As an effort to jump start private space flight, a group of
space enthusiasts established the ten million dollar X Prize in the mid 1990s.
The prize would go to the first group who, with private funding, would fly a
piloted space craft capable of flying three people in a sub orbital flight of a
hundred kilometers and then do it again with the same space craft within two
week. Over two dozen teams eventually participated in the race for the X-Prize.
The X-Prize was won in October, 2004 by a team led by Burt Rutan of Scaled
Composites Inc. with a vehicle called SpaceShipOne.
The X Prize seems to have succeeded in its goal of
encouraging private space flights beyond the wildest dreams of its founders.
SpaceShipOne had barely finished its final flight when aviation tycoon Richard
Branson announced the start of a space tourism venture, known as Virgin
Galactic, which will take paying passengers on sub orbital rides into space in
a vehicle to be designed and built by Burt Rutan. Indeed, space tourism may be
the market that finally jump starts a private launch industry as other
companies, including one started by Amazon.Com founder Jeff Bezos, are pursuing
such ventures. And with the success of SpaceShipOne, investment capital seems
to be more forthcoming.
Hotel magnate and space entrepreneur Robert Bigelow has
already established a fifty million dollar Orbital Prize, to be given to the
first private group to build and fly a space craft capable of going to low
Earth orbit. Congress has passed
legislation to encourage the growth of a space tourism industry.
Columbia and the Beginning of the End of the Shuttle
In February 2003, the space shuttle Columbia
launched for her last mission. Unknown to anyone at the time, a piece of frozen
insulation foam fell off of the external tank during launch and hit the leading
edge of the left wing of the shuttle, stripping away some of its thermal tile
protection. So, when the Columbia
reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, the left wing, then the shuttle itself broke
apart, killing her crew.
The second shuttle disaster caused as much NASA
introspection about safety as had the first. As with Challenger, it looks like Columbia
will result in a two and a half year recovery period.