NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT (NBR 6:30 pm ET) February 18, 2004
Nightly Business Report
SUSIE GHARIB, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT ANCHOR: The past year has been one of recovery and regrouping for NASA after the "Columbia" space shuttle tragedy a year ago. But despite that setback, there's growing interest in bringing the private sector into space exploration.
Tonight, as we continue our series "Space: The Next Step," Jeff Yastine looks at the role entrepreneurs could play in the U.S. space program.
JEFF YASTINE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Tucked away in this Miami warehouse district is a company whose business really is rocket science. The firm's name, Environmental Aerosciences, or EAC for short. On the floors, the empty shells of rocket motors yet to be fired. And in the back, a technician creates new parts.
And overseeing it all is Korey Kline, the company's chief executive and engineer.
KOREY KLINE, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, EAC: We do work with the Air Force and DARPA. They come up with original ideas or new propellants or new materials.
YASTINE: EAC often tests out new engine designs with fiery motor tests like this one. The company is part of a small but growing group of entrepreneurial firms hoping to revolutionize how payloads and people are lofted into space.
KLINE: I think the other thing that's interesting is the technology is now at a level that the technology's been demonstrated that smaller companies can now take that technology and manipulate that technology and actually make products from it. It's no longer superscience in a NASA laboratory.
YASTINE: In fact, a St. Louis group has created something called the X- Prize, and a reward of $10 million, as an incentive to companies and entrepreneurs to build a better rocket. To claim the cash, a team must be first to build a reusable space vehicle and safely launch three people to an altitude of 62 miles -- the edge of space -- and then land, and repeat the same flight again within two weeks.
Dennis Tito paid $20 million three years ago to train and fly with the Russians as the first space tourist. Supporters believe the X-Prize project, if successful, could sharply lower the cost of spaceflight and create a much larger space tourism market.
BRIAN CHASE, VICE PRESIDENT, THE SPACE FOUNDATION: And so that's going to demonstrate the capability to conduct launches that could be used for tourist purposes. And once that's done, then there -- I think there is a very real profit potential there. There have been several market studies completed that indicate there's a fairly large market for space tourism rides.
YASTINE: A recent survey projected that in the year 2021, 15,000 people a year would pay up to $50,000 per seat to go on suborbital flights. With that in mind, a handful of deep-pocketed technology mavens have entered the X-Prize contest, spending big bucks to win.
SpaceX, based in California, is backed by the founder of eBay (EBAY) PayPal service, Elon Musk. Another rocket group, Blue Origin, is backed by Amazon.com (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos.
Skeptics of these privately financed rocket shops say they're wasting their money.
JOHN PIKE, DIRECTOR, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: These are not engineering problems which can be improved with time. But the basic efficiency of rocket technology was fully realized four decades ago. They're going up against the physics of spaceflight that the efficiency of rocket engines, the mass fraction of the boosters, simply cannot be improved as a way of making spaceflight less expensive.
YASTINE: But the backers of this combination air-and-space vehicle believe otherwise. Funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and designed by famed aircraft builder Burt Rutan, the large-winged aircraft flies to high altitude and then drops a rocket plane mounted to its belly. These pictures are from a successful manned test flight in December, when the rocket plane broke the sound barrier. Suborbital tests are expected later this year.
Back on earth, space entrepreneurs like Korey Kline hope such efforts will lead to bigger things for this tiny industry.
KLINE: There definitely is more interest nowadays than there has been certainly five, 10 years ago. But there is not nearly enough investment going on to really support a lot of these small companies that are developing right now. And I hope that changes. Certainly, as Burt Rutan demonstrates that small companies can in fact put people into space, I'm hoping that that will change.
YASTINE: Jeff Yastine, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Miami.
© Copyright 2004, Community Television Foundation of South Florida, Inc.
