ALAMOGORDO, NM — NASA is eyeing ways to use privately operated
suborbital vehicles to help carry out its space agenda.
The U.S. agency appears keen on exploring what
benefits can be gleaned from commercial piloted suborbital vehicles over
traditional means of hurling payloads on suborbital trajectories to the edge of
space. The capability, if realized, could offer NASA a new mode of scientific research:
human-tended suborbital investigations for studies in which having a live person
in-the-loop would increase the scientific return of flight experiments.
If it's a go from the space agency, a pilot
research program of suborbital flight operations could be implemented in
2010-2011.
The idea was appraised during a 15th
anniversary reunion of DC-X/XA experimental pioneers, who tested a vertical
takeoff and landing rocket project run by the Pentagon, the Air Force and NASA
at periods of time during 1991-1997. During the mid-August reunion here at the
New Mexico Museum of Space History, meeting participants also dove into future
space transportation needs.
Cutting your teeth
The cadre of private groups
working on suborbital vehicles is both impressive and growing, such as: Scaled
Composites and its WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo
system, as well as the Lynx
suborbital rocket plane by XCOR Aerospace.
Efforts are also underway at
Masten Space Systems, Armadillo Aerospace, Rocketplane Global, and by that
oh-so-secretive Blue Origin group that's bankrolled
by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com fame and fortune.
During last month's
gathering, NASA
chief Mike Griffin underscored the fact that private groups can now
accomplish suborbital human space sprees on their own dime. Up to a few years
ago, he added, that ability could only happen using government dollars.
When asked about how much
NASA is doing to encourage commercial suborbital flight, Griffin said:
"The brief answer is ... as much as I can." The space agency is in the
process of consolidating money from its sounding rocket program, he added, as
well as drawing dollars from NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.
That cash amounts to no more
than a few million bucks — a symbolic as well as real gesture, Griffin said. Those consolidated dollars will be placed into a funding line for the
purchase of commercial human suborbital flights, he observed.
"Those [flights] can
have many purposes," Griffin said. "We spend a good deal of money
buying suborbital flights at NASA for purely scientific payloads all the time.
Some of our best program managers come out of the suborbital program ... because
that's where they cut their teeth on learning how to fly real hardware."
But there's a big difference
in flying payloads on private suborbital craft. For one, the human principal
investigator of the experiment could go
along for the ride.
Suborbital training program
NASA has other interests in
buying rides from suborbital firms.
"We could use
commercial suborbital human transportation for early training and qualification
of astronauts," Griffin explained. "If I could buy a seat to
suborbital flight for a few hundred thousand dollars ... why wouldn't we have all
of our new 'astros' make their first flight in such a manner?"
Still, even with that
encouragement, Griffin launched his own advisory to private space groups.
"I also need the
commercial companies to behave like commercial companies, not like government
entities. They've got to figure out what their customers want and give it to
them ... so we've got to get suppliers acting like suppliers. But that will
happen," Griffin concluded.
A set of funded studies this fall will
identify, as a first step, the utility of purchasing suborbital services, said
Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.
"We've got to do the homework," with Ames leading the effort.
Worden said one idea has already
bubbled to the top.
Up to now trying to get a handle on
how well astronauts can read cockpit dials in NASA's Orion — the replacement
for the space shuttle — is tacked together via simulations. Alternatively,
human suborbital flights could provide all-in-one acceleration into
weightlessness and then reentry forces. In other words ... the real deal.
"The question is can it
simulate better, more effectively, or cheaper than other means that we use.
That's kind of where we're going," Worden told SPACE.com.
Portfolio of missions
There is also a bounty of other
science missions waiting to be tapped with private suborbital vehicles, other
meeting participants said.
"These new vehicles present us
with some great opportunities, both in terms of their capabilities and in that
they will allow us to conduct research in a new way, by booking commercial
services to reach space," said John Karcz working on the use of piloted
suborbital vehicles to carry out a portfolio of missions. He is an
astrophysicist with the SETI Institute who is located at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.
Karcz told SPACE.com that
NASA's first major step has been the call — which is currently out – for
concept studies using the new breed of suborbital space ships to carry out
research under the umbrella of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
Disciplines under that wing of NASA
are: astrophysics, heliophysics, planetary science, and Earth science.
"I am eager to see the ideas
for missions that people develop.There is bound to be some overlap with the
research currently conducted on suborbital platforms, like sounding rockets.
But, I am convinced that the unique capabilities expected from these vehicles —
like frequent flights to space, rapid turn-around times, and the ability to
carry the scientists themselves onboard — should open up completely new
possibilities," Karcz added.
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