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17/06/2004: "Open The Gates Of Space! (SUCCESS!)"

If all goes well, on Monday, 21 June, in Mojave, CA, at 6.30am local time, a high-altitude jet aircraft will fly to around 50,000 feet and from there a rocket, SpaceShipOne, and its pilot will launch into space. The flight would bring the craft's maker, Scaled Composites, a step closer to winning the $10 million X-Prize.

According to the Economist, the timing of the launch could not be better, coming just a few days after the publication, on Wednesday, of a report commissioned by President Bush, calling for a drastic overhaul of NASA - including a much bigger role for private firms in space exploration.

Market sizing research by the Futron Corporation, an aerospace consultancy, suggest that suborbital space travel is a promising market. It projects that by 2021, more than 15,000 passengers could be flying annually, with revenues in excess of $700 million. How much will holiday flights into space cost? The talk currently tentatively centres on a ticket price of about $100,000.

But the challenges to enable an industry to emerge reside with the regulatory aspects on the one hand, and with the needed culture change in the public sector on the other hand, whose failings may be epitomised by the recent awarding of a $227 million contract without an open tender to a company who has filed for bankruptcy and is said to be staffed mostly by former NASA employees.

Presidential candidate John Kerry has also made the Bush space vision part of his campaign, criticising it for not making sure that sufficient resources are available to carry out the objectives.

(PS: On 21 June 2004, Mike Melvill writes himself into history as the pilot of the first commercially funded vehicle to escape the earth's atmosphere.)