SpaceShipOne re-opened the astronautic way, after 36 years!
Dear Coplanetaries,
Today is a historical day, and nothing will be as before, on our old planet.
June 21st 2004 will be remembered in the history as an important date, at
least as much important as the one of the historical flight on Atlantic,
made by the Wright brothers, around one century ago.
Both that SpaceShipOne succeeds in being awarded the 10 million of dollars
of the X-Prize, or doesn't succeed, now the enterprise has been done. This
morning, in the desert of Mojave, a vehicle entirely drawn and built by
privates (the U.S. Scaled Composites, owned by the living aeronautical
legend Burt Rutan, sponsorised by Paul Allen, cofounder of Microsoft)
reached the sub-orbital height of 100 kms, and returned to earth after a
parabolic flight of about 1.5 hours. At the guide of the vehicle the 62
years old pilot Mike Melvill. To be awarded of the X-Prize, SpaceShipOne
will owe to repeat twice the flight, at distance of fifteen days, with a
simple ordinary maintenance between the two flights, bringing on board three
not particularly trained civilians.
Many astronaut friends (in the ideal, if not in the job), attended this day
with trepidation and anxiety, and many comments cross the web, especially on
the sites and lists dedicated to astronautics, space tourism and space
supporting in general. It is also a little bit thanks to all these people,
that encouraged the participants to the X-Prize to follow their work, if
today we are here to comment happily this great success!
First, the technology. The thread that SpaceShipOne has renewed today is the
one interrupted 36 years ago, when the promising development line of X-15
was abandoned. X-15 was a sub orbital plane that made 199 flights between
1959 and 1968, reaching 67 miles, almost 108 kms
(http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/x15/cover.html).
X-15 was brought to 13 kms by a B52, then, released, it ignited its rocket
motor and accelerated to mach 4 - 6, reaching the space. X-15 was sacrificed
on the altar of the business of the spendable rockets builders, giving life
to the shuttle, a not entirely reusable machine, built in only four very
expensive samples, and never raised to an industrial production. That
choice -- with its tragic consequences of the 1986 Challengers tragedy, and
of the Columbia one in 2003 -- it mainly marked the abandonment of the
astronautics and the beginning of to space politics targeted to earth, and
not upward. It began the era of the telecommunication and earth observation
satellites, while the astronautics was relegated to the role of mere
scientific experiment, depriving it entirely of its prince role: the space
exploration before, and the industrialization of the geo-lunar space then.
The absolute dominion of the governments and the space agencies on the high
frontier was so perpetuated for over thirty years, and the terrestrial orbit
was filled with garbage, up to confine us in a sort of iron cage, as heavy
as the ideological cage built up by the terrocentric philosophies, of the
so-called limits of development.
But today all this is history. SpaceShipOne has shown different things, all
of an importance that will be fully understood only in the months and in the
years to come: (i) it is not true that to put a kg in orbit still has to
cost 20.000 American dollars, when the new vehicles will be industrially
set, it will cost very less; (ii) it is not true that to reach space we need
the technologies of the big government agencies; (iii) it is not true that
to go to space we need long trainings and need to be young (Mike Melvill is
62 years old!). This only to start.
Those people who fear the environmental cost of the space flight should
think about the huge cost, for the terrestrial environment, of sticking on
the oil power, in comparison to the solar energy (clean and boundless)
harvested in space and stored on earth in form of hydrogen (just to make an
example). Also let's wonder why the two ecologist lobbies (Green Peace and
WWF, both foraged by the oil lobbies), historically always supported only
and entirely the so-called alternative sources (wind and terrestrial
photovoltaic), that don't have any possibility to compete, neither
quantitatively nor economically with the ultra-power of oil, while they
always opposed the space technologies and kept on ashamedly silent about
hydrogen.
Today also the above is history. Absurd and retrograde wars where ignited
among opposite oil lobbyists. They try everything to denigrate and stonewall
the scientific culture and the technological research, favouring every sort
of ideological trash, in a criminal attempt to prolong their dieing empire,
putting at risk the same continuation of the human civilization. But then a
small prize, founded in 1996 by two visionary entrepreneurs, shifted the
initiative of some good willing men and women, and a small thing happens, as
the Wright brothers' flight was, one of those small things, that however
change the history!
All those people that take care to the continuation of our civilization,
this night are toasting with champagne!
Long live to SpaceShipOne! Long live to Burt Rutan! Long live to Mike
Melvill and all those people who contributed to this success!
Today, more than ever:
Aim High!
Adriano Autino
PS: watch Technologies of Frontier http://www.tdf.it /, in the next days and
weeks we will put online other comments and news, and we think to issue TDF
2/2004 within the summer vacations.
PS: please forgive my bad English, even worse than usually, but I'm in hurry
to deliver this message!
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