"Knowledge of the universe bestows awesome power. To understand the secrets of atoms and galaxies is to become like gods."
~W.J. Kaufmann III, Galaxies and Quasars
On July 20, 1968 Apollo 8 landed on the moon, barely 22 years after
mankind had first placed a man- made object in orbit. Unfortunately, the
Moon landings were short lived; in December 1972, the
Apollo 16 mission was the last time that humans walked the face of the
moon. Since Apollo 16, we have moved on to the International Space
Station (ISS), sending satellites to other Jupiter, Saturn and beyond,
robots to rove on Mars, and Voyager probes that have left our Solar
System.
Until The first X-Prize competition changed the standing of private companies' vs. government,
all major advances in space technology have been directed and funded by
national governments. Its challenge was for a private industry to
develop a reusable spacecraft. "On October 4, 2004 SpaceShipOne
rocketed into history, becoming the first private manned spacecraft to
exceed 328,000 feet twice within the span of a 14 day period signaling
a seminal event -the shift to space exploration as an entrepreneurial
venture.
The X-Prize Foundation has been a catalyst for spurring private
companies into competition to develop space technologies. The prize was
established by Dr. Peter Daimandis in 1995 to foster increased
competition for “private companies and individuals to develop new and
innovative breakthroughs for the benefit of mankind.”
The X-Prize winner SpaceShipOne took off vertically similar to an
airplane, and landed the same way. Its design enables it to have a
faster turnaround on the ground, cheaper to produce, and cheaper to
maintain than the 30-year-old”railroad’ into space” Space Shuttle design.
SpaceShipOne, bankrolled by Microsoft's co-founder, Paul Allen,
was produced by a partnership between the Virgin Group of Companies and
Scaled Composites, showing that private industries can and should
develop space technologies free from government funding and oversight.
Virgin Galactic is now creating a private spaceport in New Mexico
-offering private individuals to purchase a ticket to travel into space.
Objects today that we may think of as ordinary and not very
"high-tech" could most likely be traced back to a breakthrough in space
technology -the result of “The Hidden Revolution,” after a book by
author Jim Schefter who wrote: "From foam padding adapted for football
helmets to flexible tires on the Apollo 14 pull-cart that didn’t turn
rock hard in frigid temperatures incorporated into winter radial car
tires.”
The next X-Prize competition is under way, with a purse of $2.5
million for the winner, the Lunar Lander Challenge. It calls for the
development of a "…vehicle to simulate a trip between the Moon’s
surface, to lunar orbit and back to the lunar surface.” No government
agency has been on the moon for 35 years, will it be that a private
company will re-establish mankind's presence on the moon?
Isaac Asimov wrote about the reasons we must revisit the Moon and
beyond: "Why spend billions to place a man on the Moon? If we don’t,
we may lose the Earth. If we do, we may gain the universe. You couldn’t
ask for better odds.". The next space race may not between competing
nations, but between countries governments and the private industries.
The knowledge we’ll gain in biology, chemistry, medicine, materials
research, and just about every aspect of modern life will make awesome
gains.
Posted by Casey Kazan.
Related Galaxy posts:
Google Joins MIT in Search for Earth-like Planets
A Holistic View of the Cosmos -Videos of Microsoft’s Worldwide Telescope & Google Sky
Microsoft vs Google -The Virtual Telescope
New SETI Observatory Created by Microsoft Co-founder
Google "Sky"—New Virtual Telescope Using NASA Hubble Images Plans to Turn Millions into Stargazers
Source links:
http://www.xprize.org/about
http://privatespacecompanies.blogspot.com/
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