The Falcon 9 lifts off at 2:45 pm EDT Friday from Cape Canaveral, as seen in this screen capture from the SpaceX webcast.
If you had polled the attitudes of the people watching the launch of the first Falcon 9 on Friday, the most common feeling leading up to liftoff might be something like “hoping for the best but expecting the worst”. People wanted SpaceX to succeed with the Falcon 9 on Friday, but know that first launches of new rockets had no guarantee of success—something that Elon Musk and SpaceX impressed upon the community leading up to the launch.
So when the Falcon 9 lifted off at 2:45 pm EDT today and soared into the skies, eventually placing a demonstration Dragon capsule into nearly the planned orbit, the reaction was something approaching euphoria, even by Musk himself. “It’s been one of the best days of my life,” he said in a teleconference with reporters a couple of hours after the launch. “It’s certainly been one of the greatest days for the people of SpaceX.”
The launch had some drama, as well. The launch window opened at 11 am, but because of problems with an antenna for the rocket’s newly-approved flight termination system, they weren’t ready to launch until 1:30 pm. In the final seconds of the countdown, though, just as the nine rocket engines were about to ignite, the launch was aborted.
Musk said the abort was caused by a reading from an igniter on engine number three on the first stage. “The pressure rise on engine three was higher than expected,” he said, triggering the abort. “We looked at the data and concluded that… we were being a little too conservative” in the allowable values for the pressure in the engine. “So we widened that band [of allowable values], reconfigured the engine three computer, and it lifted off without a problem.”
About the only discernable problem during the launch was a roll in the second stage that appeared to speed up as the burn continued. “There was a little more roll than expected. It didn’t affect the mission,” Musk said. “That is definitely something that we want to refine,” he said, adding they didn’t immediately know the reasons for the roll.
So how did the launch feel, Elon? “When the rocket achieved orbit, there was tremendous relief and elation at SpaceX,” he said. “Upon liftoff there was sort of relief that it cleared the pad; things were obviously extremely tense here.” And his plans to celebrate? “I think with a lot of margaritas.”
After consuming those drinks, Musk and his team plans to spend about a month reviewing the data from the launch to fully characterize it and look for any issues (in addition to the second stage roll) that need to be corrected. Musk said he still planned to launch the next Falcon 9 mission, the first of three planned NASA COTS missions, later this summer. The Falcon 9 for that mission has already been built and is sitting in Texas ready to ship to the Cape; the Dragon spacecraft that it will launch is undergoing final reviews.
Falcon 9 on the pad at Cape Canaveral for a static test firing earlier this year.
If all goes as planned, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will lift off Friday from Cape Canaveral on a mission to demonstrate the capabilities of the new launch vehicle. However, the problem with new launch vehicles is that things often don’t go as planned, a concern not just for SpaceX but for the broader commercial spaceflight industry at a key time for it.
SpaceX CEO and CTO Elon Musk was well aware of the difficulties of launching new rockets, something he and SpaceX have already gone through with the smaller Falcon 1, which failed to reach orbit on its first three launches. “Historically, I think it might be something like a 50/50 shot of the first flight succeeeding,” he said in a teleconference with reporters Thursday, referring to the historical record of first launches of new rockets.
He does feel a little more optimistic about the chances of success with Falcon 9, citing the company’s experience and heritage of some Falcon 9 components on the Falcon 1. “My personal assessment of the likelihood of success is probably 70-80 percent,” he said. He did have a colorful way of putting that into perspective. “I should point out that this is less than the probability of success in Russian roulette,” he noted. (Assuming success in Russian roulette is defined as not getting a bullet, you have a 5 out of 6, or 83%, chance of getting an empty chamber.) “So if anybody remembers that scene from The Deer Hunter, that’s tomorrow.”
Well, that’s one way to look at it. It’s also worth noting that success is not a binary condition for this test flight: there’s a spectrum of outcomes between complete success and complete failure. “One hundred percent success would be reaching orbit” with the model of the Dragon spacecraft the rocket is carrying, Musk said. “But I think that, given that this is a test flight, whatever percentage of getting to orbit we achieve would still be considered a good day.” He added it would be a “great day” if both stages work correctly.
SpaceX is finally ready to launch the Falcon 9, having overcome the last obstacle to launch, the certification by the Air Force of a flight termination system that would be used if the rocket veers off course and has to be destroyed. Getting that approved took much longer than SpaceX anticipated. “There were I think some elements of it we underestimated, some elements that our suppliers underestimated,” he said.
If this launch was just about SpaceX it would be one thing: the company has been through the process of developing and testing a launch vehicle before, and from their accounts seem prepared for a failure, either partial or total. However, the launch also comes at a time when commercial spaceflight has been thrust into the political spotlight by plans by the Obama Administration to have NASA rely more on commercial launch providers, including a $6-billion initiative to develop commercial crew capabilities. That has put a lot of scrutiny on this launch from those skeptical of, or outright opposed to, the president’s plans.
“I feel like sort of a political punching bag, a whipping boy, I suppose,” Musk said. “The opponents of the commercial approach have taken a very calculated strategy of attacking SpaceX” while ignoring alternative vehicles, like United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets, that have already demonstrated the ability to safely launch spacecraft on more than 30 missions since 2002.
The Falcon 9 launch, he continued, “should not be a verdict on commercial space. Commercial space is the only way forward” because of the unsustainably high costs of government programs. He later said that “if some company like SpaceX doesn’t succeed, then the future of space is not a bright one.”
SpaceX will be webcasting the launch starting at 10:40 am EDT (1440 GMT) Friday, 20 minutes before the four-hour launch window opens. They also have the same time block reserved on Saturday should the get scrubbed Friday by technical issues or the weather. In addition, Spaceflight Now will have its own webcast featuring Miles O’Brien, David Waters, and former astronaut Leroy Chiao starting at 10 am EDT.
Mike Gold talks about Bigelow Aerospace's plans at the ISDC in Chicago on Friday.
Mike Gold, director of Washington operations for Bigelow Aerospace, spent much of his 45-minute speech at the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Chicago talking about the history of Bigelow’s development of inflatable (or, as the company prefers, “expandable”) modules, including the successful launch of Genesis I and II in 2006 and 2007, respectively; familiar ground for most who have followed the company. He also discussed the company’s future plans, including how NASA’s proposed new direction in human spaceflight may directly and indirectly affect the company.
Bigelow’s plans to launch a series of larger habitable modules, starting with the 180-cubic-meter Sundancer, are dependent on the introduction of commercial crew transportation services, a key element of that plan. “The long pole in the tent for our operations is that while we could have Sundancer ready very quickly, we don’t have a way to get people back and forth,” he said. Without it, the company’s investment “will be for naught”. He believes that commercial crew services will be as safe, if not safer, than government systems, as companies have a lot more riding on the line than a government agency: while NASA could (and has) survived fatal accidents in the past, a company could lose hundreds of millions of dollars or go our of business entirely in such an event. “We’re more incentivized to be safe than a government agency because we have a lot more riding on it.”
However, Bigelow is a bit particular about who they work with on commercial crew. “We love SpaceX,” he said, “but the rocket we’re most excited about, at least in the near-term, is the Atlas 5.” He cited the rocket’s 100-percent record of success since its introduction in 2002 as the reason they prefer it over the as-yet-untried Falcon 9. “If your goal is safety and reliability, this is the system you would go to.”
Another area where NASA’s new plans intersect more directly with Bigelow’s plans is the agency’s focus on “flagship technologies”, including inflatable modules. “The good news is that NASA is paying attention to the technology,” Gold said. “The bad news is that NASA is paying attention to the technology.” He said the company would be responding to a new request for information (RFI) from NASA on the proposed technology demonstration program, and that Bigelow has been “actively” talking with NASA about building something called a “Bigelow Aerospace Module”, or BAM, that could be installed on the ISS.
One criticism the company has of NASA’s interest in inflatables is that the RFI talks about adding a “full scale” module to the station. He said even adding a small module to the station involves a lot of issues such as structural fatigue and outgassing. “I’m not sure whether you could safely put a full-scale inflatable on the ISS,” Gold said. A free-flyer would be much safer and cost effective, he said. Asked after his presentation whether there was the feasibility and/or interest in putting a Sundancer module on the ISS, he again raised the technical concerns about adding a relatively large module to the station. The BAM concept would be closer in size to the Genesis demonstration modules, he said, more like “a closet” than a full-fledged module.
Eric Anderson (left) and John Carmack talk about their suborbital partnership at ISDC on Thursday.
As expected, Space Adventures announced Thursday at the International Space Development Conference, (ISDC) in Chicago its partnership with Armadillo Aerospace to provide suborbital space tourism flights. Armadillo will develop a vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) suborbital vehicle carrying people to at least 100 kilometers altitude, with Space Adventures selling the seats, starting with its existing customer list of about 200 people, including several former astronauts.
The presentation, featuring Space Adventures president and CEO Eric Anderson and Armadillo Aerospace founder John Carmack, offered few technical or schedule details about their plans. There is no finalized vehicle design yet: a video shown in the presentation showed a number of differenent Armadillo concepts, from a cone sitting atop four propellant tanks with a central engine to the “fishbowl” concept Armadillo showed off in 2008 for the short-lived suborbital joint venture between Armadillo and the Rocket Racing League. Carmack also offered no timetable for the beginning of tourist flights, although he did note the company hoped to be flying unmanned scientific payloads to altitudes of approximately 100,000 feet (30 kilometers) in the next year, and to 100 kilometers altitude in the following year.
Instead, the presentation was examining in more general terms the companies’ plans, including why Space Adventures, who has made a name for itself for nearly a decade by arranging flights to the International Space Station, would get into the suborbital spaceflight business. Anderson noted that when Space Adventures was founded in the late 1990s, its focus was on suborbital spaceflight at a time when many vehicle developers were saying “we’re only two years away,” he recalled. “We didn’t have any idea at the time that we would be fortunate enough to be able to launch private citizens to orbit before suborbital flights,” he continued. Later, Space Adventures considered working with a Russian company to develop a suborbital vehicle called Explorer, which he said they abandoned because “frankly, it got too expensive.” As Armadillo made progress with their vehicles, “I was just so impressed” with their efforts he was convinced they were the company that could really reduce the cost of space access.
While neither Armadillo nor Carmack discussed the cost of the project, they did confirm that Space Adventures was providing Armadillo with funding to support it, at least in part. Alluding to past partnership announcements that failed to pan out, Carmack said, “One of my new rules on this is that I’m not going to get up and talk about something unless a check has cleared.” And since Carmack was getting up and talking about this, he confirmed, “Space Adventures has actually paid Armadillo Aerospace to begin developing a new suborbital vehicle.” Carmack said later that under their agreement, Space Adventures will pay Armadillo unspecified amounts upon achiveing certain milestones in the vehicle development effort. “The amount of money that has changed hands here is not trivial, but it’s not enough to fund the vehicles,” he said. “It isn’t enough money to pay for these vehicles, it’s enough money to make me think about not pursuing other contracts.” He added that he expected to kick in more of his own money into the venture, but also looked to getting funding from NASA’s Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program for flying scientific payloads.
The timelines that they did reveal suggest that Space Adventures and Armadillo will not be the first to market for commercial suborbital space tourism, given the progress being made by companies like Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace. Carmack addressed this as well, in the process perhaps raising the hackles of some of his competitors in the audience at the ISDC. “It’s a fool who doesn’t think he has any competition,” Carmack said. On Virgin, he said, “I think they have explicitly not chosen the most cost effective solution on this. I don’t think they will be able to compete on price, eventually, but some people will prefer their experience.”
Carmack was critical of XCOR from a funding standpoint. “I believe that, if fully funded, they could build a vehicle that could fly, that could service passengers,” he said. “I do not believe they are fully funded.” He then issued something of a warning to other companies, after earlier noting that Armadillo planned to accelerate its development plans and hire more people. “I think one of the best things about having the other companies in the industry is that it’s developed some very skilled and talened people, and we’re probably going to steal some of them.”
Carmack also said he felt Armadillo’s VTVL vehicle was a superior approach to a winged vehicled like SpaceShipTwo or Lynx. A ballistic reentry, he said, is better than a winged reentry, noting one fatality from the X-15 program. Launching a winged vehicle, he added, is “a lot harder than making a ballistic vehicle fly right up.” Thus, for greatly reducing the cost of suborbital spaceflight, “the powered [vertical] landing has significant benefits.” After the presentation I talked briefly with XCOR COO Andrew Nelson, who said, “People will want a lot of different experiences. We believe that most people will want something involving wings.”
The announcement of the Masten/XCOR partnership on Tuesday to pursue lander testbed opportunities with NASA might leave some to conclude that Masten was turning to XCOR entirely for all of its engine needs. That is not the case: Masten is continuing to develop and test its own engines, using LOX and isopropyl alcohol propellants, for its other suborbital vehicles. And one of those engines got an interesting test yesterday:
This was a free flight of Masten’s XA-0.1B “Xombie” vehicle in Mojave. What made this test unique was that they turned off the engine in flight, and a few seconds later restarted it, the first in-flight restart of an engine during their test program. “The ability to turn off our engine, re-ignite it in flight, successfully regain control and land was the next big milestone as we expand our flight envelope to include high altitude flights,” company CEO Dave Masten said in a statement. “Each milestone we hit makes the path to space much clearer.” Masten now plans to turn to efforts needed for faster and higher altitude flights, including supersonic aerodynamics.
I’m at the airport waiting to catch a flight to Chicago for this year’s International Space Development Conference, the annual conference of the National Space Society. (I was already supposed to be there, but Untied, er, United, canceled my flight last night.) This year’s conference has a particular emphasis on NewSpace, more so than conventional space companies. Some highlights:
On Thursday morning Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures, will announce the company’s “New Venture”, according to the title of his talk. This is likely to be the exclusive marketing agreement with Armadillo Aerospace the company announced last month; at the time the company said they would announce additional details at ISDC. We’ll hopefully learn more about the deal and why Space Adventures, which had de-emphasized suborbital space tourism in recent years in favor of orbital spaceflight, is jumping back into this market.
Virgin Galactic will be represented by its new CEO, George Whitesides, who returned to the company earlier this month after roughly 18 months at NASA in several roles, including chief of staff to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. With Virgin and Scaled continuing their captive carry flights of WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo, hopefully we’ll get some updated details about their plans for upcoming tests and introduction of commercial service. Whitesides is scheduled to speak late Saturday afternoon.
On Friday morning there will be updates about the progress of XCOR Aerospace and Bigelow Aerospace by XCOR CEO Jeff Greason and Bigelow DC Operations Director Mike Gold, respectively. XCOR is working on its Lynx suborbital vehicle, so we may learn more details about the progress they’re making on their prototype. Bigelow, as Aviation Week reported earlier this month, is ramping up its marketing efforts for its inflatable orbital habitats. Bigelow will also benefit from the new interest in commercial crew transportation as part of the NASA fiscal year 2011 budget proposal. On Friday afternoon Masten Space Systems president and CEO Dave Masten will talk about winning $1.15 million in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge last year, and presumably their ongoing efforts as well.
There are also several other talks from representatives of the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation, Spaceport America, and several other NewSpace companies, including a panel Saturday morning on “The ‘NewSpace’ Paradigm”. So the next few days should offer a good opportunity to see where much of the NewSpace industry stands as of 2010 and what companies think their prospects are.
This morning Masten Space Systems and XCOR Aerospace announced a partnership to pursue anticipated NASA business for unmanned lander technology development efforts. Masten will develop the vehicles and XCOR will provide LOX/methane engines and composite propellant tanks. Full details are in the press release below, and the companies plan a joint telecon later today to provide additional details.
XCOR and Masten Announce Strategic Relationship for NASA Landers Business
May 25th, 2010, Mojave, CA, USA: XCOR Aerospace and Masten Space Systems, two of the leaders in the New Space sector, have announced a strategic business and technology relationship to pursue jointly the anticipated NASA sponsored unmanned lander projects. These automated lander programs are expected to serve as robotic test beds on Earth, on the lunar surface, Mars, near Earth objects and other interplanetary locales, helping NASA push the boundaries of technology and opening the solar system for future human exploration.
Masten’s award winning automated vertical take off, vertical landing (VTVL) flight vehicles combined with XCOR’s strong experience in liquid oxygen (LOX) / methane powered propulsion systems and nonflammable cryogenically compatible composite tanks, brings to NASA a powerful and competitive combination of innovative talent with a proven record of producing exceptional results quickly and affordably.
Last October, Masten won the $1 million first prize for Level II of NASA’s Lunar Lander Challenge, beating out a host of New Space rivals, and demonstrating they are the leading VTVL development group in the country. In 2007 XCOR Aerospace’s LOX/methane engine, developed for NASA, was named by Time Magazine as one of the “Inventions of the Year”, recognizing XCOR’s successive advancement in the state of the art of both pump and pressure fed reusable, throttle-able rocket propulsion systems. XCOR and Masten have also demonstrated the ability to rapidly take from concept to live fire, new propulsion and control system designs using innovative rapid prototyping techniques that surpass client requirements in much shorter periods of time than traditional aerospace methods.
Dave Masten, founder and President of Masten Space Systems commented “Masten Space and XCOR are next door neighbors here in Mojave. We’ve worked together on many tactical problems over the years and our corporate cultures mesh well. Working together on something like this simply made too much sense. We can’t wait to start working with Jeff, Dan, and the XCOR team to help NASA build affordable and responsive landing platforms.”
“Our company work ethic and styles are very compatible, and with XCOR propulsion and Masten VTVL technology, we can solve problems of national interest, and I am excited about the possibilities,” said Jeff Greason, CEO and Founder of XCOR.
Andrew Nelson, Chief Operating Officer of XCOR added, “It’s a no brainer, Dave’s team is the absolute best New Space company when it comes to VTVL and autopilot unmanned operations – they demonstrated that in October by winning NASA’s lander challenge. And we feel our LOX/methane engines are unsurpassed in the trade space today by anyone. We should bring this tandem set of best in class capabilities to NASA, it just makes sense for them and for us.”
XCOR and Masten will be jointly marketing their skill sets and services to the NASA community as prime contractors, and as joint teaming partners for larger systems integrators and prime contractors servicing the NASA community.
Yesterday was the QuikTrip Air and Rocket Racing Show in Tulsa, featuring the first public flights of two X-Racer vehicles at the same time. (There had been previous test flights not open to the public, although anyone around the Tulsa airport late Friday looking up at the right time could have seen the two on a test flight.) Here’s a video of one of the vehicles during the first of two flights Saturday afternoon: the voices are of Miles O’Brien, who emceed the event; RRL co-founder Peter Diamandis; and Jim Bridenstine, executive director of the host institution, the Tulsa Air and Space Museum, and an owner of an RRL team.
The event allowed the Rocket Racing League to showcase their vehicles and talk about other developments, including a iPhone game that will be available next month (with an iPad version to follow in June.) The league was a little hazy about their future plans, beyond doing a series of increasingly-ambitious demonstration flights through the end of next year, although they did not announce when the next demo flight would be. By early 2012, Diamandis said, the league would be ready to begin actual competitive races. Skeptics will note that the league has pushed back the date of actual races multiple times over the last several years.
Yesterday demonstrated that the racers, while impressive, still aren’t quite ready for full-scale competitive racing. While the first set of flights went well, the second set, about two hours later, ended early: neither racer appeared to relight their engines after the initial takeoff burn. Both landed safely, and there was no sign of problems with either vehicle when they were towed over the league’s tent for the public to view closeup. RRL hasn’t yet disclosed what caused the second set of flights to be cut short. (Update: RRL spokesperson Diane Murphy said Sunday the truncated flight was caused a computer glitch that caused an alarm that shut off the engine in one of the aircraft. Both landed as a precaution, but a later check showed that it was a false alert and not an issue with the engine or other part of the vehicle.)
Chuck Lauer of Rocketplane Global at Space Access '10
In a presentation at the Space Access ’10 conference in Phoenix on Saturday, Chuck Lauer of Rocketplane Global provided a bit of news about the company’s efforts to develop a suborbital vehicle. That work has been on hold for the last couple of years because of a lack of funding, and most of Rocketplane’s employees have since been laid off.
Lauer announced that Rocketplane Global had signed a letter of intent with the Jacksonville Aviation Authority (JAA) to fly out of Cecil Field, a former naval air station that received a spaceport license from the FAA earlier this year. Rocketplane, he said, was the first company to reach an agreement with the JAA to operate out of Cecil Field. The flights would be coupled to the development of a tourist attraction at the spaceport that would offer a more mass-market experience, including virtual reality spaceflights, at a cost similar to typical theme park admissions.
Lauer said it would be something like the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex, which features a “Shuttle Launch Experience” ride, but with one key difference. “The KSC Visitors Complex is backward looking. It’s a museum dressed up with some hands-on exhibits,” he said. “This is the opposite. This is forward looking. This is the future of American spaceflight.” Cecil Field was well-positioned for something like this, since it’s the first spaceport located near a major city. Jacksonville, Lauer said, attracts about 10 million visitors a year, more than Hawaii. (While Lauer said 10 million, which is indeed higher than the 6.5 million who visited Hawaii in 2009, an economic study commissioned by the local tourism bureau estimated only 2.8 million overnight visitors in Jacksonville in 2008.) Lauer sees obvious synergies between suborbital spaceflight and terrestrial activities: “Coupling space tourism with conventional tourism is just a fundamentally sound idea.”
All this costs money, something that has been in short supply for Rocketplane. That may be changing, Lauer claimed. “We’re really close at this point” to lining up funding, he said. The challenge for the company is that it’s focus on an “all-up” development rather than the more incremental path taken by other companies—and now added to it development of terrestrial attractions—means that they need hundreds of millions of dollars. However, he said the finance community understands things like tourist attractions, and that has opened some doors for them in raising money. Lauer said they’ve been working with an investment bank on this and expect to close some funding “within a few weeks”.
Once that happens, Rocketplane plans to resume work on its XP spaceplane. He anticipates needing two to two-and-a-half years to complete development of the XP, which would be done in Oklahoma with test flights from the spaceport there; he anticipated commercial tourist flights beginning in 2013s. However, some of the spaceflight simulator rides could be ready much sooner: some could be running by the end of this year at the Future of Flight museum outside Seattle.
Jeff Greason speaking at Space Access '10 on Friday
“In some ways, the most dangerous thing that can happen to true believers is to give them everything that they’re asking for and watch them fail.” So said Jeff Greason, president of XCOR Aerospace, in his talk Friday at the Space Access ’10 conference in Phoenix. While supporters of NewSpace might argue that they haven’t gotten everything they’ve wanted yet, clearly there is more interest in, and scrutiny of, the commercial space industry in general and entrepreneurial space ventures in particular. “I am both thrilled and terrified at the magnitude of the opportunity that is now facing our industry,” he said.
Greason, in a panel on key technologies the previous night at the conference, had expressed concerns about the decline of the American space industrial base, which he reiterated in his longer speech. “The dinosaurs are dying off faster than we can evolve to fill their niches,” he said, referencing an old analogy that likens the old space industry to dinosaurs and NewSpace to mammals.
That is putting pressure on the industry to step up, something that he worries it might not be ready to handle. “I’m not sure we’re ready to do all the things the United States government is depending on this industry to be able to do,” he said. “That’s just too bad, because we’re going to have to do it anyway.”
That means, he said, that it’s time for the commercial space industry to mature. “It is time to grow up,” he said, saying that it needs to adopt the characteristics of more mature industries: “They are much more interested in growing the pie than they are in fighting over the scraps. They sell pieces to each other. They do not tear each others’ efforts down.” That extends to not just NewSpace companies but also established companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. “Like it or not, we are all now on the same team.”
Greason cited one example—without naming names—that demonstrated that NewSpace in particular wasn’t yet mature. “In a rational universe, what would happen is, if you have a program that has a vehicle and no engine, and you have other companies that are building vehicles and have engines, you would go and buy engines, because you would then have a vehicle and could make money,” he said. “For whatever reason that’s not happening. I would be glad to sell people engines, but they don’t want to buy them.”
Greason said one could argue that if a vehicle developer bought an engine from another vehicle developer, each would be enabling a competitor, but both would be making money as a result, “so who cares?” Greason said there will come a time when the industry will reach a tipping point and shift from vertical integration to horizontal integration. “That’s part of how we’ll know we’ve crossed an irrevocable threshold as an industry,” he said. “We’re not there yet.”
“So it’s a hard road, it’s a long road, but we’re getting there, and the size of the opportunity that we’re faced with is terrifying and wonderful,” he said. However, he also said that might be the last chance for the commercial space industry in the US to demonstrate its capabilities. “If we blow it this time, I don’t know that we’re going to get another chance, because I’m not sure there’s going to be a United States space industry for us to work for.”
Recent Comments