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Saturday 1 November 2014
Tragedy won't crush space tourism, supporters say
The second crash this week of a space craft is a
setback for the fledgling field of space tourism,
aerospace experts say. But it's unlikely to stop
an industry that has attracted a trio of
ambitious, daring billionaires like Richard
Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk from trying
to open a pathway for ordinary citizens to travel
into space.
VirginGalactic's SpaceShipTwo, which was
designed to ultimately carry paying passengers
into suborbital space, crashed Friday in the
Mojave Desert during a test flight. The accident
occurred three days after an Orbital Sciences
rocket headed to the International Space
Station exploded within seconds of liftoff in
Virginia.
The long-term effect of the accidents on the
burgeoning commercial space travel industry
will likely be slight, experts say, but it may
hobble the businesses that suffered the losses
in the short term.
"It's unfortunate that both mishaps happened
in one week because it has an impact on
people's impressions,'' said Leroy Chiao, a
former NASA astronaut who has flown four
missions to space. "I think the long term impact
on commercial space flight will be minimal but
there are significant setbacks for both
companies.''
Speaking at a news conference Friday, Virgin
Galactic's chief executive George Whitesides
said, "Space is hard, and today was a tough
day.'' But, he added, "we believe we owe it to
the folks who were flying these vehicles as well
as the folks who have been working so hard on
them to understand this and to move forward
which is what we'll do.''
Virgin Galactic was founded by billionaire and
aviation enthusiast Branson, the colorful British
entrepreneur who launched Virgin Atlantic and
several other airlines.
Musk, founder of PayPal, has Space X, which
designs, builds and launches space vehicles and
rockets. And Amazon founder Bezos has
launched Blue Origin, a company that is is
"working to lower the cost of spaceflight so that
many people can afford to go and so that we
humans can better continue exploring the solar
system," according to its website.
Those men, and the pilots, engineers, and
others who have been helping them to push
into space understand that it can be a
dangerous enterprise, said Bob Weiss, president
and vice chairman of the XPrize Foundation,
which a decade ago awarded the $10 million
prize to the creators of SpaceShipOne, the
predecessor to Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo.
"I don't think that overall it's going to set back
space tourism,'' he said of Friday's accident.
"The people that are directly involved with this
effort understood the inherent risks . ... This was
pioneering work. Test flight always has risks
involved and those risks are taken so that they
can be mitigated or eliminated as much as
possible, whether it's for an airplane or space
craft when they're made operational.''
There are parallels between the burgeoning
private exploration of space and the dawn of
airline travel in the last century.
Pedro Llanos, who teaches about the
commercialization of space at Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University's Daytona Beach
campus, said that space travel has suffered
similar, sometimes deadly setbacks, in other
stages of its evolution.
"It happened ... in the space era with the Apollo.
It happened with the shuttle,'' he said. "The
reason it happened in the past is because we
were testing new technologies. It's happening
now because we are pushing technology's
boundaries, to move space exploration
forward.''
Such exploration is critical, Llanos said, whether
it's to create the possibility of mining asteroids
for resources that are scarce on earth, or
perfecting technology that will one day allow a
person in California to travel to Australia within
a couple of hours. "It will help us,'' he says. "It
will help society.''
Branson told CNN in September that he was
hopeful Virgin Galactic might get approval from
the Federal Aviation Administration to move
beyond test flights to carrying paying
passengers — after his own family took the
maiden voyage — as early as next year.
Virgin Galactic has long been seen as the likely
first commercial space line. Branson told USA
TODAY in 2011 that he envisioned moving
beyond suborbital space to orbital flights, and
trips between continents that could be flown in
a fraction of the time that they take by airplane.
Now XCOR Aerospace, which has been
developing its own suborbital vehicle, may get
its paying passengers into space first, says John
Spencer, founder and president of the West Los
Angeles-based Space Tourism Society.
"It may be now that XCOR is first to go into a
commercial setting because it will take a while
for Virgin Galactic to catch up,'' he says.
Still, when it comes to having a fleet of vehicles
to ferry passengers high enough to experience
weightlessness and glimpse the curvature of the
earth, Virgin Galactic still has the strongest
chance of being first.
"Virgin Galactic will eventually recover ...
because of the extensive experience Branson
and the Virgin brand has with one of the world's
most successful airlines. Being first is cool but
that doesn't really matter when you're creating
a long-term vision for an expanding industry,''
Spencer said.
Among the hundreds who have paid tens of
thousands of dollars for a ticket on one of Virgin
Galactic's flights are actors Ashton Kutcher, Tom
Hanks and Angelina Jolie. Spencer said those
who want to go to space aren't easily dissuaded.
"One of the inherently unique aspects of space
is it is dangerous but people are willing to risk
their lives for that experience,'' Spencer said.
"Just like climbing Mount Everest or sky diving.''
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