Privatising the space race: IT moguls reach for the stars

There are more than a few characters competing in the commercial space industry right now.

With Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and co-founder of Microsoft Paul Allen all in the mix, there's as much interest in the players as the game itself. All have ample resources to 'boldly go' for many more years, even without any notable commercial success on the final frontier.

It is arguably Paul Allen's plan, though, which is the most intriguing. Vulcan Aerospace is a space transportation venture aiming to launch satellites from the belly of a huge carrier aircraft.

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An image of the Stratolaunch, currently under construction by Paul Allen’s Vulcan Aerospace

The giant plane, currently under construction inside a hangar in Mojave, California, will be the biggest the world has ever seen and is being designed to launch space rockets into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) from 30,000 feet. The logic being that launches can become a matter of routine, with airports being replaced by launchpads.

Allen and the team are working on the premise that the key to opening up space to the masses is by accessing LEO.

The central piece of kit in achieving this will be the Stratolaunch, a huge carrier plane with twin fuselages – each about the same size as a 747 jumbo jet. A large wing – spanning 117m – will stretch across the top, connecting the two fuselages.

Payload-carrying booster rockets will be held under the wing between the two jumbo jets, and will be launched into space from the air.

“The pilot will be positioned in one fuselage on the right side,” says Prof Kerri L Cahoy, assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT.

“The plane will be built chiefly from carbon composites: extremely strong and light fibre-reinforced plastics, bound by some kind of polymer. The material may also contain other types of fibre in addition to carbon.

“The aircraft is so large that using lightweight and strong materials are necessary to keep the operation efficient. It has to be strong enough to fly and carry a reasonably heavy payload [satellite] before it drops the payload and the rocket ignites. Before the rocket is dropped, including fuel, the plane will weigh over 500,000kg. The rockets will likely contain payloads weighing around 5,000kg.”

Ground orbits

vs launch orbits

Traditional space rockets take off from the ground. Allen is proposing this sub-orbital alternative for a number of reasons. “There are a lot of logistics for a ground launch that may be less complicated for an air launch,” explains Cahoy.

“Both types of launches require range safety consideration, but it is a different set of risks for an air launch compared with a ground launch,” she adds.

“The location of your launch site on Earth may affect and constrain the type of orbit, or inclination, that you launch into (which relates to your latitude. It takes a lot of fuel to change this parameter). So if you are trying to rapidly deploy a satellite, or if you are trying to deploy a large number of satellites efficiently into certain orbital ‘tilts’, an air launch would be advantageous. If you have smaller satellites and you can’t afford a whole rocket, it would be better to be able to choose where you go into orbit rather than having to wait for a ride with a bigger satellite and go wherever it goes.

“In the longer-term, it may also be more cost-effective than other types of launch platforms.”

In other words, Stratolaunch’s capacity to launch from different locations will allow satellites and passengers to be more accurately placed in orbit at a lower cost.

NextSpace

As philanthropic-minded as Paul Allen is, this is still a multibillion-dollar project. So he must be confident there is a market for the Stratolaunch system.

And that market, says president of Vulcan Aerospace Corporation and executive director of Stratolaunch, Chuck Beames, must be a free one.

In a white paper published after Vulcan Aerospace was officially launched last year, Beames outlined the commercial imperatives required to make the private space industry more than simply a playground for the uber-wealthy. “Vulcan Aerospace has been challenged by the question of what is next in the field. The answer is something the team is calling ‘NextSpace’.

“NextSpace envisions LEO as a successful commercial economic domain, one where access is no longer the privilege of a few and utilisation of space is open to all. This evolution is well under way, and will only accelerate as space access becomes dramatically less expensive and far more convenient . . . Moving space towards a free market requires the kind of technological innovation that will enable more traditional users as well as engage new users.

“It will also require a reimagining of how business is done throughout the industry. One successful example is the deconstruction of traditionally government [operated] services. As portions of the space business are commercialized, the government can become a customer along with the rest of the global market.”

In other words, Vulcan Aerospace aims to expand liberal economics into the stratosphere – both literally and figuratively.

Notwithstanding any grand economic and philosophical visions, there would be customers in the short term prepared to pay for what Vulcan Aerospace is offering.

“There is a lot of demand for small satellite launchers that are cost-effective and that can be more selective and in control of their own orbits,” says Cahoy.

“So in that sense, I think the current aims will help meet existing demand.”

Given that Allen has always been driven by the question, “what’s next”, it seems only fair to ask what else this technology could potentially be used for.

“In the future, maybe it would be possible for an air-launch vehicle to deploy tiny spacecraft, like those mentioned in Breakthrough Starshot, [an initiative recently announced which aims to develop mini, laser-propelled probes capable of travelling from our solar system to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri],” says Cahoy.

You got Moxie, Allen

In short, Paul Allen is building a really big plane that will shoot little planes into space.

It almost sounds like something people in the 1940s would have envisioned the future to look like. But this ain’t no glorified history project.

Allen wouldn’t be doing it if he didn’t think it could work. Whether it is working according to schedule, however, is another story.

This time last year, chief executive Chuck Beames said the Stratolaunch Project would be doing test flights by 2016. The company’s press machine is tight-lipped on specifics.

To be fair, there’s still plenty of time left in 2016. So we cannot accuse them of telling lies just yet. And according to a recent blog post from Beames, everything is just fine.

“Stratolaunch is making good progress, and remains on target to meet our long-term goal of being fully in service by end of decade. We’re looking forward to sharing new milestones in the near future.”