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Private Space Flight Fun, but What About the Heavy Lifting?

Posted on: Wednesday, 6 October 2004, 06:00 CDT

Do the successful flights of SpaceShipOne, the first private rocket to reach space and return with a pilot aboard, prove that the era of government-sponsored space flight is over? Not in the slightest.

Oh, it's true that this feat, sponsored by Burt Rutan, the man who built a plane that flew nonstop around the world, is truly remarkable. Two successful flights that reached 62 miles, the edge of space, earned Rutan and his crew the "Ansari X-Prize," which carries a $10 million award.

The fact that rocket flights that might carry paying tourists into space could be coming as soon as 2007 also is not beyond belief, either. Sir Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Airways, said a "Virgin Galactic" subsidiary was hooking up with Rutan to offer a $200,000 trip. (Presumably, it's a two-way ticket.)

That's a long way from carrying substantial payloads into orbit, as the Space Shuttle does, however. Such craft still require the resources of a government to get off the ground.

The one thing that was different about Rutan's craft, however, was that it was lifted by an airplane to a point 9 miles up, giving it a boost in getting out of the atmosphere.

NASA planners, in seeking to build a replacement for the Space Shuttle over the next five to 10 years, should also be considering that. If airplanes help hold costs down, let's keep on using them.

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