Space Tourist

My last blog post was how Southwest and Xcor were teaming up for a suborbital contract. This time, however is even a more exciting deal.

The deal is that Xcor and Tripalertz are teaming up to send a lucky winner into space for free. Now the promotion ends at 11:59:59 p.m. PT on June 21, 2011 and there are also incentives for signing up friends and spending money with Tripalertz.

You’ll need to read all of the official sweepstakes rules to decide if this is for you. For instance there is this clause in the official rules that makes me wonder what up with that: GRAND PRIZE IS ASSIGNABLE BY WINNER, SUBJECT TO THE APPROVAL OF XCOR AEROSPACE, BUT MAY NOT BE SOLD.

This “Subject to the approval of Xcor Aerospace” line needs to be explained. Does this mean if someone is in poor health, they cannot go up? Or is this a way to weasel out of the prize. You decide for yourself.

Anyway, it just takes a few seconds to join the contest and most likely it is legitimate since Xcor wouldn’t want bad press just when they are launching their new business.

So, if you’d like a free trip into space, here’s your chance to do so.

Now, I’ll admit that the headline is a little tricky. You probably think by reading it that Southwest Airlines has hooked up with XCor to provide budget suborbital space travel. At least that is what I had thought when I first skimmed the headlines.

But, no, it’s Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) than has penned a deal with XCor. You see SwRI wants to do actual scientific research on their flights into low earth orbit (LEO).

According to XCor, “Each of the six flights will include a SwRI trained principal investigator / payload specialist. This group of talented individuals includes Dr. Alan Stern, former NASA Associate Administrator for Science, Dr. Dan Durda who has flown research missions in NASA f-18s and Dr. Cathy Olkin, an experienced SwRI researcher and former NASA astronaut candidate. On these flights, the SwRI payload specialists will perform research using biomedical, microgravity, and astronomy imaging experiments conceived and prepared for flight at SwRI. SwRI has an option to purchase three additional flights at any time, providing more value significant flexibility for experimental research.”

This is some pretty cool stuff and I wish SwRI and XCor all the best. But, seriously I am waiting for the time when Southwest Airlines pens a deal with XCor or some other space tourism company to send people like you and me into LEO so we can get a peek at the curvature of the Earth and that sense of a deep, spiritual experience that many astronauts have talked about.

One of these days, Alice straight to the moon! But, before then I’d settle for a nice economy class reasonably faired ticket to ride to LEO. I just hope I live long enough to experience this. If not, perhaps my family will by me a funeral ticket and my deceased body will be ejected into LEO and burn up during re-entry. I’ll go out as a shooting star, so to speak. Not a bad way to go.

XCor Shuttle

I had the opportunity to interview Martin Chaney, the publisher of NewSpace Magazine recently and here is how it went:

Kevin: What kind of impact do you think that space tourism will have on society and the economy?

Martin: I think the impact of space tourism will ultimately be large and profound. For society, I think the flights will cause a big shift in the way people think. People living in the golden age of space flight have long since given up on traveling to space and now they “will” be able to go. The dream they once had will come back and they will feel that longing again. Younger folks who have grown up with technology and science fiction movies will be thinking “it’s about time.” The dreams of several generations will come together.

As more people go to space to look down on the Earth they will experience the Overview Effect. In the past, many astronauts and cosmonauts have returned to Earth with a stronger connection to mankind as a whole and a more caring attitude about the environment. Some who have retired from space service have gone on to create world humanitarian organizations.

In regard to the economy, there is a substantial amount of commercial spaceflight related development and construction happening. This ranges from the space vehicles themselves to space ports, to the companies supporting the newspace effort. An increasing number of organizations are getting involved in this effort, the venture capital is increasing, and there will be a lot of people lining up to pay for a ride.

I also believe it’s time for the U.S. to have a national goal that will instill a national pride, get the economy moving, and allow us to dream bigger dreams.

Kevin: How soon do you think that space tourists will travel to the moon?

Martin: This is an excellent question and, as you well know, a tough one to answer. It’s pretty much understood in the industry that trips to the moon will consist of a series of steps. First, sub-orbital flights to gain the interest of Earth’s population. Next, will come the orbital flights to space hotels. From there, on to the moon. Mr. Bigelow is set to put EZ-install habitats on the lunar surface and I hear there’s water. My rough estimate is 30 years to lunar tourism. If NASA and the commercial spaceflight companies pursue a coordinated effort regarding the moon then I could see it happening in 20 years.

Kevin: To which demographic will NewSpace Magazine most appeal?

Martin: This question was at the heart of our research on the viability of NewSpace magazine. The most reliable statistics were gathered from 2009 U.S. national consumer surveys. Those surveys showed that there are two groups of people the magazine would immediately appeal to. One group is science fiction fans which numbered 11 million and the other group is science/technology fans which numbered 12 million.

The age span for these two interest groups is 25 to 65 which is not surprising considering that science and science fiction have been common in the entertainment media since the 1940’s. The popularity of the Star Wars and Star Trek movies has instilled the dream of going into space with the younger generation. The majority of these two groups were alive during the golden age of space flight between 1961 and 1980.

Kevin: Tell me more about the industry experts who will be interviewed for the magazine?

Martin: When you go out on the NewSpace Magazine web site to the “Space Interviews” page, you’ll find interviews we have done with notable persons such as retired NASA astronaut and Professor Barbara Morgan. We’ve talked with Professor Donald Plumlee a former NASA engineer at the Marshal Spaceflight Center and also Clay Morgan who worked three years with Excalibur Almaz. We also interviewed Kevin Loveless, President of Global Travel in Boise, Idaho and one of 75 Virgin Galactic Accredited Space Agents. Douglas Messier, owner of the space blog site Parabolicarc.com recently spoke with us and we have an upcoming interview with Dr. Scott Parazynski, chairman of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education and a former NASA astronaut.

The focus of NewSpace Magazine is to help people re-discover their dream of traveling to space. It is that focus which leads us not to ask industry experts about the mechanics of spacecraft but to ask what it’s like to take the big ride into space and to see the Earth as a whole. For a person who struggles to walk on Earth, what would it be like to float across a room? We intend to talk with government officials, lawyers, and psychologists in our own quest to provide a well-rounded approach to space tourism.

Today, at approximately 10:30 am EST, the SpaceX Falcon 9 with its 9 Merlin engines helped propel the Dragon capsule into low earth orbit (LEO). The SpaceX Dragon and Falcon 9 launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida as one of the first big steps in NASA’s COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) program.

The SpaceX Dragon orbited the earth at speeds up to 17,000 mph and was recovered in the Pacific Ocean, 500 miles of the California coast at approximately 2 pm EST.

According to SpaceX, “This marks the first time a commercial company has successfully recovered a spacecraft reentering from low-Earth orbit. It is a feat performed by only six nations or government agencies: the United States, Russia, China, Japan, India, and the European Space Agency.”

I find it a little curious as to what SpaceX means by this phrase since in 2004 Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Anasari X-Prize by flying into LEO and back. Perhaps it is “recovered” that is the operative word in their statement.

No matter, since the SpaceX Dragon had a successful flight venturing where few have gone before but many in the future will be going within the next couple of years.

By 2014 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines expects to send frequent flyers of their airplanes into low earth orbit (LEO). KLM is partnering up with a couple of different companies to send frequent flyers with very high miles upon the XCor Lynx into suborbital space.

The XCor Lynx is a 2-seater rocket plane and the tourist will be sitting in the co-pilot position which will give them a unique perspective that they won’t be able to get from other space tourism spacecraft.

The entire flight is expected to last only 30 minutes with about 5 minutes of weightlessness when LEO is achieved. KLM is now negotiating with Space Experience Curacao, a space tourism company for tickets in the $95,000 range which is a deal compared to the $200,000 passengers will pay when flying upon the Virgin Galactic VSS Enterprise (formerly known as SpaceShipTwo).

Then again both are a bargain compared to a trip to the International Space Station (ISS) which can run upwards of $20 million. If you’ve seen the movie, “Up in the Air” with George Clooney, you’ll soon realize the type of person that may accrue so many frequent flyer miles in order to be rewarded with a trip into space.

XCor sees this rewards program as the tip of the iceberg for the space tourism industry. Within the next 15 years it is expected that space tourism will be a billion dollar a year money maker for the companies involved.

XCOR Aerospace and United Launch Alliance have demonstrated successful piston pump tests. The piston pumps use cryogenic hydrogen (liquid H2) for high performance long life launch ambitions for their suborbital rocket the XCor Lynx.

The piston pumps being developed by the two companies can operate over a wide range of speeds and conditions. Rapid prototyping techniques have allowed the companies to develop the hydrogen piston pumps in just under four months.

One of the advantages of burning hydrogen is that the only byproduct is heat and water.