UPDATE: Story first posted at 5:26 p.m. April 20, 2005
Speaking before the House Subcommittee on Space and
Aeronautics Wednesday, SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan said the commercial
space industry will thrive but the current regulatory system is need of repair
and nearly destroyed his program.
Rutan was one a of a group experts in the emerging
commercial space market to testify before lawmakers. Congress is attempting to
define what role the government should or shouldn't play in supporting
entrepreneurial space progress.
The
potential of space tourism was made all the more real by
last year's successful suborbital flights by SpaceShipOne, the world's first
privately-built and human-piloted spaceship.
Work
is underway to build an affordable and safe vehicle to make personal
spaceflight a reality, Burt Rutan, the chief designer of SpaceShipOne told the
lawmakers. Rutan, who heads the Mojave, California-based Scaled Composites,
envisions multiple competing "spaceline" operators vying for space traveler
dollars.
"The
airline experience has shown us that it is not just technology that provides
safety but the maturity that comes from a high-level of flight activity," Rutan
said.
However,
Rutan criticized the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and its office of
the Associate Administrator for
Commercial Space Transportation (AST), saying "the AST process,
focusing only on the non-involved public, just about ruined my program."
Streamlining Procedures
AST's
stated mission is to ensure
protection of the public, property, and the national security and foreign
policy interests of the United States during a commercial launch or re-entry
activity and to encourage, facilitate, and promote U.S. commercial space
transportation.
"It
resulted in cost-overruns," Rutan said. "It increased the risk for my test
pilots. It did not reduce the risk to the non-involved public. It destroyed our
safety policy of always question the product, never defend it."
The
regulatory process imposed by AST, Rutan continued, "was grossly misapplied for
our research tests. And worse yet, is likely to be misapplied for the
regulation of future commercial spaceliners."
Rutan
said that the FAA is already in short supply of people to maintain its
regulatory vigil over the airline industry. There's need for streamlining the
certification of new commercial spaceships, he said, with the designer ready to
work with FAA/AST on tackling these and other regulatory, safety, and
certification issues.
Patricia
Grace Smith, the FAA's associate administrator for commercial space
transportation, responded to Rutan's testimony, saying the agency "is extremely
proud of our safety record and we intend to maintain this level of public
safety as we work with developers of suborbital reusable launch vehicles
(RLVs). The space tourism sector represents a promising new market that will
generate economic benefits for our nation but only if it is considered a sage
and reliable form of transportation. We are striving to support and promote the
development of this new industry by offering a regulatory environment that
fosters innovation and creativity."
"This
problem must be solved quickly to support an industry that needs a proper
research environment to allow innovation," Rutan said.
Once
a commercial spaceliner is realized, Rutan said, it will likely fly as many as
500 astronauts the first year. And by the fifth year, that number would rise to
3,000 people per year. By the twelfth year of operations, at least 50,000 to
100,000 individuals "will have enjoyed the black sky view of suborbital
flight," he said.
Viable business
Last September, Sir Richard Branson announced that
his newly formed Virgin Galactic would buy a fleet of
spacecraft based on SpaceShipOne's design to carry tourists into suborbital
space. The technology
is owned by Microsoft mogul, Paul Allen, and is called Mojave Aerospace
Ventures.
"We've not taken lightly the idea of entering the personal
spaceflight market," Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic and Group
Corporate Affairs and Brand Development Director for Virgin Management Limited
said during the hearing. "We believe that within 5 years we can create a viable
business," he said, an enterprise that would lead to eventual reduction of
Earth-to-space ticket costs from an initial fee of $200,000 a seat.
Whitehorn said Virgin Galactic would like to order at least
five SpaceShipTwo vehicles and start operations before the end of the decade.
"We would like to be going through a testing process by the end of 2007...and
commercial operation by 2008, if that was possible," he testified.
There's a big difference in purchasing an aircraft from
airline manufacturers, contrasted to buying a suborbital spaceship, Whitehorn
suggested. "We are in uncharted territory here...at the experimental cutting edge
of a new industry."
Whitehorn
said that, since announcing their suborbital passenger plans, Virgin Galactic
has received 29,000 applications. He emphasized that they were not moving
forward on the space travel business "as a rich billionaire's toy adventure."
"The
pioneer astronauts will help fund the process of making personal spaceflight
something that people...can enjoy and afford in the future," Whitehorn said. "We
believe that, eventually, we could get it down to $25,000 or $30,000 after a
number of years, per flight, per person."
Large
cabins, big windows
Rutan would not provide specific details on his spaceliner
design. "We're only at the preliminary stage of technology development," he
noted.
On the other hand, the aerospace designer offered a sneak
peek at what a ticket-in-hand space passenger might see. "The very first
generation of commercial suborbital spaceships will be experience-optimized,"
Rutan added.
There will be large cabins and big windows, Rutan explained,
all for the benefit of the free-floating passenger so he or she can fully
experience four-to-five minutes of weightless time. "We are working very hard
on assuring that this will be extremely attractive to the public, extremely
affordable, and it will be at least as safe a the early airlines," he said.
Rutan said he intends to franchise his spaceliner design. In
doing so, an operator would also have to follow specific rules for maintaining
and flying the vehicle safely. Between five and ten years into operation, he
expects to see three to four operators competing with each other from various
launch sites - all able to tap into "an enormous, enormous market."
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