Apollo 8 Astronaut Disses SpaceShipOne

by Aero-News Senior Correspondent Kevin R.C. "Hognose" O'Brien

Thursday night, PBS held a screening of its new documentary on Apollo 8, "Race to the Moon." The three astronauts who crewed the first circumlunar flight were all there: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders.

After the program screened in the museum's packed IMAX theater, the three astronauts took questions from the rapt audience. Borman's answer to one question has the commercial-space-oriented corner of the net humming this weekend, and many of the commenters are saying not-too-nice things about him.

What did Borman say? According to the Space Politics blog, the question, asked to all three astronauts (paraphrased): "How do you feel about the recent addition of SpaceShipOne to the museum and the role of commercial spaceflight?"

Borman's answer: "Well, I think Spacecraft One [sic] was a nice stunt. You spend twenty-five million dollars to win ten. I'm not taking anything away from it because the people who flew it were very brave and courageous, but I don't think it leads to much, and I think it's inappropriately displayed up there next to Lindbergh's and Yeager's airplanes."

A handful of audience members applauded Borman's statement.

Commenting in the blog, a man who identified himself as the questioner said, "I was stunned with the response. I was further floored that some in the audience actually applauded!"

There is a sense, among space buffs, of betrayal. That their hero of Gemini 7 and Apollo 8 dare to put down Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne -- mangling the name in the process -- is a bit like having an archbishop name Judas as his favorite Apostle -- it stirs the faithful.

For the last several days the knives have been out for Borman, figuratively speaking, around the new-space webpages and blogs. Space Politics's Jeff Foust himself was mild, although he did call it a "curmudgeonly opinion"; to Foust, the comments and approval of same show that "proponents of commercial human spaceflight—especially those who want to sell such services to the government—have not convinced everyone yet of the utility of such efforts."

And some similarly reasoned comments followed, such as Dwayne A. Day's: "And on one level he is right -- SS1 was a stunt, not necessarily proof of the viability of the commercial suborbital tourist industry." Monte Davis contrasted conventional wisdom of space fans, a narrowly-selected subgroup of society, with conventional wisdom in general, and that of potential investors in particular: "I'd bet that for every Musk, Bezos, Allen, Bigelow or Branson, there are still ten to a hundred who'll be happy to tell you in pained detail about the Iridium-Teledesic-GlobalStar bust."

Others pointed out that Borman appeared to answer only the SpaceShipOne part of the equation, and may not have been speaking about commercial space. And he makes a valid point: apart from the fact that it was done, by space standards, on a shoestring, for about one-quarter of what it cost the government to deploy bureaucrats to regulate it, most of what SpaceShipOne did has been done before.

Of course, Lindbergh had been beaten to the Atlantic crossing by eight years (Alcock & Brown in a Vickers Vimy, 1919); Yeager had been beaten to Mach 1 by fifty years' worth of high-powered projectiles from guns and cannons. Day again: "[L]ots of things in aviation are stunts. Lindbergh's solo flight over the Atlantic was a stunt, more a matter of endurance than aviation technology or commerce."

Not everyone was content to bash (let alone analyze) Borman's particular statement. Others made personal attacks on Borman or on the astronaut corps in general. Several posters have delightedly pointed out that, as Rand Simberg dryly put it, "Frank Borman should hardly be considered an expert on commercial anything." A couple linked to the US Centennial of Flight Commission page on the rise and fall of Eastern Airlines, in which the former astronaut plays a villain role second only to that of Frank Lorenzo, who succeeded him as CEO.

Another common theme, as typically expressed by Clark Lindsey of HobbySpace: "[M]ost of the Space Age astronauts, except for a few exceptions like Buzz Aldrin, were not space buffs.... After working their way up to the elite world of test pilots, they saw their selection as astronauts as the ultimate proof that they were the hottest flyboys around. They didn't go through all that just to open up the cosmos to any Tom, Dick, or Dennis Tito."

A commenter in Clark's blog, Kelly Starks, concurs. "I was working at JSC in the shuttle flight planning dept when Garn and Nelson used their ... positions to get a ride.... The astronauts and ground folks were so indignant at having a civilian intrude, they went out of their way to make Senator Garn physically ill during his flight." Starks concludes that the astronauts and the NASAcracy "...did NOT see themselves as opening space for common folks - even mere mortal Senators and congressmen."

The amount of hostility blasting like solar flares between the private-space and NASA enthusiast blocs reminded us of something from college. Then we realized what it was: adherents of different strains of an upstart religion excommunicating one another over charges of heresy. (And as every student of comparative religion knows, heretics catch greater hostility than the unconverted infidels or heathens).

The dichotomy is to some degree false. I don't know anyone on the private side that doesn't admire and envy plenty of the gov.space accomplishments, and while Frank Borman may not see much in private space, enough other astronauts do that you run into them at events and see their names popping up on corporate boards.

Meanwhile, Frank Borman is known as a warbird collector and the owner of Borman Autoplex - "your source for quality vehicles from Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Honda, Mazda and Hyundai," in Las Cruces, NM. "Astro-", you say? He has a 1997 Chevy Astro van, 70,000 miles, on the lot -- if you act now, space cadets. Stock number TB20534.

In the light of that, perhaps both sides can best serve the overall interests of humanity in space by making a truce -- at least long enough to watch the new PBS show, which all space fans ought to enjoy. So put down the invective and step away from the blog -- at least until after the show on Monday, October 31.

(The FMI link has more information, including the complete film transcript, and a link you can click for local listings).

FMI: www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/moon/, www.bormanautoplex.com