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.

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