The privatization of space

On Tuesday of this week, Amazon founder and Chairman Jeff Bezos paid a brief visit to sub-orbital space with the assistance of his company, Blue Origin. This follows a similar flight by Richard Branson under the auspices of his company, Virgin Galactic. The Blue Origin Rocket was somewhat conventional in design, but the Virgin Galactic spacecraft was designed by Burt Rutan, who has a flair for the unusual, and he certainly lived up to that reputation.

There is a third member of the billionaires club in the space race. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, He has already launched both manned and unmanned flights through SpaceX eliminating the need for the United States to rely on our nemesis, Russia.

Most of you know all of that stuff already, but I mention it because I, personally, applaud the privatization of space exploration. NASA did a great job when I was growing up in the 1960s, and although there were a couple of tragic mishaps, the shuttle program was an innovative and useful program as well.

The problem is that NASA’s budget is subject to the whims of Congress, and we have long periods of inactivity between manned programs. I am not impressed by 9-11 minute trips that cost millions (or billions) of dollars, but I think it’s a start. Once Virgin Galactic and/or Blue origin go further, which I believe they will, we might even have competition. When business takes over, they are more likely to be on-budget and on time. What’s more American than that?

I have run into people online who aren’t as excited about the prospect of space tourism. They argue that space tourism is only for wealthy elites and that the money spent could feed hungry children. That’s fair, but I smell a bit of class warfare in that. Remember that Branson, Bezos and Musk are wealthy because we made them that way voluntarily. I don’t drive a Tesla, but I have forked over plenty of money to the other two. NASA, on the other hand, can just take it from us.

So let’s switch gears and let me tell you about my rocketing experience. When my son was younger, we had a stable full of Estes rockets, and we would go down to the south baseball fields next to the radio control airfield to launch them on weekends. The parachutes would open on about two-thirds of them, but the rest we crashed, so we would take those home and rebuild them.

It was good Dad/Son time and we had fun with it until one particular fall weekend when things didn’t go so well. We launched a two-stage rocket that went up very nicely, but the upper stage didn’t fire, so there was no chute. It came straight back down and crashed. Well, that was not unique. The problem was that after it was on the ground, the upper stage decided to fire. That wasn’t good. Fortunately, it wasn’t windy, but it was dry. I had a fire extinguisher, but it was no match for the fire that was spreading.

Those fields are surrounded by a dirt road, and the farmer to the south came out with a blade and made it a bit wider just to make sure. Meanwhile, the Red Willow Rural Fire Department arrived and started cleaning up, so it never jumped the field. The bad news is that most of the field was black.

When the ordeal was over, I was, of course, embarrassed and went around apologizing to anyone who would hear me. Bill Elliot seemed to be the man in charge, and in classic Nebraska fashion, he just said “She’ll come up green in the spring.” The following Monday, I tried to turn myself into our then-Public Works Director, Marty Conroy, and he told me not to worry about it.

I still appreciate the kindness of Bill and Marty and although it wasn’t a windy day, I developed a new respect for Red Flag alerts and always take them seriously. I am equally appreciative of the recent rocket launches. In the midst of the bickering over vaccines, masks, budgets and election results, I find the launches to be a refreshing break.