"ALL'S WELL - The White Knight lands at Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne on the vehicle's second rocket powered test flight at the Mojave Airport." Alan Radecki/Special to the Valley Press
Posted on 04/25/2004 10:33:19 AM PDT by BenLurkin
MOJAVE - It's the biggest thing to come to town, possibly ever in Mojave's history. Mojave Airport and the surrounding community are readying to host as many as 300,000 visitors as Burt Rutan and his Scaled Composites team attempts to win the $10 million X-Prize sometime this year.
Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne already has flown two successful flights firing its hybrid rocket motor and is widely seen as the front-runner in the international competition intended to jump-start the commercial space tourism industry.
The competition will award $10 million to the first privately funded team to successfully build and launch a spacecraft capable of carrying three people to 100 kilometers altitude and safely return to earth, then turn around and duplicate the feat with the same ship within two weeks.
The crowds expected for such a historic event could rival those that streamed into the Valley for the space shuttle landings at Edwards Air Force Base in the 1980s and 1990s, East Kern Airport District General Manager Stuart Witt told members of the Mojave Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.
With that in mind, the airport is tapping into the expertise that helped make those events so successful. The airport's director of airfield operations, Bob Rice, is the former Edwards AFB deputy chief of operations. As such, he helped coordinate the space shuttle landings of the 1990s. Before that, he was up-close and personal with the landings as a firefighter with the rescue crew.
Although not widely publicized, SpaceShipOne's first rocket-powered flight Dec. 17 drew huge crowds to the airport. The resulting chaos caught airport officials off-guard, and plans were immediately drawn up to prepare for the next such event.
"I just started from scratch," Rice said.
Airport officials have worked closely and practiced with Kern County Sheriff and Fire departments, California Highway Patrol and other emergency services to ensure a smooth operation.
Rice brought the same methodical approach used during the shuttle days to planning for the X-Prize attempt. Checklists detail each area's responses to given scenarios, and practice drills help iron out any glitches.
The latest SpaceShipOne flight April 8 was a successful "dry run" of the operation, Rice said.
"You can have all the plans in the world, but if they're just sitting on a shelf, they're no good," he said.
Rice sent the procedures on to the Federal Aviation Administration, which is considering a space launch license for the airport. "They loved them," he said, smoothing the way for the licensing process.
The community also is working at ensuring the expected visitors are properly greeted by organizing a community-wide clean-up May 1.
"We're going to have a whole bunch of folks coming to Mojave real soon, and we want it to look good," said Bill Deaver, Chamber of Commerce secretary.
An attempt to claim the $10 million prize will be made sometime this year, because the offer expires at the end of 2004.
The exact date of an attempt, or even the practice flights, remain difficult to pin down, due to the experimental nature of the endeavor.
"This is not an airshow we're conducting," Witt said. "This is flight test."
"This is flight research in its purest form," said the former Navy test pilot. This means that many variables affect the flight date, from the health of the pilot to the readiness of the vehicle and weather conditions.
The X-Prize rules require formal notification of the organizers at least 30 days prior to the attempt.
"To my understanding, no one has made that announcement yet," Witt said.
However, Witt was invited to join the X-Prize steering committee because "the first probable, credible launch attempt is likely to occur at Mojave Airport," he said.
"It really is a challenge; it really is a fun race," Witt said. "It gives you chills."
The competition was established for many of the same reasons as the $25,000 Orteig Prize which prompted Charles Lindbergh's solo Atlantic crossing 77 years ago, he said.
"To make mankind's grasp extend further than the current reach … to prove you can do something greater," he said.
As it now stands, governments have the monopoly on space flight. The X-Prize aims to change that, opening the world of space travel to the private sector.
A successful flight to prove the concept of privately-funded space travel will open the doors to interest and investment in the next phase of commercial space enterprise, Witt said.
"All of us have benefitted from space, but no one's made any money at it," he said. "This will be the first opportunity for the private sector to garner investment."
While Scaled Composites' entry has attracted more attention and is seen as a front-runner, it is not the only X-Prize contestant based at Mojave Airport.
Interorbital Systems is the second of the 26 competing teams to call Mojave home.
Unlike Scaled Composites, however, the Interorbital Systems entry is not designed to launch from the airport itself, but from a launch site in the Pacific Ocean.
"ALL'S WELL - The White Knight lands at Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne on the vehicle's second rocket powered test flight at the Mojave Airport." Alan Radecki/Special to the Valley Press
My money says that they make it into Space on July 4th. Let the private space date pool commence.
I keep seeing this line in coverage of X-Prize realted events. Does the X-Prize actually claim to have anything to do with space tourism or (I think much more likely) is it that the press doesn't see any possibilities in space except tourism?
Either way it strikes me as an annoyingly short-sighted point of view.
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