Space du Soleil

September 02, 2009

Guy Laliberte leaned to believe in magic when he was boy.  He was sitting in a forest with his buddies at summer camp one night when someone brought out a TV.  It was July 1969 and he remembers being mesmerized not just because someone managed to get a TV out in the middle of nowhere,  but also by what unfolded on the small black-and-white screen: Men were walking on the moon.

“I then realize and start to believe that a fairy tale is possible,” said Laliberte. He literally left home to join the circus - actually he created one and over the years parlayed his band of street performers into the worldwide entertainment phenomenon known as Cirque du Soleil.

On Wednesday -- his 50th birthday -- Laliberte talked to reporters via a live webcast from Russia to discuss plans for his upcoming space flight. He’s given himself a mission, a “poetic social mission” that he hopes will change the world, one drop at a time.

His goal is to raise people’s consciousness about water, how much of it is used for different activities, the role it plays in the health and environment of our planet and our bodies, the lack of clean water in many parts of the world.

So on with the show …

In true Cirque du Soleil style, Laliberte plans an artistic performance that he hopes will touch people’s hearts.

Emotional experiences, Laliberte says, “stay longer in the head.”

With just a few months to prepare the show, Laliberte, tapped his considerable network for help and came up with a few famed folks to join him in what is expected to be a two-hour event on Oct. 9 staged in space and in 14 locations around the world. Collaborators include former Vice President Al Gore, U2, Indian film composer A. R. Rahman, musicians Peter Gabriel, Claude Challe, Garou, Gilberto Gil, and several filmmakers, artists, scientists and astronauts, including Belgium’s Frank De Winne, who is currently living aboard the space station.

Laliberte said he has no idea what will result from his endeavor, but he hopes  it will position his nonprofit foundation One Drop onto an international stage for environmental awareness.

(That's Guy on the left and his crewmates for his Sept. 30 launch, NASA astronaut Jeff Williams and rookie cosmonaut Max Surayev. Credit OneDrop.org)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome To The Recession, NASA

August 13, 2009

A tedious final public meeting of the board reviewing the country’s human space program concluded with a sobering assessment of the future, at least for those wishing to see American flags on other bodies in the solar system. To put it bluntly: It ain’t gonna happen in our lifetimes without a big boost in NASA’s budget.

That’s not to say there’s not a silver lining, a couple actually. First off, we’re likely to make our international partners very happy because the only program that looks robust and viable for the foreseeable future is the International Space Station. For the most part, the Human Space Flight Review panel seems to favor extending its planned lifetime to at least 2020. 

It’s a logical choice considering that the complex isn’t even finished yet and currently is on the books for only five years of operating funds beyond its 2010 completion date. That’s less time than NASA has kept the rovers Spirit and Opportunity plucking around on Mars.  The space station will have consumed somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 billion by the time it’s finished, so it seems only prudent to try to get some return on the investment.

NASA, however, would like to move beyond operations 200 miles above Earth and has set its sights on the moon and Mars. The blueprint it’s been working toward had its legs cut out from under it, financially speaking, and it’s over.

“We can’t do this program in this budget,” board member Sally Ride told her colleagues on the Human Space Flight Review panel, which wrapped up what was expected to be its final public meeting in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. “This budget is simply not friendly to exploration.”

About $3 billion a year would be needed to get the exploration initiative back on track, though the earliest a return to the moon could occur is probably in the mid-2020s, rather than 2020, the agency’s initial goal.

The cards left on the table, however, offer a new path into space, one that might be well-tread by NASA, but is brand new to the rest of us. By extending the space station, the government can create a commercial market for rides to space. Once the space shuttles are retired, NASA will need a way to transport its astronauts and the only option now is to buy rides from the Russian government for close to $50 million a seat.

Buying rides commercially not only could create a more robust space station program, it could open travel options for tourism and other orbital expeditions.

It’d be a tough pill for NASA to swallow, one that has stymied almost every government bureaucracy, as it would require the agency to do the unthinkable: get smaller. Welcome to the recession, NASA.

Welcome Home

April 09, 2009

A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying space station commander Mike Fincke, flight engineer Yury Lonchakov and space tourist Charles Simonyi returned to Earth on Wednesday -- and apparently NASA photographer Bill Ingalls was airborne to see it. Hope the landing was softer than this looks. To the left is Fincke with the official welcoming committee. 

Space Tourism Program Still Ticking

April 03, 2009

Space Adventures, the Virginia-based firm that so far has cornered the market on commercial spaceflight, isn't letting a little thing like no more flight opportunities spoil its business plans.

In a conference call with reporters, company president Eric Anderson said the ongoing flight of space tourist Charles Simonyi (they prefer the term "spaceflight participant") shouldn't be its last. 

Simonyi, who is flying for the second time, is among six wealthy business people who have ventured into orbit thanks to Space Adventures' business ties with Russian space officials. NASA won't fly anyone other than professional astronauts, in case you're wondering.

Space Adventures has been selling spare seats on the Russian Soyuz capsules traveling to the International Space Station to swap out crews. But beginning in May, when the live-aboard crew size doubles to six, there aren't going to be any spare seats available, barring last-minute hiccups. That's one of Space Adventures' business models: Be prepared to pounce if something opens up. Anderson said the company is keeping a close watch on a potential issue that may free a seat on the Soyuz slated to fly on September 30 with a flier from Kazakhstan, which is paying Russia directly for the venture.

Space Adventures also is trying to put together dedicated commercial Soyuz flights, though the capsule manufacturer, which already has to double production to handle the extra flights to ferry the station's larger crews, may find it impossible to crank out more vehicles. Also, there's limited parking space at the station -- assuming that's still the tourist destination of choice. Two of the station's docking ports will be filled with Soyuz craft serving as the crew's lifeboats. The leaves just one port free for either a third Soyuz, a Russian Progress cargo ship, or Europe's ATV cargo ship, which docks at the Russian side of the station. 

Still, there's reason to hope, Anderson said. The world economic situation apparently hasn't hit his clientele (Simonyi paid $35 million for his flight) as much as other industries.

"The kind of person … who has indicated an interest in going to space is a long-term thinker. Someone who has had a life dream of going to space is not going to let an economic downturn -- even if it’s a longer one than we would have hoped -- change their objective," Anderson said.

That's a load off. 

(Caption: Charles Simonyi in space. Courtesy: NASA) 

Son of an Astronaut

October 15, 2008

Floating in space as we speak are two NASA astronauts, Greg Chamitoff and Mike Fincke; three Russian cosmonauts, Sergei Volkov, Oleg Kononenko and Yuri Lonchakov; and one video-gamer known to millions as Lord British and General British. His real name is Richard Garriott.

Garriott is 47 years old, lives with his girlfriend, has a pierced ear and a wears a silver serpent necklace he made as a child. He created an entire pictographic language for his last computer game, which he named Tabula Rasa -- Latin for "blank slate" -- in reference to the concept that individuals acquire knowledge entirely from their experiences and sensory perceptions of the outside world, as opposed to inherited content.

If Garriott didn't personally believe that, he'd never be in space today. For when he was a kid, some of the best doctors in the world -- the ones on staff at NASA -- told him he couldn't be an astronaut like dear old dad. Bad eyes, they said. Young Garriott decided he'd have to make his own way. And so he did.
The path was not what you'd recommend to your kids: Spend hours playing computer games, drop out of school, don't worry about marriage and children, etc., etc.

Yet Garriott did follow the single most important piece of advice you hear over and over from astronauts today: Do what you love. For Garriott, his passion for role-playing games led to a lucrative business that enabled him to spend $35 million for a 10-day trip to space. I don't know what it costs to develop a computer game, but I'd be surprised if Garriott's adventure isn't incorporated in some way into his next virtual world.

(Top: Richard Garriott stashes a chamber used to grow exotic protein crystals in space. Credit: Space Adventures for Discovery.com; Left: Garriott and his crewmates before launch in Russia; the trio as they board their rocket for blastoff. Credit: Victor Zelentsov and Bill Ingalls for NASA)

Spaceship 2.0

July 28, 2008

From the creators of the world's first privately developed spaceship comes its commercial cousin, Eve. During an unveiling ceremony at Scaled Composites' Mojave, Calif., base, Burt Rutan, who designs cutting edge aircraft -- and spacecraft -- with an artist's eye, and his newest best friend, the daring and dashing Richard Branson, of Virgin fame and fortune, showed off the launch vehicle for their new venture.

Branson started a new business, Virgin Galactic, after watching Rutan's prototype SpaceShipOne make three flights in 2004 to clinch a $10 million purse put out by the X Prize Foundation.

Like its predecessor, SpaceShipTwo will travel into suborbital space after being toted off the ground by a jet carrier, aka: Eve, named for Branson’s mother. Eve is to SpaceShipTwo what the White Knight was for SpaceShipOne. You can read the full press release here.

The rollout comes a year and two days after an accident claimed the lives of three Scaled employees working on the new spaceship's rocket engine. Scaled is appealing a $25,870 fine levied by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which cited inadequate training and unsafe conditions as contributors to the accident.

Though the accident and investigation delayed plans for the start of Virgin’s space tourism business, it didn’t seem to stem enthusiasm and support for the venture. The company, which is charging $200,000 for a ride, has already collected full fares from 100 armchair astronauts ready to leave -- albeit briefly -- the home planet.

Guess Who's Coming to Visit?

July 14, 2008

There’s a long list of topics to discuss at the big International Space Station partners meeting in France this week: payloads for the shuttle's last nine flights to the outpost; two mini-research modules Russia wants to attach; bunking arrangements for when the crew size doubles next year -- and my personal favorite: what to do about uninvited guests.

Now I’m being blatantly ethnocentric here and looking at the prospect of visitors solely from NASA’s point of view, which seems a bit like the proverbial housewife putting up with the husband’s relatives. Sure, NASA needs her Russian hubby, particularly since he’s got the only car service running after the shuttle retires, but just how far does this arranged marriage bend?

Russia, which has embraced capitalism as no entity in the U.S. government  has dared, has cut a deal with a Virginia-based firm to supply spaceships and pilots to ferry paying passengers to the station. Russia has been running a small-scale tourist transport service since Dennis Tito forked over $20-plus million for run to the ISS in 2001.

NASA was none-to-pleased with the stunt and begrudgingly “allowed” access to the ISS only when it became apparent that it had no choice. But Tito and the handful of entrepreneurs who followed his footsteps (Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott’s son Richard, millionaire computer game developer, is set to become tourist space flight participant No. 6 in October) hitched rides on Soyuz capsules that were needed to change out resident space station crewmembers. The new gig would add three folks at a time for independent research, educational, commercial or other programs.

Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson tells me he’d like to fly a commercial Soyuz once a year beginning in 2011. (He declined to reveal a target price for each excursion.)

NASA learned of the plan last month the same way most folks did: from a press conference. The initial response was polite, but muted. One program manager did let slip that he thought commercial Soyuz trips marked “a radically different” way of operating.

I’m sure they’ll work things out though, for in this world of uncertainty, NASA has indeed staked a claim in at least one final frontier: There’s no divorce in space.

Caption: Dennis Tito suiting up to become the first fare-paying passenger in space. (Photo: Space Adventures.)