Wednesday 26 January 2011

Commercial Space Flight

The one thing I love about Science Fiction is its aptitude for foresight. We get warnings from writers imagining into the future and considering the maybes and then putting up the warning signs to humanity – “there be dragons!”

Consider the most frightening or foreboding of science fiction stories, Blade Runner, Alien, for example, and compare that to the most hopeful, the likes of A Space Odyssey, Star Trek and Space 1999. (Okay, being on the moon and blasted into the cosmos by a space-bending electro-magnetic nuclear freak of nature caused by storage of nuclear waste under the moon’s surface is not exactly hopeful, but they always survive in the end don’t they?) What is the difference?

The most hopeful visions of the future show mankind pulling themselves together and reaching into the galaxy in an effort to better themselves. I had to sit down and think about this one. They are all government organisations! My most beloved Star Trek characters are all military, sponsored by government (The Federation Council, for example.) Everyone they meet (Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans) are the same. Even the Ferengi, those lovers of commerce and profit, come under the control of the Grand Nagus. Almost nothing in Star Trek’s grand united vision seems to concern commercial enterprise.

By contrast, Blade Runner’s contenders for baddie-ness are robots created by a commercial company (The Nexus Corporation.) The whole story takes place in a world that is used and ruined and everyone is leaving like rats on a sinking ship. Alien is located on the Nostromo, a tug ship for ‘The Company’ hauling a mobile refinery that turns raw material picked up at the planet of origin and is refined by the time they reach Earth. As the story unfolds it turns out that the crew are expendable, and what really matters is the recovery of the alien for the sake of weapons research. As following sequels reveal, even the military is in the pay of the company. Redeeming features are hard to find as humanity swallows itself in greed and is redeemed only by the few.

So we could take from this that the road signs up ahead are saying Togetherness – Good, let’s take this road, Commercial – Bad, lets avoid this one. Now which road are we going to go down?

Well, let me just report that December 2010 saw the issuing of the first ‘license for re-entry into the atmosphere from orbit’ to a commercial company - SpaceX. Not only did they achieve the license, but they actually flew a successful mission to do just that – and at a fraction of the cost of Nasa’s endeavours. (Did you think I was going to say Virgin Galactic? Sorry, nil point there. Virgin Galactic’s Enterprise does not even make it to orbit, it barely skims the edge of space.)

Of course all of this effort by Elon Musk’s company is so that they can get the contract from NASA to deliver humans to Low Earth Orbit, initially, of course, to the International Space Station. SpaceX are well on their way to delivering the goods in that respect. It is one thing to deliver people into space, but after safe delivery and preservation of life in space, not an easy thing to start with of course, is safe re-entry. What goes up…

And SpaceX aren’t the only ones in on this venture. The following list of companies have all received multi-million pound grants from NASA to develop crew systems:

·         Blue Origin – founded by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon

·         Boeing – Americas long-time favourite Aerospace industry, involved in the Apollo missions

·         Paragon Space Development Corporation – building life support systems

·         Sierra Nevada Corporation – Top Woman Owned Federal Contractor in the US (No really! Check out the web site home page!)

·         United Launch Alliance – delivering the Delta series of launchers

And of course Bigalow Aerospace’s commercial space stations, producing blow-up (okay – expandable) fabric space stations, two of which have already flown. With the NASA led Orion spacecraft abandoned, America’s last hope of independently getting people into space rests with the private venture.

So is the future bright? Is the future orange? Do we need to look out for face hugging, acid-for-blood monsters imported in by shareholder-devoted companies looking to make a bigger buck; because developing weapons is more lucrative than advancing the well-being of the human race? Only the future will tell, but let me tell you this…
There be dragons!

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