SpaceX, short for Space Exploration Technologies, is one of the most interesting companies in the world right now to keep an eye on. If I were a billionaire -- and hey, I'm only a billion or so short of being one -- I would be pouring investment money into the company, and expecting a handsome return on it in a few years.
Yesterday, Space-X had their third launch failure in as many attempts. Or, as the company's founder Elon Musk prefers to describe it, their third "partial success." Ok, he has a point -- most of the innovative Falcon 1 rocket's parts worked perfectly. The first stage, using a brand-new rocket motor and structure and control system, worked without a hitch. But, for the second time, there was a problem with the separation between the first and second stages, and so the payload -- in this case, three separate satellites -- never made it to orbit.
Musk, who made his fortune in the Internet, by founding PayPal and then selling it to eBay, vows to keep on trying. In a letter posted on the SpaceX website, he declared flatly "There should be absolutely zero question that SpaceX will prevail in
reaching orbit and demonstrating reliable space transport. For my
part, I will never give up and I mean never."
I admire Musk and his innovative plans, and I believe his commitment is real. And in addition to his personal fortune of a few hundred million, he says he has obtained substantial outside investment to keep the company's plans on track. And even NASA is backing him, as part of its COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) program to provide resupply services to the International Space Station.
Why does any of this matter to students? In fact, it matters in a big way, because SpaceX is one of about a half-dozen companies that are working hard to bring down the cost of sending things into orbit by at least an order of magnitude, and hopefully by two orders of magnitude, over the next few years. And if he or any of the others succeed (and frankly SpaceX is one of the top two or three candidates, and the one likeliest to succeed first), it will completely revolutionize the entire space business.
And among the very first people to benefit from that dramatic cost reduction will be students and academic researchers. A whole host of science and engineering research projects that would have been too costly to even attempt could suddenly open up as practical and within reach. And other projects that might have taken many years to get to the point of actually getting into orbit might be able to get there on a timescale of months instead. It will truly be a new era for university-based projects in astronomy, communications, materials research, biology in microgravity, and exploration.
In fact, Musk has specifically already offered cut-rate launch services to some of the student teams that are competing in the Google Lunar X-Prize challenge, including a team from Carnegie Mellon University.
So we should all be rooting very hard for SpaceX, as well as for the other companies competing in this arena: Blue Origin, founded by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos; Xcor, a company based in Mojave, California that has the most explicit plans to make its planned low-cost launch services available for academic research; Armadillo Aerospace, founded by John Carmack, creator of the videogame Doom; and Virgin Galactic, the partnership between X-Prize winner Burt Rutan and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson. While Virgin Galactic's business plan is mostly focused on the tourist market, it is clear that their vehicles -- both the SpaceShipTwo rocket, and its carrier plane White Knight Two -- could be a great platform for research as well.
Musk says that he has another Falcon 1 rocket ready to go, and he's also going full-tilt toward test flights of the much bigger Falcon 9, which will be the most powerful US rocket in existence. I wish him well, and will be keeping a close eye on his progress, and will keep you all posted on new developments here in this blog. (By the way, the best way to keep track of developments in real-time when there's a SpaceX launch about to take off is through a blog by Elon Musk's brother Kimbal, called Kwajalein Atoll and Rockets after the Pacific island site where the tests are conducted). There's also a good analysis of yesterday's failure, and of Musk's overall approach, on the blog Space Transport News.
Good luck to all of the new generation of space pioneers represented by these daring startup companies, that are poised to revolutionize the way the space business works.
(Photo: Falcon 1's second launch attempt from Kwajalein Atoll last year, courtesy of SpaceX)
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