Through a combination of economic troubles, bad luck, and arrogance, the American civilian space program is in "very, very deep trouble" and must rethink its mission if its going to survive, space expert Tom Rogers said May 4.
Rogers, president of the Space Transportation Association, spoke at the Space Horizons conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Rogers attributed the decline in the American space program to four factors. Two of the factors were economic: a strong increase in life expectancy has created a huge health care system in the country, at considerable expense; while the American economy in the last 25 years has failed to grow at the historic rate it maintained up until that time. The combination of the two factors has created pressure on discretionary programs like NASA.
Meanwhile, NASA suffered from some bad luck, in Rogers's opinion, when spacecraft found no evidence for life, intelligent or otherwise, elsewhere in the solar system. Rogers said that the discovery of such life, especially intelligent life, would have sparked a great deal of interest in space.
The final problem with NASA, according to Rogers, was its own arrogance. "We never talked with people outside the space business," he said. As a result, NASA and its proposed projects became detached from reality.
Rogers felt that the prime focus of the space program should be to reduce the costs of space access. Cheap space access will open space to the general public, Rogers said, opening up ventures and increasing general interest in space. He felt that one very lucrative avenue of research in space was the study of the aging process, noting that long-term exposure to weightlessness creates medical conditions similar to the aging process.
A new company will sell the chance for people to literally send a part of themselves on a long-term voyage to the stars, entrepreneur William Boland announced.
Boland unveiled the plan for Forever Bound, Inc., at the Space Horizons conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts on May 4. For a modest fee, participants will be able to place a small cell sample of themselves on a spacecraft, along with a multimedia record of themselves.
The spacecraft will be launched on January 1, 2001. After a brief stay in Earth orbit, the spacecraft will unfurl a solar sail and use the sun to propel itself out of the solar system.
Boland, who describes himself as a "space wannabe" who is really in the entertainment business, hopes to sell the project on the admittedly-small chance that the spacecraft would be discovered in the far distant future by an alien race who may be able to regenerate life from the cell samples on board.
"Participation passes" for the program will go on sale the first of next year, according to Boland. Individuals can sign up for $45 and families for $85. Boland hopes to sell at least 50,000 passes in the first six months.
Celestis, the Houston-based company that plans to launch cremation ashes into Earth orbit, is on track for its first launch this September, company officials reported at the Space Horizons conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The company offers to launch a 7-gram (0.25-oz) sample of cremation ashes into orbit, in a special carrier attached to the top stage of a Pegasus or Taurus rocket. The ashes would remain in orbit for up to several years before burning up in the atmosphere as the orbit of the rocket stage decayed.
Celestis hopes to ride the growing wave of cremations in the United States, which now account for 20% of all funeral services now and up to 40% by the turn of the century. The company seeks just one percent of the current cremation market. "One percent of the world will do just about anything," remarked Celestis president Chan Tyser.
At a cost per person of $4800, the company believes that they can make money on the very first launch, which is scheduled for this fall aboard a Pegasus rocket, even though they will likely carry ashes from only a few dozen people. A second launch, aboard a Taurus rocket, is planned for early next year.
The X Prize, a multimillion dollar award designed to promote the growth of commercial space and space tourism, will be officially announced at a gala dinner in St. Louis May 18.
The $500-per-plate black-tie dinner at the St. Louis Science Center will feature nearly twenty astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin, as well as Erik Lindbergh, grandson of aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh.
The goal of the X Prize is to award the first group to privately build and demonstrate a manned spacecraft that can carry at least three people to an altitude of at least 100 km. To win the prize, the spacecraft must fly twice within two weeks. The value of the prize is planned to be $5 to 10 million.
The X Prize Foundation, which is organizing the prize, hopes that the prize will have the same effect on commercial space that the aviation prizes of the 1920s, such as the Orteig Prize won by Charles Lindbergh for the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic, had on commercial aviation.
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