What NASA Could Learn From SpaceShipOne
by ANN Senior Editor Pete Combs
When Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne launches on Monday in its final
bid for the Ansari X-Prize, it will do so less than a week after
observers and even Rutan himself held their breath -- they thought
the spacecraft and pilot Mike Melvill were in serious trouble
Wednesday when it began rolling uncontrollably during its ascent.
Now, after Melvill's mea culpa (he said he "must have hit the
rudder pedal" during the boost phase, causing the spacecraft to
roll almost 30 times), an inspection of the vehicle indicates all
is well, according to Rutan. Monday's attempt is a "go."
Had this been a NASA flight, things would be mighty different.
There would have been innumerable conference calls, perhaps even an
investigation into the hows and whys connected to the unplanned
roll event. Congress would probably have ordered hearings into the
problem and the engineers would have been called on the carpet for
first not foreseeing the roll event and second, designing a system
that would have allowed the rolls in the first place.
Chaining this line of
thought even further, we can imagine Melvill brought under NASA
investigation after his admission that he probably caused the
rolls. He might be quietly retired or given some menial task in a
windowless room at the Johnson Space Center in Houston (TX). The
bottom line is that the space vehicle would be grounded, it's pilot
shamed and an enormously expensive operation to assess blame would
be underway.
It is this massive difference in the "culture of risk" that
makes SpaceShipOne and its like much more practical than the
overpriced, over-engineered and overly-safe projects NASA has
embarked upon since the end of the Apollo missions.
Don't get us wrong. We like the people who work for NASA and we
admire their pluck in the face of tremendous adversity. But we also
believe that the procedures involved in manned spaceflight have
become so complex and burdensome that NASA's ability to be
effective has been greatly diminished.
"We live in a society
that is way too risk adverse, and that is a big problem," said
X-Prize Peter Diamandis in a recent interview with the Houston
Chronicle. "The only way we got to the moon in 1969 was by taking
risks. Without risks there can't be breakthroughs, and without
breakthroughs we stay right were we are." Amen.
Man is an explorer by his very nature. If space really is the
"final frontier," then we've wasted countless opportunities to
explore since the moon missions of the late 60s and early 70s. It's
time for NASA to step aside as the planner and executor of these
missions and to take a roll more like that of a facilitator -- an
enabler. To its credit, NASA appears to at least be leaning in that
direction. There's talk of a NASA prize modeled along the lines of
the X-Prize, where private organizations would be encouraged to
explore some facet of future space travel with the promise of a
government-funded cash reward.
On the other hand, we see private space exploration burdened
with the responsibility to be much more than a tourist-driven
industry. Charging $200,000 a trip for 15 or 20 minutes of
weightlessness and black sky is a nice way to finance more
substantive flights. Space tourism is the easy money, but it's the
scientific equivalent of potato chips -- they taste good, yet have
no nutritional value.
To truly further the spirit of humans in space, private
spacefaring companies will have to dig deeper to find a profit
motive. Will it be commercial space mining? Will it be
partial-orbit travel, as in the vision put forth by President
Ronald Reagan some two decades ago? Will it someday be planetary
exploration?
Those are the issues a spacegoing market must decide. We edge
much closer toward such decisions on Monday, when Rutan and company
take the risk and send SpaceShipOne once more to the very edge of
space.