Space worlds collide

Posted: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 8:52 PM by Alan Boyle

Burt Rutan, the iconoclastic aerospace designer behind Virgin Galactic's fleet of suborbital spaceships, is fond of saying that NASA (or "Naysay," as he jokingly pronounces it) stands for "No Adult Supervision Apparent." His California-based company, Scaled Composites, and the Virgin Galactic team have been cast as nimble mammals, running rings around the dinosaurs of the traditional space establishment. Was there ever an instance of mammals and dinosaurs helping each other out? Well, in the space business there is: Today NASA announced an agreement with Virgin Galactic to collaborate on items ranging from spacesuits to spaceships.

NASA's news release said a memorandum of understanding called for the agency's Ames Research Center to work together with Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, to "explore possible collaborations in several technical areas, including hybrid rocket motors and hypersonic vehicles capable of traveling five or more times the speed of sound, employing NASA Ames' unique capabilities and world-class facilities."

NASA said the agreement was negotiated through NASA’s Space Portal, a newly formed organization in the NASA Research Park at Ames that looks for ways to promote the development of the commercial space economy. The space agency said that the pact would be in effect for two years, and that neither party would be required to pay the other to support the areas of possible collaboration.

“This new type of private-public partnership can benefit the agency while helping to foster a new industry,” said Dan Coughlin, NASA’s lead for the Virgin Galactic agreement. Virgin Galactic's vice president of operations, Alex Tai, said in the same statement that he and his colleagues are "excited to be working with NASA and look forward to future collaborations in exploration and space travel."

Today's statement must have caused a stir in some quarters, because later in the day, the agency sent out some "additional information":

"NASA officials signed a memorandum of understanding Tuesday with a U.S. company, Virgin Galactic, LLC, to explore the potential for collaborations on the development of space suits, heat shields for spaceships, hybrid rocket motors and hypersonic vehicles capable of traveling five or more times the speed of sound.

"The memorandum is only a framework to explore potential collaborations. It does not include training of NASA astronauts, an agreement to buy seats on a Virgin Galactic flight, or provision of technical advice by NASA to Virgin Galactic."

In advance of NASA's announcement, Flight International reported that Virgin Galactic is planning to develop a new generation of spaceships capable of making suborbital trips between point A and point B. Such point-to-point travel requires more oomph than the up-and-down flights conducted by SpaceShipOne and expected for SpaceShipTwo. Thus, Virgin Galactic will eventually need bigger engines and more robust hypersonic vehicles. That may well be the subject of future collaboration - covered under agreements following up on the memorandum announced today.

When it comes to NASA's support of commercial spaceflight, Virgin Galactic isn't the only game in town: The agency is funding development efforts by SpaceX and Rocketplane, giving free advice to Planetspace and t/Space - and already starting to talk about commercial opportunities on the moon.

Is NASA just a dinosaur in mammalian clothing, or is it really evolving? Feel free to add your comments below.

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Comments

Hi, Alan -- NASA is constrained by virtue of being funded by government. The companies which want to make money by sending customers on the ride of their life are only constrained by the depth of the pockets of their owners. Only multi-millionaires, either as sponsors or customers, need apply. If the government was as serious about space (unlimited) as it is about oil in Iraq (limited) everybody (except Ike's military-industrial complex) would be a beneficiary of NASA's exemplary expertise.

DesEmery,TheCarborundumChronicles,St.Thomas,ON,Canada (Sent Wednesday, February 21, 2007 9:36 PM)

Hypersonic's and air breathing propulsion technology applied in the commercial space market segment would be quantum leap ahead. I hope this comes to be, as it would signal that we are truly at last on the verge of achieving CATS.

Doug Gard (Sent Thursday, February 22, 2007 8:50 AM)

NASA is not only a dinosaur, it's been fossilized for some time now. Let's face it, the future of space travel and exploration lies in the hands of entrepreneurs who are willing to take a large financial risk for an even higher financial gain. Virgin Galactic is one of the front runners in this area. Space tourism however is only one small aspect in the big picture. Space mining will probably be where the big money can eventually be made. I'm not saying NASA shouldn't be funded and that we shouldn't strive as a country to remain the front-runners in space exploration. If it wasn't for the initial space race, I wonder just how far behind our technology would be compared to where we are now. Hopefully, NASA will fully engage with private industry to stimulate space exploration. And hopefully, private industry will team with the scientific community to develop the new technologies that will be required for space travel and exploration.

Wayne, Alamogordo, NM (Sent Thursday, February 22, 2007 10:32 AM)

Sounds good in theory, it'll be interesting to see how well it functions in practice. If it does well, then perhaps other government ventures could be approached in a similar fashion... say for instance the dilapidated and outdated US highway system... you know something we all actually use on a daily basis...

NIM (Sent Thursday, February 22, 2007 10:43 AM)

It sounds to me like NASA is trying to support people doing sensible work while it is forced to waste time and money on Bush's plan to invade Mars. NASA’s only hope to be able to get to our space station when it is completed is that one of these private efforts is successful, quickly. It’s hard to understand planning to go to the moon and Mars when we can't reliably get off the ground to visit the ISS. It’s equally absurd to cut space station funds to support manned trips to the moon when we haven't mastered near earth orbital operations. This far off and expensive goal will be subject to cost overruns and production delays. These factors will make the program an easy target for the inevitable budget cuts leaving NASA crippled and grounded for years.

born_7-4 (Sent Thursday, February 22, 2007 12:16 PM)

I'm very happy to see NASA's support of private commercial spaceflight. The future of space exploration requires the efforts of both NASA and the private sector. If we are to establish a moon presence we will need all the cooperation mankind can muster. I hope this relationship grows. I hope the spirit of cooperation is well established for the future. Keep up the good work NASA. I would love to work for your success and ours.

Marcus Hodgkins, Houston, Texas

Marcus T. Hodgkins, Houston, Texas (Sent Thursday, February 22, 2007 12:42 PM)

NASA will either dwindle alongside its government funding, or start to reap the benefits of commercialization. The choice is an easy one.

Ray, Toronto, ON (Sent Thursday, February 22, 2007 1:23 PM)

If NASA really wanted to evolve they would move more into oversight and dole out a larger percentage of their budget to the private space industry.

Let the private companies continue to run LEO operations (least till the space elevators get up and running) and focus on the bleeding edge of space exploration, but even there they should be far less operations centric and work with those private firms who want to push that envelope.

It would also help if they'd stop being scared of their own shadow, it's space, it's dangerous anyway you look at it. Accept it and move on.

David, Monroe, LA (Sent Thursday, February 22, 2007 1:56 PM)

I haven't totally sorted through my thoughts on this, but here's a few seeds to be cultivated:

1. Rutan isn't exactly an adult supervisor himself. Before his success in the x-prize with spaceship one, he had a different design, the Roton, of which he said that anyone who looked at it and didn't feel that it would win was "an idiot". He's never retracted the statement, that I know of, despite not winning with it.

2. "We're from the government, and we're here to help". Scary words. Even if well-intentioned, the history of collaborations between government and private enterprise is mixed at best. It usually leads to unecessary bureaucracy, which is the burr in Rutan's saddle. I think maybe Virgin is hoping to inexpensively lease some spacesuits or basic equipment. I doubt they want NASA involvement on things like actual design.

3. NASA isn't a dinosaur, and won't be until there is a private company that does the same things it does, cheaper, faster, and more reliably. The post office is a dinosaur compared to UPS and Fed Ex (and email!) for example. NASA is no post office, and I pray it never comes to that. Not because I don't want private industry to succeed, but because at the point where private industry has mastered near-Earth space, NASA can then concentrate on the moon, mars, and deep space missions. NASA ought to be able to continuously re-invent itself to stay a few steps ahead of private industry - its got a heck of a head start.

Frank, Dallas, TX (Sent Thursday, February 22, 2007 2:44 PM)

Is there now a computer that beats humans in chess? I could not imagine that this is possible.

I am keenly watching for the next mission to Mars whether it is manned or unmanned. Just the photographs affirm my belief in God.

Brian Brown, Vancouver British Columbia (Sent Thursday, February 22, 2007 7:37 PM)

Why doesn't NASA just cut to the chase and let any company that wants to explore space and its financially infinite possibilities, share its expertise? If a company pays US Taxes, there should be no need for contracts to work with NASA.

Chris, Hagerstown, MD (Sent Thursday, February 22, 2007 9:02 PM)

NASA announced Wednesday that it has entered into an agreement with Virgin Galactic to explore various opportunities for collaboration in the design of spacesuits, heat shields, and more.  While the new memorandum of understanding does

Space Liberates Us! (Sent Friday, February 23, 2007 1:57 AM)

You're mistaken. Rutan most certainly won with Roton, Hudson payed cash.

Adrasteia, Sydney (Sent Friday, February 23, 2007 4:33 AM)

NASA is neither a dinosaur, nor really guilty of many of the other accusations that have been heaped against it. NASA is the government-funded front runner in many technologies, as as such wasn't designed to put profit over funtionality.

What gets me is that, while bashing NASA, many of these indies rely on the technology NASA comes up with, and distributes free of charge in most cases.

Alan Sheets, Loveland CO (Sent Friday, February 23, 2007 11:36 AM)

Frank,

Concerning Roton - That wasn't actually Rutan's - Rutan was involved as a sub-contractor, but that was really Gary Hudson's project. So, if you wanna blame someone for that project, talk to Gary Hudson. In fact, its rather ironic that they were competing with each other for the X Prize when Scaled built the ATV.

Ferris Valyn (Sent Friday, February 23, 2007 1:16 PM)

The Burt Rutan’s and Bob Zubrin’s of the world would LOVE to tap into NASA’s (already very limited) resources for their own ends. To them, everyone who doesn’t see things their way is an idiot. Derision (like “NaySay”, and “No Adult Supervision Apparent”) is simply one tactic of their campaigns to convince voters to force NASA to hand over taxpayer money to them. Space entrepreneurs using their own money? Fine. Using MY money? No Way! Anybody out there remember why the LandSat dataset has about a year-and-a-half hole in it? Yeah that's right, a bunch of money-grubbers got their paws on it.

One of the most strident complaints of guys like these is that NASA is unimaginative, but what do *they* have to offer? The whole business of access to space via rocketry is tired “old-think”. It will NEVER yield what *I* would consider ‘C(heap) A(ccess) T(o) S(pace) (say, the cost of an airline ticket). Even if it did we would have another problem: the environmental effects of a few dozen launches a year are not large (though non-zero), but I bet the effects of hundreds or thousands would be! Rockets are still an extremely dangerous mode of transportation, they are LOADED with explosive and poisonous chemicals (a couple years ago the Russians instantly converted a few acres of Kazakh Steppe into a Superfund site with a failed rocket . . .). And who would want to live anywhere near a spaceport, and put up with rocket roars, and sonic booms all the time?

If NASA is going to seriously fund ANY private research, it should be development of really original ideas, not old-think. There are already a number of good new ideas that include things like balloons, electromagnet propulsion and ‘space elevators’. *These* are the way to “CATS”, not rockets. When discoveries DO come from NASA funded research they need to insist on STEEP royalties; that money is partly mine, and I don’t like NASA (or any other agency) simply giving away for a song, discoveries and inventions worth billions upon billions of $$ made on MY dime. (NIH is particularly egregious at this)

As far as NASA being a dinosaur, I hope people consider that claim next time they look at the Cassini website or see a Hubble image. Think Rutan has any interest in doing things like that? No. He’s interested in making Money, not contributing to human knowledge. If he proposes to take tax money, he ought to be prepared to give me a ride to space. Is he? Space trips for everyone? Well, no, only for billionaires, not ‘thousand-aires’ like me..

PS. Virgin Galactic is a remarkably presumptuous title for a company that hasn’t even launched thing one into even low-earth orbit….. “Galactic”? Really?….try “Sub-orbital”, Sir Richard.

JC, Fairbanks, AK (Sent Friday, February 23, 2007 8:13 PM)

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