SO you want to start your own space programme? No problem 鈥� if a diverse band of aerospace enthusiasts in the US get their way. Encouraged by a surplus of cheap rockets from Russia and Ukraine, three groups of budding entrepreneurs have come up with some outlandish proposals that include a DIY rocketship, a design for cut-price military satellites and plans for sending wannabe celestial explorers to the Moon. The aim is to turn space travel into a profitable private business free from government bureaucracy and interference 鈥� and the proponents are deadly serious.
Soviet rocket engineers 鈥渕ade their products to be simple, reliable and easy to use鈥�, says Geoffrey Landis, senior research associate at the Ohio Aerospace Institute, a consortium of nine universities affiliated to NASA鈥檚 Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, 鈥渁nd they built them by the thousand鈥�. Now the rockets are being sold 鈥渙ff the shelf鈥�, he adds, and Landis is one of the new breed of entrepreneurs keen to get his hands on a few. With his partner David Burkhead, a physics undergraduate and fellow science-fiction writer, he has designed the SpaceCub, a rocketship named after the inexpensive and easy-to-fly American Piper Cub aeroplane. 鈥淪paceCub began as an off-hand comment from Geoff that we should have some sports model spaceships for ordinary citizens,鈥� recalls Burkhead. 鈥淪illy me, I took it on as a task.鈥�
Despite an expected price tag as high as $500 000, the SpaceCub is the economy route to your astronaut鈥檚 wings. The craft would come in the form of a DIY kit, with full instructions for turning the community hall into a workshop and your local airfield into a launch site. The kit would also include the three rockets needed to lift the craft, including its pilot, out of the neighbourhood for a ride that promises to beat anything on offer at the local leisure park.
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The SpaceCub would cover nearly 1500 kilometres in around 20 minutes, reach a top speed of nearly 2 kilometres a second, and go as high as 160 kilometres. Though this is well short of the lowest orbiting satellites, it is well inside space鈥檚 official boundary, which the US Air Force draws at 80 kilometres above the Earth.
鈥淚n the computer, the numbers all work,鈥� says Burkhead, who describes the SpaceCub as 鈥渢he offspring of the DC-X, sired by the X-15鈥�. The DC-X, or Delta Clipper-Experimental, is the prototype for a reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) rocket, which is currently being developed by the US Air Force (鈥淪pace Clipper comes of age鈥�, 12 August). The X-15, a predecessor of the space shuttle, was an experimental rocket-plane in the early 1960s. The craft was launched from the underside of a giant B52 bomber aircraft and, like the SpaceCub, was not designed to reach orbit.
Such a pedigree fires Burkhead鈥檚 enthusiasm for the SpaceCub. 鈥淲e can actually do it, and we will, a little bit at a time. First analysis, then simulation, then scale modelling. Eventually we will build the real thing.鈥�
The real thing would be a vertical takeoff and landing vehicle, like the DC-X, and weigh about 1200 kilograms empty. It would be built from aluminium alloy, stand about 11.5 metres high and burn readily available, inexpensive jet fuel and liquid oxygen. The Russian engines, says Landis, could be the same as those used for controlling the direction of the Salyut and Zenit boosters: they are lightweight, about a metre long and provide more than 2000 kilograms of thrust apiece. 鈥淲ith the wings we have designed on the craft, we could lose up to two of the engines and still return to a vertical landing on one engine.鈥�
Flying thrills
Amateur astronauts would fly the rocketship straight up into the sky, experiencing a maximum acceleration of 3G at takeoff that would take them to a speed of 1200 kilometres per hour within two minutes. A minute later, as the last drops of fuel were consumed, they would be moving at a speed of well over 6000 kilometres per hour and the craft鈥檚 trajectory would have swung over to 20 degrees from the vertical. After reaching its highest altitude and having begun its descent, SpaceCub would start to re-enter the Earth鈥檚 atmosphere about two minutes later, decelerating from hypersonic to supersonic to subsonic again only 13 minutes after takeoff. After another seven minutes of manoeuvring at subsonic speeds, the craft would be ready to come down for a tail-first landing having travelled nearly 1500 kilometres overall.
For the moment, the SpaceCub鈥檚 flight has only been simulated on a computer screen and with a small scale model. 鈥淚t鈥檚 still a design project to see how far we can go,鈥� says Landis. 鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to get quotes on the Russian and Ukrainian engines, and then lay out the kit development programme.鈥� If the engines are sold for $50 000 apiece, he says, the DIY kit could cost 鈥渁s little as $250 000鈥�. Though there would still be the cost of training on simulators, Landis is convinced that plenty of people have deep enough pockets to make the venture profitable: 鈥淧eople want a 鈥榟ot kit aircraft鈥� and are willing to pay for it.鈥�
He cites the 100 or so sales of the BD-10, a kit-built jet plane produced by the Bede Aircraft Corporation of Chesterfield, Missouri: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 $500 000 for a craft that can reach only Mach 1.5 (more than 1500 kilometres per hour) and 40 000 feet [about 12 000 metres]. Our 鈥榟ot kit aircraft鈥� will blow them away 鈥� we will go five times as fast, and all the way up into space.鈥�
While impressive, such statistics leave Mitchell Burnside Clapp unmoved. He is a major in the US Air Force with a much grander vision of how the technology from his Cold War sparring partners could be exploited. He would like to see a rocket-powered aircraft, no bigger than a jet fighter but large enough for a two-person crew, that would take off horizontally from a conventional runway, be refuelled in flight, and then launch itself into orbit. He has named his dream spaceplane Black Horse, and his programme one-stop-to-orbit in contrast to the single-stage-to-orbit programmes currently being developed.
鈥淭he basic idea,鈥� he says, 鈥渋s to minimise changes in the existing aerospace infrastructure, to use existing technology wherever we can, and not to invent anything until we have to.鈥� Clapp points to the huge investments that may be needed by many of the proposed SSTO programmes: dedicated runways, new fuel distribution systems, specialised hangars and handling equipment for some of the larger proposed spaceships.
Coming from someone with Clapp鈥檚 background, this seems like a case of poacher turning gamekeeper. He is a former pilot on the DC-X programme, and is currently based at the Phillips Laboratory in New Mexico as chief of flight operations on the X-33 programme to develop an SSTO spacecraft. Clapp insists, however, that Black Horse is not designed to replace these programmes for hauling large payloads into space. 鈥淚鈥檓 talking primarily about optimising for small, 500-kilogram payloads. We could build these kinds of spaceplanes in the short term and at relatively low cost.鈥� And industry could benefit from the work eventually, he says.
Black Horse would be a delta-winged craft, nearly 18 metres long. It would take off carrying all the fuel needed to reach orbit but, to reduce the payload, carry only enough oxidiser to reach an altitude of 35 000 feet where it would take on more. Ideally, Clapp would like the craft鈥檚 five engines to burn a mixture of standard kerosene and concentrated hydrogen peroxide, which would give the fuel an unusually high power to weight ratio. But no one has used this type of mixture before and more investment in research could wreck the project鈥檚 viability. If economics and scheduling dictate a more conventional mixture and thus a less specialised engine, Clapp says he will happily turn to the former Soviet Union where 鈥渢here are many high quality engines available鈥�. Those five engines should enable Black Horse to be in orbit within 20 minutes of takeoff, delayed only three minutes by the in-flight refuelling. Within an hour, says Clapp, the US Air Force could be above any spot on Earth where it could be 鈥減erforming interesting tasks or delivering interesting objects鈥�. In its present form, the craft would return from orbit much like the shuttle by gliding to a landing on an airfield. But an alternative design sees the craft, with its rocket fuel spent, using jet engines to bring it to the ground like a conventional aircraft.
Clapp seems confident that his proposal is realistic. The US Air Force provided Phillips Laboratory with $70 000 to validate the concept, and Clapp has been promoting the idea in his spare time by giving interviews and presenting lectures to anyone who will listen. Not much money is needed to complete the Black Horse鈥檚 development programme, he says, just $150 million: 鈥淔or this amount, no more than the cost of a Titan IV launch, we could have a whole new aerospace craft.鈥�
Helping hands
Sympathetic friends around the US have run computer models, done wind tunnel tests or provided other help with research. A computer artist at the Phillips Laboratory made an animated video of the launch and re-entry sequence for Clapp, and at least one of the country鈥檚 national research laboratories has donated time on its supercomputer. Meanwhile, a local firm in Albuquerque is looking at the possibility of making a virtual reality presentation of the whole programme.
Next year, says Clapp, trainee test pilots at the Edwards Air Force Base in California will try out the programme鈥檚 in-flight refuelling procedure. 鈥淭hey鈥檒l be gathering real data, flying their jets as if they were Black Horse, providing a reality check against what looks very good in the many computer programs we鈥檝e run.鈥�
Clapp鈥檚 ambitions, however, appear feeble beside the proposal to sell passenger flights to the Moon and establish a permanent lunar colony to exploit its resources. Moonbase Artemis is the brainchild of Gregory Bennett, an engineer for McDonnell Douglas who is currently testing large scale models of the International Space Station for NASA in Houston, Texas. Bennett is also a science-fiction writer.
His goal is to establish the base by 2003, and to have private industry running the project at a profit by then. In July, Bennett鈥檚 Artemis Foundation became a nonprofit, lobbying group and a new organisation, Lunar Resources Corporation, was formed to do the work and earn the money. 鈥淲e plan eventually to go public with Lunar Resources Corporation, and we are going to raise other funds through movies, toys, videos, games 鈥� all with Artemis names and logos,鈥� he says.
Happy ever after
Bennett expects the early stages of the project to be funded 鈥渢hrough shameless commercialisation鈥�. He plans to make movies of the early missions to establish the colony, and to merchandise the whole venture. 鈥淧eople love space, and they鈥檙e willing to pay for it if it鈥檚 entertaining,鈥� he says, highlighting the blockbuster movie, Apollo 13, as the sort of thing he has in mind. 鈥淲e are going to sell adventure and entertainment, a way for people to participate in the return to the Moon, and ways to enjoy it.鈥�
With his partner and fellow science-fiction writer, Ian Randal Strock, Bennett has established a journal to promote the pair鈥檚 ambitions. Artemis Science Fiction Magazine, says Strock, 鈥渨ill focus positively on lunar exploration, commercialisation and the establishment of permanent lunar base鈥�. He adds: 鈥淎s editor, I will not publish stories or articles about doomsday on the Moon, or of dystopias, or cyberpunk. There will be enough interesting events in our future 鈥� send your misery stories elsewhere.鈥� The first issue is due out later this year.