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« Situation Report | Main | Into the Box » October 05, 2004A Dynamic VictoryCongratulations to Burt Rutan, Brian Binnie and the crew behind Scaled Composites for their successful completion of their quest for the Ansari X Prize. As most of you doubtless already know, Binnie piloted SpaceShipOne to an altitude of 69.7 miles before taking her in for a landing in the Mojave only five days after SpaceShipOne’s last flight, completing the X Prize requirements with room to spare. This is a major milestone in the exploration of spaceflight, not only because of the success of SpaceShipOne, but because SpaceShipOne is likely only the first of many new designs for spaceflight, kicking off the first real testing and experimentation phase of space exploration necessary to find out what works and what doesn’t work. I count myself as one of the great admirers of the accomplishments of NASA during the Apollo Program. Challenged by President Kennedy to put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth in less than nine years at a time when NASA had a grand total of 15 minutes of manned space flight, the agency did the nearly impossible and gave us Neil Armstrong standing in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969. But while their accomplishment was amazing, the space race also turned off our best chance to kick off the space age in the 1960s. Before NASA, there was NACA: the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics. Where NASA was charged with actually building the ships, training the pilots, and running the missions, NACA’s job was simply to help others by amassing technical and engineering data. Actual missions would be the responsibility of the military and the private sector. Only when Sputnik flew ahead of an American satellite did the Eisenhower administration give in to panic and, in the words of Rand Simberg, challenge the Soviets to determine who could run a more effective socialist space program. NASA won that battle, but in so doing, they killed any private initiatives into spaceflight. Now, forty years later, we have a chance to bring them back. I’m confident that a number of my readers will object to my characterization of NASA despite my respect for their work, so I’ll try to explain why private space flight is preferable to government space flight in the long term. I’ll start back with Apollo. Early in the Apollo program, the program managers had to make a decision about how they were going to get to the moon. The initial belief was that there were two methods: direct ascent and Earth orbit rendezvous. Direct ascent would require the design and construction of a single spacecraft capable of flight to the moon, landing and takeoff from the moon, flight back to Earth, and reentry and splashdown on Earth’s surface. Such a spacecraft would be huge and weighty, requiring the development of the massive Nova rocket to carry it into orbit. On the other hand, direct ascent was the simplest method available, requiring only a single launch and one spacecraft. Earth orbit rendezvous was more complicated, requiring the launch of multiple smaller rockets into Earth orbit. Once in orbit, the rockets would rendezvous and assemble the components of the moon spacecraft in Earth orbit before flying to the moon. This would still require a massive, all-purpose spacecraft for landing on the moon and returning to Earth, but it would obviate the need for the Nova rocket that almost certainly could not have been completed in time for Kennedy’s deadline. As anyone who remembers Apollo knows, NASA ended up using a completely different method to get to the moon: lunar orbit rendezvous. Lunar orbit rendezvous used two specialized spacecraft, one to take the astronauts to and from Earth, another strictly to land and take off from the moon. Lunar orbit rendezvous allowed the use of far less fuel because two specialized spacecraft were far lighter than a single multipurpose craft, meaning the planned Saturn booster could carry both craft on a single launch. So every Apollo crew but 7 and 8 got to name two different spacecraft, and Neil Armstrong landed the Eagle in the Sea of Tranquility while Michael Collins flew the Columbia overhead in lunar orbit. NASA had to choose one best way to get to the moon because they could only afford one way. With Apollo, that worked out. With the Space Shuttle, it did not. In the early 1970s, NASA had to select one best way to continue the space program, and they went with the Space Shuttle. Originally marketed as a space plane that could be used over and over again, it is now clear the shuttle is barely reusable after months of refit and its costs for putting cargos in orbit remain very high. But because NASA was the only game in town for manned space flight until just this year, that decision trapped the future of manned space flight on a very narrow path. There is an old saw that argues that the best form of government is a benign dictatorship. The theory is that a benign dictator will want to do what is best for his people and, with the power of dictatorship, can ensure that his people get what is best for them. As with many theories, it sounds much better on paper than it actually works in practice. NASA was given the power of benign dictatorship over space flight, and they were unquestionably benign. I don’t doubt for a second that the men and women of NASA are dedicated to the mission of furthering space flight. But despite their best intentions, they made a bad call with the shuttle, and now manned space flight is hanging by a thread because their dictatorship made sure that nobody else could try a different way until now. In addition to Rutan’s Scaled Composites crew, other teams were seeking to win the X Prize, and some of them will continue to try despite the official competition having come to an end. They each have their own designs and ideas about how to get into space, and it’s quite possible that some of their plans will be even better than SpaceShipOne. More importantly, because these independent efforts will continue, even if Scaled Composites fails, there will be others to take their place, in stark contrast to the aftermath of Columbia’s breakup on reentry almost two years ago. Because there is no central controlling force behind these efforts, each group has the freedom to test their own ideas to find out what works and what doesn’t. While Scaled Composites clearly has the lead in the race right now, it is virtually certain other companies will come along to challenge them, and as each looks to succeed, we will see them quickly reach and surpass NASA’s accomplishments. That may seem like a bold statement, but even a cursory review of history suggests that it’s accurate. Just as the free market can better distribute basic resources like food better than a centralized government agency (compare food distribution in the Soviet Union to the United States), the free market will be more agile and better able to locate the most effective routes into space than NASA because it doesn’t have to deal with the sclerotic effects of central control forcing people down the path of a single best way. Rutan’s victory is a great day for him and his team. It is also a great day for those who advocate freedom over central control, for once again, freedom has triumphed.Posted at October 5, 2004 08:48 AM
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