WASHINGTON - Citing the government as having an unfair advantage in the space transportation business, private companies offering the promise of cheaper access to space are finding themselves in troubled financial waters.
On Tuesday, November 9, a Space Transportation Round Table was held in the U.S. Senate. Chaired by Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida.), the gathering brought together several private rocket groups now trying to secure funds and pursue various rocket ideas to push payloads and people into Earth orbit at a reasonable price.
Key sponsors of the round table were the Space Frontier Foundation, ProSpace, and the National Space Society, each public advocacy groups concerned with lowering the expense of Earth-to-orbit rocketry.
Though Rotary Rocket Co. of Redwood City, California, has successfully raised $33 million to help develop an Earth-to-space vehicle, its president, Gary Hudson said private rocket groups face "daunting roadblocks." The chief among them being Wall Street's and other deep pocket investors' belief that the federal government is a competitor for launch services.
Sen. Graham told the round table that Congress should rectify what is perceived as the dearth in United States-based satellite launches. According to Graham, only 40 percent of U.S. satellites are lofted using American launch services, though 70 percent of the satellites launched worldwide are built in the United States.
But the reason for the loss of business is complicated, Graham said.
"My sense is that it's a combination of factors," the lawmaker said, including technology transfer issues and export control. "You are not going to find any silver bullet [to solve the problem]."
Graham told the round table that the current crop of presidential candidates have to be educated about commercial launch prospects. He said, "2001 could be a breakthrough year," for U.S. commercial launch operators because a new president and new Congress could be open to taking action on these issues.
"Whether or not the government is competing in the launch market, there is the perception that they are," Hudson said. That impression has made raising funds to build new types of commercial rockets all the more difficult, he said.
Round table moderator Jess Sponable, vice president of the Newport Beach, California-based Universal Space Lines, said private groups "can all hang together...or hang separately" in furthering the goal of lowering the cost of space access.
Participants also discussed how best the government could assist entrepreneurial space businesses. Among the proposals were Federal loan guarantees and tax-credits, as well as the suggestion that NASA foot the bill for an ongoing series of reusable rocket flight projects.
"NASA should be investing in technology that would dramatically increase the reliability and dramatically decrease the cost of access to space," Sponable said.
Mitchell Clapp, chief executive officer of Pioneer Rocketplane, Lakewood, Colorado, said the government could offer a portion of its space business, in a competitive manner, to be sought after by today's start-up rocket companies.
The government could help foster the credibility of the space transportation industry, said Clapp, "as the government did for the continental railroad, as it did for air mail, as it did for virtually every transportation infrastructure in this country going back to the Erie Canal."
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