On July 20, 1969, Buzz Aldrin stepped out of Apollo 11 behind his mission commander Neil Armstrong and became the second man on the Moon. This week, Aldrin stood beside Richard Branson for the dedication of the world?s first commercial spaceport in New Mexico.
Even before Aldrin and Armstrong upped the ante, ordinary people had begun hoping they too would get to do something similar. Apollo 8 had beamed down the first images of Earth from orbit the previous year, airline Pan Am had started taking advanced bookings for a flight to the Moon, and 80,000 people signed on. Not only did that vision never come close to pass, with only 12 men realising it, there has been no manned Moon landing since December 1972. What Virgin Galactic is offering in exchange for $200,000 is a sub-orbital trip and a view of Earth that mostly astronauts have enjoyed till now, with a few minutes of weightlessness thrown in. Is this a good deal and a really exiting advancement?
First, with the Nasa shuttle mission having been shut down, the US space agency now relies on Russian rides for ferrying its astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). Quite apart from US national image issues, the Russians have been hiking the price of rocket rides?now up to $63 million a piece. Nasa has gotten a much sweeter deal from Branson: $4.5 million for chartering three flights. Of course, Virgin Galactic is not taking anyone to ISS yet. But there are other commercial players trying to do this, and Nasa is playing nice with them too. For example, it has earmarked $25 million for Blue Origin by Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon. Championed by Barack Obama, the Nasa plan is to support a number of competing commercial ventures with the hope that some will eventually provide viable alternatives to international partners.
Some of these ventures may turn out to be so much hot air. But given that governments are growing short of both the required cash and visionary unity, the future is vested in private enterprise, which is, thankfully, stepping up to the plate. Microsoft?s Paul Allen was behind the first privately financed manned rocket to reach space and Google is offering $20 million in prizes to the first privately funded teams to safely land a robot on the Moon.
Second, even though some US lawmakers are baulking at federal support for commercial space systems, this antipathy doesn?t seem systemic. Perhaps because Nasa has fallen short of its ?manifest destiny? to move the human race out there. It boasts the fastest rocket ever launched, but the New Horizons probe to Pluto is travelling at a pace that would take it to the nearest star beyond the Sun only in some 800 centuries. This is not nearly as exiting as the Armstrong moment, so people see Branson as doing what Nasa should have done decades ago.
Third, there is the Branson charisma. Critics may question his self-promotional stunts but they have made Virgin Galactic much better known than its competitors. The man is simply a marvel when it comes to selling. Come on, how many group chairmen would celebrate their new hanger by rappelling down while opening up a bottle of bubbly? Of the 450 people who have already paid up for a Virgin Galactic sub-orbital flight, about 150 were in attendance to cheer the rappelling feet and ooh-aah at the sight of the WhiteKnightTwo trawling over them, the beautifully designed mothership that will take them into space next year if all goes according to plan.
Fourth, there is the safety challenge. As the Challenger and Columbia disasters suggest, there are genuine concerns about whether Branson can deliver what Nasa couldn?t: absolute guarantees. It can?t. What it says is that the risk of dying has come down to one in several million from one in 6,000 in the early planes (there were periods during the war period when British pilots? life expectancy on the Western front was merely three weeks). It has hired Mike Moses from Nasa, the man who oversaw the final 12 missions that lofted 75 astronauts into orbit. Moses has declared, ?Virgin Galactic will expand the legacy of human spaceflight beyond traditional government programmes into the world?s first privately funded commercial spaceline.? Taxpayers, relax. Rich people, buy a ticket.
Fifth, how is Virgin Galactic going to prepare a bunch of people aged 50 and more (who have had time to accumulate riches plus cherish a vivid Armstrong TV memory) who want to see the stars without studying astrophysics? Will a few days of medical tests and safety training deliver anything like Nasa did over many months? More details on this will obviously become available only nearer the launch date, once the Federal Aviation Administration actually licences commercial operations. Meanwhile, Stephen Hawking has expressed an interest in the experience, to float free of his paralysed muscles and because ?the human race doesn?t have a future if it doesn?t go into space?. Plus, Branson and his kids will be taking the flight before paying customers get into the game.
Finally, ideally, this is about the democratisation of space. Only the rich can afford a ticket right now, but ordinary air travel didn?t start off by being accessible to the middle classes either.
renuka.bisht@expressindia.com