WHEN Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne makes the first attempt to win the X prize next week, the astronaut at its helm will be following in a long tradition of daredevil test pilots. But unlike previous competitions to push the boundaries of human flight, the X prize brings with it an extra pressure: a deadline. If the $10 million prize has not been won by midnight on 31 December, it will be withdrawn.
The question is whether this pressure is leading competitors to take risks that endanger people’s lives unnecessarily. Some danger is unavoidable at the cutting edge of space flight. The first Apollo crew died without even leaving the ground; two cosmonauts died during re-entry in the 1960s; Apollo 13 was saved from disaster by incredible luck; and then there were the Columbia and Challenger disasters.
The X prize sponsors hope things will be different this time. The prize will go to the first privately funded group to make two return flights into sub-orbital space with the same human-piloted craft carrying the weight equivalent of two passengers, in the space of two weeks. The idea is that the publicity generated by a winner will spur investment in the private space industry. But it’s a gamble. Astronaut deaths have had a crippling impact on the space industry. In the wake of the Columbia disaster in 1986, for example, some scientists and politicians argued that human space flight should be stopped. What would be the reaction if a fatal accident were to befall an X prize competitor?
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Rutan’s SpaceShipOne (SS1), the odds-on favourite to win, has followed the methodical aviation tradition of build-a-little, test-a-little. But even with this prudent approach there have been scares. During SS1’s maiden space flight in June this year, a sudden loss of attitude control and a loud boom in the back were enough to scare the craft’s seasoned test pilot. In the event, both turned out to be minor glitches that were easily fixed.
Other teams have had more serious problems. Texas-based John Carmack, who made a fortune in computer games and was a serious X prize contender, is now out of the running following a failed test. His rocket, Black Armadillo, crashed in an unmanned test in August. Rubicon 1, a rocket built by Space Transport of Forks, Washington, exploded in mid-air on its first test flight in August. The team is now working flat-out to build a replacement, for $29,000 – about one-thousandth the cost of SS1 – before the deadline. Fortunately, neither of these accidents led to any human casualties.
The glamour and urgency of winning this prize is on the minds of the 20-odd teams still in the race. Take Brian Feeney, director of the Toronto-based da Vinci project, who intends to make the first rocket flight himself on 2 October, whether or not Rutan has already claimed the X prize. Feeney will go straight to space in a craft that has never flown before. And he is using a radically new and untested design to boot. His rocket will be launched from a helium balloon floating at 80,000 feet, and will rely on many untested elements working first time. While SS1’s prize attempt will be the spaceship’s 11th flight, Feeney wants to hit the jackpot on his first try.
If Rutan doesn’t succeed next week, there will no doubt be a mad dash to claim the loot before it vanishes. And that is bound to tempt competitors to cut more corners and take chances, with potentially fatal consequences. A serious accident would not only be a tragedy for those directly involved, it would hurt the entire nascent industry.
There is a precedent for dangerous behaviour under this kind of pressure. In the 1920s, the $25,000 Orteig prize spurred Charles Lindbergh to make the first successful non-stop flight from New York to Paris. In the eight years between the prize going on offer and Lindbergh winning it, six men died in the attempt, in three separate accidents.
Unlike the X prize, the Orteig had no deadline and the competition merely tested the endurance limits of existing aircraft. The X prize is different. It is testing one-off designs that will fly into uncharted territory. And the safety systems the X prize competitors are using are alarmingly rudimentary. For example, SS1’s pilot has no parachute, and the craft’s only safety device is a kill-switch that shuts down the engine in an emergency, leaving the pilot without power as the craft glides back to earth. Safety features for the other contenders are no more sophisticated.
Space enthusiasts remain confident that public excitement in manned space flight is greater than ever. Certainly SS1 has summoned up far more interest than shuttle flights have managed for years and this can only increase if the prize is won. But what then? Hopes for commercial exploitation of private space flight are pinned on developing space tourism. For commercial space flight, a fingers-crossed approach won’t do. Even safety-conscious NASA’s shuttle has a failure rate of 1 in 67 flights – hardly the makings of a tourist business.
Future competitions should make safety a central feature. There is too much riding on these pioneering projects for it to be treated as a mere desirable extra.
