GOLDEN, Colorado – The prospect of public space travel has shot past the high-volume "giggle
factor" of a few years ago. Companies around the globe are busy at work
hammering out passenger-carrying spaceship designs, banking on a hoped-for
lucrative suborbital travel market.
But adventure seekers lining up at a spaceport's
departure gate is one thing ... yet another is how best private space firms can
financially fuel their respective dream machines, as well as sort through a
labyrinth of regulatory, insurance, and safety hoops.
To take the current pulse of the commercial
spaceflight industry, you can put yourself at month's end on a trajectory that
propels you to New Mexico and the Third International Symposium for Personal
Spaceflight (ISPS-2007).
ISPS is being held October 24-25 in Las Cruces, New Mexico, the opening event of this year's 2007 Wirefly X Prize Cup to be staged a
few days later at neighboring Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo.
Closing the credibility gap
"ISPS-2007 is to
create the community that grows the personal spaceflight business,"
explained Patricia Hynes, chair of the two-day event at the New Mexico Farm and
Ranch Heritage Museum. She's also Director of the New Mexico Space Grant
Consortium and the NASA Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research
(EPSCoR) at New Mexico State University.
Hynes told SPACE.com
that the symposium has a far more international flavor this year. "I think
it's very important to keep closing the credibility gap about the entire
commercial and personal spaceflight business case," she said, pointing to
Arianespace Inc. (USA) as the title sponsor of the gathering.
Arianespace has an
impressive spaceport track record in Kourou, French Guiana – the rocket-for-hire
company that currently performs Ariane 5 liftoffs, making use of
state-of-the-art facilities that will soon welcome Vega and Soyuz launch
vehicles.
ISPS will provide a
progress report on New Mexico's own spaceport.
In development is the
state's inland Spaceport America, based on years of study. It is now a targeted
27 square-miles (70 square-kilometers) of state-owned land, 45 miles (72
kilometers) north of Las Cruces. Backed by state governor and U.S. presidential hopeful, Bill Richardson, legislation and voter support to finance the
spaceport is underway. Recruitment of maverick aerospace groups to set up shop
in New Mexico has been ongoing, such as Sir Richard Branson's commitment to
establish Virgin Galactic spaceliner headquarters
in the state.
Safety: first concern
On the one hand, personal spaceflight has turned
the corner in vehicle development and collaboration between regulatory
agencies, Hynes noted. However, as for raising capital to financially fuel
private space operations, "we're in the very beginning stages," she
said, underscoring the fact that access to credit is undergoing a global
belt-tightening.
Hynes said that a
consistent message running through the upcoming ISPS, and in past symposia, is
safety. For example, last July's accident and loss of life at the Scaled
Composites site of SpaceShipTwo work accentuated that factor.
"Until we know what
happened, speculation is a waste of time. We do know that it's a risky business
... we do know that there will be accidents," Hynes observed. As more and
more of the public partake in suborbital and orbital trips, safety is
paramount, she said, "and that is everybody's first concern."
Expectations versus
reality
David Livingston, host of The Space Show,
is leading a special symposium panel of prospective and already flown space
travelers, including businesswoman
Anousheh Ansari. She purchased a multi-million dollar travel ticket last
year to the International Space Station via a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Livingston's panel is equally divided among space flyers
and wannabes. The intent is to gauge expectations versus reality in space
travel, as well as solicit advice for those training and planning a personal
space trek.
"I want to explore realistic expectations
and recommendations with those on the panel having been to space and those on
the panel wanting to go to space," Livingston told SPACE.com. "Let's
find out how willing the future space travelers are to follow the
recommendations of those that have been in space. Are expectations for their
trip realistic?"
In the larger picture, Livingston added, ISPS is
a power-packed confab of leaders in finance, travel, entrepreneurism and
marketing that can help push forward the personal spaceflight enterprise. Still,
those looking for the true recipe to sell public space travel stand to benefit
from symposium presentations from Coca Cola and the specialty pharmaceutical enterprise,
the Celgene Corporation, briefings that share marketing know-how for new
products in developing markets, he said.
Symposium tracks are varied in content, from
progress in vehicle systems and the synergy between government and personal
spaceflight to marketing the "New Space" business and building the
spaceport network.
Business plans
The meeting is to be a gathering spot for such
notables as Elon Musk, president of Space Exploration Technologies (Space X),
Alex Tai, chief operating officer of Virgin Galactic, and Mark Sirangelo,
chairman and chief executive officer of SpaceDev. Each will discuss their
respective business plans for space commercialization. Also on the agenda are
talks by representatives from Europe's
EADS Astrium, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, as well as overviews
by NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and senior U.S. Air Force
speakers.
At this year's ISPS, a scan of the various
exhibitors also gives an inkling of how the public space travel agenda is
maturing. For example, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI)
will be on hand.
Established in 1997, the NSBRI is a nonprofit
academic research consortium that operates under a cooperative agreement with
NASA. NSBRI is delving into countermeasures to the physical and psychological
challenges that individuals face on long-duration spaceflights. More to the
point, many of the NSBRI projects also have applications to short-duration
personal spaceflight.
Co-sponsors
of ISPS are: The X Prize Foundation, the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, the Association of Space Explorers, New Mexico State University
and the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium, with SPACE.com sister
publication – Space News – as exclusive media sponsor.
Hynes,
the ISPS chair, concluded that the symposium is the place to be, to help
sustain and push the personal spaceflight market forward. "It's like going
to the Sundance Film Festival. Once you get there ... ain't nothing like it."
For detailed registration information on the
2007 International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight, visit: http://spacegrant.nmsu.edu/isps/
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