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Private Space Exploration?

Aired May 09, 2003 - 14:50   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Ever since the space age began there has been a lot of talk about getting more people to leave the planet, civilians in space, and lately there's been even more talk of that, even in the wake of the Columbia tragedy.
Recently, we visited one man with a vision who is among many who see tourism in space as a viable option.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): California's high desert has long been home to shimmering dreams and wild ideas of new ways to fly higher, faster, longer than ever before.

BURT RUTAN, AIRPLANE DESIGNER: I like to do far-out things with airplanes.

O'BRIEN: And no one has pushed the envelope of flight more than Burt Rutan, the legendary airplane designer who built the first plane to fly nonstop around the world on a single tank of gas. Today, Rutan has his sights fixed on sending humans to space.

RUTAN: Roughly three years ago, I decided that I've done enough -- I've done a little bit of testing, I have done a lot of design. I decided that, yes, I think I can -- I think I can pull this off.

O'BRIEN: With funding from a wealthy unnamed investor, his company, Scaled Composites, designed, built and is now testing a two- ship concept. It recalls Mojave's glory days in the '60s when intrepid test pilots flew the X-15 rocket plane to the edge of space.

RUTAN: Well, I'm 6'4", weigh about 230. I wouldn't design it for something that I couldn't get in.

O'BRIEN: Rutan's Spaceship One has room for three.

RUTAN: How does it feel? I'll tell you when we go to space. Certainly has a lot of room.

This is a bigger ship than we needed to do the research, but I wanted to make the point that something this size, which would give people a nice, comfortable cabin, can be done at those costs.

O'BRIEN (on camera): Rutan also has his eye on the $10 million X Prize, promised to the first privately-funded team to fly three people to the edge of space -- that is 62 miles up -- return safely, and then do it again within two weeks. Rutan won't say how much his project will cost, but it is probably at least twice the X Prize purse. He says he has other motivations.

RUTAN: If I can be just the inspiration by carefully and properly and safely showing that it really is cheap to fly people to space, and 20 years from now there are thousands or hundreds, at least, of different ships that you can buy tickets on...

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Spaceship One would begin its ride to space lashed to the belly of an airplane -- or is it a bird? Or even two? Whatever, it is called White Knight.

At 50,000 feet, the pair would part company, and as astronaut in training Pete Siebold showed us in this simulator, the rocket would fire, sending the craft almost straight up. In about a minute...

PETE SIEBOLD, ASTRONAUT IN TRAINING: We're all floating around, completely weightless. We have got about three and a half minutes of weightlessness. You can see outside. You'll have full view of the stars, and you will be able to see the earth from space.

O'BRIEN: Spaceship One is designed to re-enter the atmosphere like a shuttle cock, and then glide to a runway landing. It is a deceptively simple approach.

Check out mission control on wheels. And except for the state of the art composite structures, none of this technology is even new, much less exotic.

RUTAN: You have to try something nonsense to have a breakthrough. That's why we haven't had any breakthroughs in development of space ships since the '60s, because we don't have the guts to try things that may not work.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Now, let's pick up on that point with Rick Tumlinson, who is a founder of the Space Frontier Foundation, a long-time advocate of getting more people in space, besides the members of the white scarf club at NASA and the cosmonauts in Russia. Rick, good to have you with us.

RICK TUMLINSON, SPACE FRONTIER FOUNDATION: Happy Friday, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's start with that first point, that the reason that civilians haven't gone to space in great numbers is because there is no incentive on the part of the government to do it.

TUMLINSON: It really is sort of a myth we've carried in our hearts since Apollo that somehow the space program that you see being carried on by the government was eventually going to lead for the chance for you and I and our children to go into space. It is just not the fact. That's not their agenda.

O'BRIEN: It is interesting, because I suppose if you go back to the beginnings of flight, the Wright brothers, it was the same story then. Samuel Pierpont Langley, funded by the government, never got off the ground. A couple of bicycle makers from Dayton, Ohio, did it. Is this just sort of history repeating itself?

TUMLINSON: In a way, actually, it is. And it's funny you say that, because imagine if he had gotten off the ground first, and he had gotten all the publicity and the funding had grown there, we might still be flying around in aircraft that look like that, that are made of strings and paper.

O'BRIEN: Well, what then -- is the time finally right? This has been something that you've been talking about for many years, and a lot of hopes, but really a lot of animations and bluster. Is there a sense that it is finally getting to the point where it could really happen?

TUMLINSON: Yes, I think that we're about to see a split in the evolutionary tree of space, and on one side, you'll see these bloated government programs that just don't seem to deliver, but keeps the major contractors going. On the other hand, you are going to see these very exciting private ventures popping up. It's almost like two guys building a computer in their garage a few years ago, and look what happened. I think it's going to be a very exciting time coming up.

O'BRIEN: So there could be an Apple computer in the midst of this group, and we talked about Rutan, but there's about a half dozen other similar projects. Rutan is a little further along. I guess this is something, perhaps, which might lead, eventually, to private companies taking people to the moon, or is that too far fetched?

TUMLINSON: I don't think anything is too far fetched once you let the Genie of private enterprise and imagination out of the bottle. We have got some really great companies out there, and a lot of them now, one of the differences is -- although Rutan is using other people's money -- there are a lot of these companies that are actually self-funded by people that came out of, actually, the computer world. They brought the dream of "Star Trek," they grew up watching Apollo. Now, they are ready to go, and I think once you have reached that excitement and the cost really begins to come down through competition, all kinds of things are going to be possible, and the moon, eventually, yes. Absolutely.

O'BRIEN: All right. Could be an exciting time. God speed to them all. Rick Tumlinson, founder of the Space Frontier Foundation. We appreciate you being with us here on LIVE FROM.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired May 9, 2003 - 14:50   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Ever since the space age began there has been a lot of talk about getting more people to leave the planet, civilians in space, and lately there's been even more talk of that, even in the wake of the Columbia tragedy.
Recently, we visited one man with a vision who is among many who see tourism in space as a viable option.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): California's high desert has long been home to shimmering dreams and wild ideas of new ways to fly higher, faster, longer than ever before.

BURT RUTAN, AIRPLANE DESIGNER: I like to do far-out things with airplanes.

O'BRIEN: And no one has pushed the envelope of flight more than Burt Rutan, the legendary airplane designer who built the first plane to fly nonstop around the world on a single tank of gas. Today, Rutan has his sights fixed on sending humans to space.

RUTAN: Roughly three years ago, I decided that I've done enough -- I've done a little bit of testing, I have done a lot of design. I decided that, yes, I think I can -- I think I can pull this off.

O'BRIEN: With funding from a wealthy unnamed investor, his company, Scaled Composites, designed, built and is now testing a two- ship concept. It recalls Mojave's glory days in the '60s when intrepid test pilots flew the X-15 rocket plane to the edge of space.

RUTAN: Well, I'm 6'4", weigh about 230. I wouldn't design it for something that I couldn't get in.

O'BRIEN: Rutan's Spaceship One has room for three.

RUTAN: How does it feel? I'll tell you when we go to space. Certainly has a lot of room.

This is a bigger ship than we needed to do the research, but I wanted to make the point that something this size, which would give people a nice, comfortable cabin, can be done at those costs.

O'BRIEN (on camera): Rutan also has his eye on the $10 million X Prize, promised to the first privately-funded team to fly three people to the edge of space -- that is 62 miles up -- return safely, and then do it again within two weeks. Rutan won't say how much his project will cost, but it is probably at least twice the X Prize purse. He says he has other motivations.

RUTAN: If I can be just the inspiration by carefully and properly and safely showing that it really is cheap to fly people to space, and 20 years from now there are thousands or hundreds, at least, of different ships that you can buy tickets on...

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Spaceship One would begin its ride to space lashed to the belly of an airplane -- or is it a bird? Or even two? Whatever, it is called White Knight.

At 50,000 feet, the pair would part company, and as astronaut in training Pete Siebold showed us in this simulator, the rocket would fire, sending the craft almost straight up. In about a minute...

PETE SIEBOLD, ASTRONAUT IN TRAINING: We're all floating around, completely weightless. We have got about three and a half minutes of weightlessness. You can see outside. You'll have full view of the stars, and you will be able to see the earth from space.

O'BRIEN: Spaceship One is designed to re-enter the atmosphere like a shuttle cock, and then glide to a runway landing. It is a deceptively simple approach.

Check out mission control on wheels. And except for the state of the art composite structures, none of this technology is even new, much less exotic.

RUTAN: You have to try something nonsense to have a breakthrough. That's why we haven't had any breakthroughs in development of space ships since the '60s, because we don't have the guts to try things that may not work.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Now, let's pick up on that point with Rick Tumlinson, who is a founder of the Space Frontier Foundation, a long-time advocate of getting more people in space, besides the members of the white scarf club at NASA and the cosmonauts in Russia. Rick, good to have you with us.

RICK TUMLINSON, SPACE FRONTIER FOUNDATION: Happy Friday, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's start with that first point, that the reason that civilians haven't gone to space in great numbers is because there is no incentive on the part of the government to do it.

TUMLINSON: It really is sort of a myth we've carried in our hearts since Apollo that somehow the space program that you see being carried on by the government was eventually going to lead for the chance for you and I and our children to go into space. It is just not the fact. That's not their agenda.

O'BRIEN: It is interesting, because I suppose if you go back to the beginnings of flight, the Wright brothers, it was the same story then. Samuel Pierpont Langley, funded by the government, never got off the ground. A couple of bicycle makers from Dayton, Ohio, did it. Is this just sort of history repeating itself?

TUMLINSON: In a way, actually, it is. And it's funny you say that, because imagine if he had gotten off the ground first, and he had gotten all the publicity and the funding had grown there, we might still be flying around in aircraft that look like that, that are made of strings and paper.

O'BRIEN: Well, what then -- is the time finally right? This has been something that you've been talking about for many years, and a lot of hopes, but really a lot of animations and bluster. Is there a sense that it is finally getting to the point where it could really happen?

TUMLINSON: Yes, I think that we're about to see a split in the evolutionary tree of space, and on one side, you'll see these bloated government programs that just don't seem to deliver, but keeps the major contractors going. On the other hand, you are going to see these very exciting private ventures popping up. It's almost like two guys building a computer in their garage a few years ago, and look what happened. I think it's going to be a very exciting time coming up.

O'BRIEN: So there could be an Apple computer in the midst of this group, and we talked about Rutan, but there's about a half dozen other similar projects. Rutan is a little further along. I guess this is something, perhaps, which might lead, eventually, to private companies taking people to the moon, or is that too far fetched?

TUMLINSON: I don't think anything is too far fetched once you let the Genie of private enterprise and imagination out of the bottle. We have got some really great companies out there, and a lot of them now, one of the differences is -- although Rutan is using other people's money -- there are a lot of these companies that are actually self-funded by people that came out of, actually, the computer world. They brought the dream of "Star Trek," they grew up watching Apollo. Now, they are ready to go, and I think once you have reached that excitement and the cost really begins to come down through competition, all kinds of things are going to be possible, and the moon, eventually, yes. Absolutely.

O'BRIEN: All right. Could be an exciting time. God speed to them all. Rick Tumlinson, founder of the Space Frontier Foundation. We appreciate you being with us here on LIVE FROM.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com