Magnificent Desolation (35 page)
Read Magnificent Desolation Online
Authors: Buzz Aldrin
Dennis moved from his 30,000-square-foot Pacific Palisades mansion located on a hill overlooking the ocean to a tiny, bare apartment in Star City, the Russian cosmonaut training headquarters outside Moscow. He completed his training with two Russian cosmonauts, and on April 28, 2001, they launched from the same pad from which
Sputnik
, history’s first flight into space, had lifted off. It was also the same pad from which Yuri Gagarin, the first man to travel in space, took off forty years earlier, on April 12, 1961.
A couple of months after Dennis returned from his mission, both he and I appeared before congressional subcommittees to answer questions about space tourism. Dennis had successfully opened a door to space tourism; now I just had to find a way to make it affordable to more people. The committee asked me to address three questions specifically:
What types of activities will be enabled or enhanced by space tourism?
What are the major hurdles that must be overcome before the space tourism business can be self-sustaining?
What role should the Federal government play in promoting space tourism?
For me, these three questions were like a volleyball hanging over the net, just waiting to be spiked. I began by explaining to the congressional committee that space tourism was the key to generating the high-volume traffic that could bring down launch costs. NASA’s own research had suggested that tens of millions of U.S. citizens wanted to travel to space, and that the number would increase immeasurably if the global market were included. This volume of ticket-buying passengers could be the solution to the problem of high space costs that plague government and private space efforts alike.
I emphasized, though, that if we were to avoid the mistakes of the past, it was imperative that we involve the private sector. The needs of the commercial space tourism business must be central as we define the next generation of reusable space transportation. The next vehicles must be designed with the flexibility not only to satisfy NASA’s needs, but to meet high-volume commercial tourism requirements, and the private sector must be responsible for operating the system.
I admitted quite candidly that I had an ulterior motive for promoting space tourism, that my goal really was to get the United States back in the space exploration business, to begin again to discover what was “out there” in the final frontier.
“My passion about this,” I acknowledged, “springs from the way that large-scale space tourism leads to space infrastructure that enables broader national goals—such as a return to the moon and the exploration of Mars.”
In answer to the committee’s first question, I expressed my strong opinion that if the government would get out of the way, space transportation could evolve into a normal industry. “It will become like the rail, pipeline, ship, highway, and air traffic systems,” I told the committee members. “They all have vast markets, low costs, high reliability, full reusability and routine operations. Today, space transportation is characterized by small markets, high costs, high accident rates, wasteful expendability, an inability to operate on a routine schedule, and continuing loss of market share to foreign suppliers.”
I knew this was not the message the committee wanted to hear,
but it was the truth they needed to hear, so I pressed on, reminding them of the benefits of space tourism. Properly planned and implemented, space tourism could help cut the cost of space access by 50 to 70 percent, I told them. This lower-cost system will deliver several benefits:
The United States will recapture the lion’s share of the global satellite market.
NASA’s planetary probes will become far more affordable.
Space hotels will become feasible, providing greater volume at far lower costs than the International Space Station.
The launchers for space hotels and space tourists will be equally ideal for expeditions to the moon and Mars, as well as to launch massive military payloads like space-based lasers and future solar-based satellites.
Perhaps the greatest long-term benefit will be the mass production of spaceflight, the high-flight-rate, high reusability and high reliability. The nation that establishes a two-stage fully reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle will lead the world for the next thirty to forty years in charting the space frontier.
I contrasted these positive effects with the current situation in which the exorbitant cost of the space shuttle and the International Space Station operations have become a millstone around the neck of our space exploration programs and the American taxpayers.
I knew I had the committee’s full attention now, so I proceeded to answer their question about some of the hurdles that had to be addressed before space tourism could become self-sustaining. I’m sure I surprised the members when I said, “Actually it may be self-sustaining already. Some Russian officials have said that Dennis Tito’s check covered the entire out-of-pocket cost of launching the Soyuz rocket that took him to the space station. If space tourism already makes financial sense when you fly Russian expendable rockets—what happens when
their technology becomes reusable—when Russian launch costs suddenly drop and their safety goes way up?”
I went on to point out something that many of the committee members probably didn’t know: “We Americans have spare seats for rich tourists, too. The space shuttle often flies with only five or six people, when it can hold seven to eight. The United States could be learning about space tourism, using the assets it already has. Flying passengers on the shuttle can be part of the research that leads to new vehicles, based on first-hand experience with the shuttle tourists. So I have to say that NASA’s refusal to actively encourage passengers on the shuttle is a major hurdle.”
Ouch. I could almost feel the committee members wince as they came face-to-face with the truth that one of the biggest hurdles to advancing in space is our own space administration.
I talked a bit about the difficulties in raising capital for space tourism, or even accessing loans to finance the business. I knew from my experience with StarBoosters that lenders were skittish about loaning money to what they regarded as a highly speculative start-up industry.
Since the gloves were off now, I figured I might as well lay it all out candidly before the congressional committee:
Another hurdle is the current structure of the space transportation industry. Two major private companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, formed a monopoly [United Space Alliance] to operate the space shuttle. Even monopolies have good ideas from time to time, and one idea was to turn the
Columbia
orbiter into a commercial vehicle, one that might take passengers. NASA’s reaction was to have the president of the monopoly fired.
On the military space side, the two major companies were both given contracts for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle. With the 20/20 clarity of hindsight, we can now see that this was a mistake. Now neither of them has any incentive to develop reusable vehicles, despite what may be said for public consumption,
at least until they’ve recovered their considerable costs sunk in the new systems.
I could see on some of the committee members’ faces that they didn’t quite catch the significance of this, so I spelled it out specifically:
We have a civilian space agency that’s been hostile to tourism, and the two major private companies left with no incentives to move on to reusable systems that could greatly serve our national interest and the waiting tourism market. In the meantime, the Russians just announced at the Paris Air Show that they are moving ahead with their reusable first-stage system, the Baikal. Making matters worse, they have found a market for their vehicle in Europe, where they are now attempting to team with the European Space Agency to use it as a reusable booster on the
Ariane 5
, replacing the more costly and accident-prone, expendable solid rocket motors.
Until NASA becomes an advocate for space tourism, or Congress intercedes and mandates the Department of Defense or NASA to develop reusable space transportation—and it can be done during this administration—the current establishment structure will not produce what we need.
When it came to answering the committee’s third question—what should the government do to help—I grew even more direct:
First, it should keep its promises. Speaking very personally, I want you to know what NASA has done directly to my ShareSpace Foundation. At the end of March, after great effort, we responded to a NASA request for cooperative research proposals on the Human Exploration and Development of Space. We offered to compile detailed and sophisticated market research on the potential demand for passenger space travel. Two months later, NASA told us our proposal was exactly what they wanted. But in the
same letter, it said the money to fund the entire program had been hijacked by other budget needs. This, unfortunately, has become more of the norm for doing business with NASA, not the exception.
I doubt that NASA has congressional approval for this maneuver. I hope you tell them to put the money back where they found it.
Next, NASA should immediately set up the mechanism for flying paying passengers on the space shuttle. My ShareSpace Foundation has been proposing this to NASA for two years now. We offered to create a scientific research program on what’s required to safely train passengers for space travel, and what medical standards should be developed for screening passengers. The passengers’ own ticket money would pay for all the research, and my foundation would make the results freely available. This would be a tremendous help to all the companies planning space tourism ventures, and to the government agencies that would regulate them. Leftover ticket money would go back into NASA to support other space tourism initiatives.
Since the shuttle was declared operational, more than 100 seats have gone unused. If the value of a seat is $20 million, that amounts to $2 billion in lost revenue for the space program.
The ShareSpace Foundation proposal for shuttle seats would see the chance to fly to orbit made available in many different ways. Some seats would be sold to the highest bidders to determine just how much early pioneers are willing to pay for space travel. This is important market research data. Some seats would be offered via sweepstakes or lotteries, so every American could have a small chance of flying to space. Others might be sold to television networks, so professional communicators could educate the public about the nature of the experience. It also would be good to have an independent journalist or two check in person on the space station’s progress. As things stand now, the taxpayers will pour up to $95 billion into a government construction project,
and the only people who will report on how it’s going are employees of the federal agency in charge of construction. This strikes me as very unusual for such a massive expenditure of taxpayer funds.
I reminded the committee that Russia already had established a lead in the area of space tourism, but it didn’t have to be that way. “If NASA continues to be hostile to using the space shuttle, all space tourists will be forced to use Russian companies, as Mr. Tito did. This makes no sense to me. We have spare seats in the shuttle, and using them doesn’t cost NASA a cent. Instead, it brings in extra money.”
I concluded with what I hoped was a challenge to the members of the committee. “As I hope you recognize by now, space tourism is not just a cute idea,” I said. “The country that leads in space tourism will reap a tremendous drop in launch costs and far greater vehicle reliability. Its exploration initiatives and its military space activities will dominate the twenty-first century. As you can see, the United States is way off course on this subject, and it desperately needs Congress to firmly set a new pro-tourism policy.”
I reminded them that many people were looking forward with great anticipation to traveling into space, and that once the restrictions and impediments were removed, people would be lining up for the possibility of a trip. “I know of two individuals, a well-known Hollywood producer and a well-known television correspondent, who are ready to go right now.” I was referring to my friends, the film director James Cameron of
Titanic
fame, and CNN newsman Miles O’Brien, with whom I have had the pleasure of being interviewed on many occasions.
Since Dennis Tito’s flight in April 2001, five space “tourists” have followed suit to join this exclusive orbital flight group, most recently paying over $30 million for a seat on Russia’s
Soyuz
spacecraft to fly for a week up to the International Space Station. These have included: Mark Shuttleworth, a South African computer software entrepreneur; Greg Olsen, an American entrepreneur and scientist in the optical sensor field; Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian-American cofounder of Prodea
Systems and title sponsor of the Ansari X PRIZE; Charles Simonyi, a Hungarian computer software architect and developer of Microsoft’s office applications, who was also the first space tourist to make a return trip to the ISS in March 2009; and Richard Garriott, an American computer game designer and son of Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott. I have met all of these spirited adventurers—or “Global Space Travelers” as I like to call them—and I herald their commitments to expand the human spaceflight experience. They all trained diligently for their respective flights and activities on board the ISS, and they have all brought back inspiring stories, photos, and new perspectives and insights on how space travel can be shared with more people.
