The excellent website Space.com has an article today about what’s going to happen next following SpaceShipOne’s victory in the race for the X-Prize. If you’re at all interested in manned civilian spaceflight, give it a look — it’s pretty exciting stuff.
First of all, the X-Prize Foundation has announced plans to begin an annual event called the X Prize Cup, starting in ’06. This event is intended to be “a cross between Champ Grand Prix racing, the America’s Cup, and the Olympics,” and will enable “X Prize-class spaceships from around the globe [to] compete for cash prizes and awards in several categories, such as fastest turnaround, maximum altitude reached, total number of passengers flown over the 10 day event, and even the ‘coolest looking ship.'” This development should gratify the other teams that were preparing vehicles and concepts to try for the first X Prize and who never got the chance to fly. Back in the 1930s, airshows were all the rage; perhaps in a decade or so, there will be a new fad of “space shows.”
In addition to the X Cup, the cited article also provides some detail about the plans of SpaceShipOne’s designer, Burt Rutan, and Richard Branson, the gazillionaire who contracted with Rutan last week, to build vehicles for space tourism. Branson’s new space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, hopes to launch its inaugural flight (with Branson and Rutan aboard) three years from today. Get this: the first VG spacecraft is to be called the Enterprise. My old Trekkie’s heart warmed to read that.
There are some naysayers out there who’ve blasted Rutan and Branson as dreamers, saying that SS1 was a one-time stunt and that space tourism will never happen. Maybe. I’ll admit that there are a million potential pitfalls to these schemes, not least of which is Branson’s somewhat mercurial record with high-profile adventures (he tried, unsuccessfully, to circle the world in a balloon several times before someone finally beat him) and forward-looking business ventures that don’t amount to much (I believe his Virgin Group has just dumped an unprofitable Internet division). There are also the questions of safety and money. Like I said, a million things.
But I do believe that human beings are made for bigger things than seeing who can build the biggest house, buy the flashiest car, or have the largest music collection. We need something more than materialism and consumerism. Some people find that “something” in their religion. Personally, I find it in the hope that our species will continue trying to expand our boundaries, to see what’s over the next horizon. Sooner or later, we will leave this rock we live on. We may as well try to do it sooner. I’ve said before that I need something to look forward to in these dark times of terrorism, recession, and general cultural malaise. This is what I choose to look forward to, a future in space.
Read the article and see if you don’t agree that this is exciting stuff…
UPDATE: Space.com also has a fascinating article about America’s Space Prize, Robert Bigelow’s offer of $50 million to the first group that puts a privately funded spacecraft into orbit. (SpaceShipOne is a suborbital vehicle that only goes some 60-odd miles high. To win the Space Prize, you’ll have to go at least another 40 miles up. For reference sake, the International Space Station is 250 miles up.)
