13 February 2005
Space Entrepreneurs Worry About Fed Regulations
"...there's a thunder 'cross the land, and a fire in the sky."
The achievement of private repeatable spaceflight last fall won the $10M Ansari X-prize for aerospace designer Burt Rutan's Spaceship One last year. Looking ahead, Sir Richard Branson (no fool he!) has reservations on the books for Virgin Galactic's Rutan-built commercial space travel service. Plans procede for further enterprises to harness the resources of the moon, and the UNLIMITED energy supply that exists in orbit.
The only cloud on the horizon is the dead hand of government - in whatevert form it may take. This start-up of viable and sustained commercial space activity could be subjected to a partial-birth abortion by the imposition of government regulations. Rutan & company demonstrated that a lean, mean, performance-based approach can use an astronomically (pun not intended,m but hey, it fits!) less expensive approach to successful spaceflight than the organizationally archaic and overly bureaucratic morass that NASA has become.
Well, where do we go from here? The Chief hopes onward and upward. Let NASA's own motto become reality through private venture Ad astra per aspera - "To the stars through work". Or, in the words of a really neat song:
Now the rest is up to us, and there's a future to be won.
We must turn our faces outward, we will do what must be done,
for no cradle lasts forever, every bird must learn to fly:
We are going to the stars, see our fire in the sky.
(Prometheus Music)
The achievement of private repeatable spaceflight last fall won the $10M Ansari X-prize for aerospace designer Burt Rutan's Spaceship One last year. Looking ahead, Sir Richard Branson (no fool he!) has reservations on the books for Virgin Galactic's Rutan-built commercial space travel service. Plans procede for further enterprises to harness the resources of the moon, and the UNLIMITED energy supply that exists in orbit.
The only cloud on the horizon is the dead hand of government - in whatevert form it may take. This start-up of viable and sustained commercial space activity could be subjected to a partial-birth abortion by the imposition of government regulations. Rutan & company demonstrated that a lean, mean, performance-based approach can use an astronomically (pun not intended,m but hey, it fits!) less expensive approach to successful spaceflight than the organizationally archaic and overly bureaucratic morass that NASA has become.
Well, where do we go from here? The Chief hopes onward and upward. Let NASA's own motto become reality through private venture Ad astra per aspera - "To the stars through work". Or, in the words of a really neat song:
Now the rest is up to us, and there's a future to be won.
We must turn our faces outward, we will do what must be done,
for no cradle lasts forever, every bird must learn to fly:
We are going to the stars, see our fire in the sky.
(Prometheus Music)
