of the
way to anywhere," he said.
"I predict that within about three years of private human
orbital flights...you'll have the first private teams of people stockpiling fuel
on orbit and making a bee-line for the Moon," Diamandis said.
"They'll not ask for permission...maybe cryptically hiding
what they are doing...but there will be somebody making a bee-line to the Moon,"
Diamandis said. The first private team to reach the lunar landscape will stake
out the ground. "They'll say this is ours. Stay away. I claim this for my
company...my new nation," he said.
Millionaires
and billionaires
Diamandis said that the wealth of individuals is rapidly increasing
thanks to the evolving power of the Internet, and very shortly through
breakthroughs in nanotechnology. Billionaires and multi-billionaires are making
their own future happen, he said.
"At the same time the number of millionaires and
billionaires are very rapidly increasingly...the price for getting into space is
coming down. We're at that crossing point right now," Diamandis said.
Once private operators routinely gain access to orbit, the
momentum forward is unstoppable, Diamandis said. "We cannot depend upon on the
government to do this."
While wishing NASA and its new leader, Mike Griffin, good
luck, Diamandis said, the space agency is subject to Congressional start-stop,
start-stop funding. The fact that there are four to six human flights to orbit a year "is pathetic...and pathetically
small."
That many flights departing Earth per day will signal robust and economically viable public space
transportation, Diamandis argued. "It is the time. It is the moment of our
calling. We're at the point in history where the human race is coming off the
planet once and forever."
"We are the payloads of the future," Diamandis concluded.
Critical
strategy
At a May 21 gala of the ISDC, held at the Smithsonian
Institution's National Air and Space
Museum Steven
F. Udvar-Hazy
Center, Department of
Transportation (DOT) Secretary Norman Mineta also highlighted the emerging
public space travel sector.
Utilizing the commercial sector is "a critical strategy" for
the future of the space in the United
States, Mineta said, with commercial
enterprises providing goods and services.
NASA needs low-cost, reliable space transportation to
transfer both hardware and crew to the International Space Station, Mineta
pointed out. Similarly, as the United
States looks to resume the exploration of
the Moon and eventually sending crews to Mars, there is also the need for
private sector launch capability, he said.
Groups such as Virgin Galactic and Space Adventures, Mineta
said, "are champing at the bit" to get the first tourists into space.
"Suborbital space will be the first step for some of these companies...but
orbital tourism is the ultimate goal," he added.
"We have entered a new era where entrepreneurial space
businesses are being unleashed to do what American businesses do best: to
innovate, to create and to drive quality up and cost down to the efficiencies
of the marketplace," Mineta said.
New
guidelines
Mineta said that he was enthusiastic about the Department of
Transportation's growing involvement in space, pointing to last year's
licensing of SpaceShipOne, the reusable launch vehicle. He also spotlighted the
first inland spaceport license ever granted to a launch and reentry site
operator in the United States
- the Mojave, California
spaceport.
"More and more states are seeing the potential and working
to attract and develop new launch capabilities in their own states," Mineta
said.
In the offing, Mineta said, are new ground rules for the
eager inventors who are pushing the boundaries of public space travel. Later
this week, he said, a set of guidelines are to be unveiled by the Associate
Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation within DOT's Federal Aviation
Administration.
The guidelines "will shorten the time and lessen the burden
on launch vehicle developers much like the aviation community has for
experimental aircraft," Mineta said.
While his office has the responsibility to protect public
safety, "our approach at the Department of Transportation is to allow this
industry the freedom to develop, mindful that it is still in its infancy,"
Mineta said.
Leonard
David is SPACE.com's Senior Space Writer.
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