The President’s Message:
Exciting Times (or Small is Beautiful )

A reporter recently asked me if I ever got discouraged by the slow pace of space development in the past several years. I answered "Yes, occasionally," but that I was heartened by several recent events, mostly in the small space arena.

The biggest news right now is, of course, the competition for the X-Prize and the pending launch of the Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipOne craft. The prize pits teams from around the world in their attempt to loft a three-person vehicle on a suborbital flight to 100 kilometers then repeat the job in less than two weeks. The competing ships are small, relatively simple, and substantially less expensive than the government/aerospace standard. They have a single purpose in mind and so don't have to satisfy the needs of a dozen different constituencies. The X-Prize teams are themselves small, enthusiastic, and highly motivated. All of these projects are privately funded, sometimes by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

One entrepreneur in the space business is Elon Musk, founder of Space Exploration, Inc. or SpaceX. Musk, who made his fortune on a couple of Internet startups, including Paypal, is pursuing the small satellite market now served by the Delta II launcher. Funding for the program is coming out of Musk's own pocket and the company has already booked one government satellite customer. SpaceX is itself a small company located in El Segundo, and they expect their first launch in the fall or winter. As with the X-Prize competitors, the company's people are motivated (this time by profit) and enthusiastic.

In that same vein, but with a military flavor, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Air Force Research Labs (AFRL) are working to lower the cost of space access with their FALCON program. The program intends to launch a 1000-pound payload to low Earth orbit for under $5 Million. This is less than half the current price for such a launch. In the just-completed first phase of FALCON, nine companies developed launcher designs for their different concepts. Many of these companies are small startups that are pushing unusual designs and different ways of doing business. The next phase of FALCON, due to start in just a few weeks, will see a few of these competitors building and launching their craft in less than three years. Most of the proposed FALCON launchers are small, low cost, and designed to be built and launched quickly with minimal infrastructure. DARPA and AFRL are working to ensure fast, low cost space access to ensure national security but FALCON contractors can also use their designs to launch commercial satellites as well.

Outside the US, the European Space Agency recently approved development of the Vega small booster. The Vega will launch small payloads of just a few hundred pounds, a market that has been largely underserved by the European's own huge Ariane 5 rocket. The program, which the Italian government and aerospace industry has been promoting for several years, is designed to place these small satellites in orbit for a few million Euros.

Even NASA is getting into the "smaller is better" act: The agency is moving to place its Moon- and Mars-bound Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) capsules atop expendable launchers. These rockets, the Lockheed Martin Atlas V and the Boeing Delta IV, are considerably smaller, less expensive, and faster to prepare for launch than the existing Space Shuttle system. Dozens of CEV's could be kept in storage ready for flight in any given year as compared to the four or five Shuttle flights which may be launched once the fleet is returned to service. A lot more people can fly in a much shorter time this way and new astronauts may no longer be required to wait years for their first mission.

(This "capsules atop expendable boosters" approach is something of a back-to-the-future turn of events: in the early space program, that's how all manned missions were launched.)

So yes, the slow pace of development over the past few years has been frustrating. But it looks like things are getting exciting again.

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