Shooting for the Moon at Expo; Lunar Lander Competitors Vie for Prize

By RENE ROMO Journal Southern Bureau

HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE — Shouts of "There it goes" were soon followed by groans as a lunar lander prototype toppled over near a concrete landing pad Saturday at the X Prize Cup at the Holloman Air and Space Expo.

Because of the tumble, and the fact the craft’s second flight fell seven seconds short of the required 90-second lift-off, Armadillo Aerospace’s entry failed Saturday to win a $350,000 prize in the Level 1 category of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.

The NASA-sponsored competition, aimed at spurring private sector development of a reusable lunar lander, was the centerpiece of the expo that attracted about 25,000 visitors to Holloman Air Force Base Saturday and about 6,500 schoolchildren from across New Mexico on Friday.

X Prize Foundation Chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis said the three-year-old expo, the only one in the nation to combine aircraft and spacecraft, has succeeded in promoting the idea that space travel can one day be available to the average person.

"My goal is to create an event that is geared for the public to personally experience space," Diamandis said at Holloman. "It’s about the ability to touch the vehicles, meet the guys who designed them, the guys who fly them, watch them fly, and eventually to buy a ticket to fly yourself. That’s the vision."

The X Prize Cup is the outgrowth of the $10 million X Prize, which California-based Scaled Composites won in 2004 for developing a reusable craft capable of taking passengers to the edge of space.

Scaled Composites is now developing a fleet of spacecraft for Virgin Galactic, which hopes to pioneer a new industry — suborbital space tourism — based at a state-financed spaceport planned to be built in southern Sierra County by 2010.

Besides close-up views of lunar landers under development, expo visitors witnessed a flyover of the F-22 Raptor, the sleek fighter jet that will replace the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighters that are being retired from Holloman.

A variety of military aircraft will be available for viewing as the expo ends today, including an A10 Warthog, a huge C-5 Galaxy cargo jet, a B1 bomber and the CV22 Osprey tilt rotor.

NASA, various universities and space-related companies set up exhibits inside a cavernous hangar. One company, Orbital Outfitters, unveiled a spacesuit designed for commercial spaceflight. Orbital Outfitters, which already has a contract with XCOR Aerospace, hopes to design and manufacture suits for other space tourism companies.

"We’re confident we’re going to be able to fit the whole range of body types," said Orbital Outfitters acting CEO Jeff Feige.