The new initiative, which aims to reduce the cost of satellite launch tenfold to somewhere in the region of one million dollars, was announced at the International Astronautical Congress in Daejeon, South Korea. Requiring the creation of a low-cost launch system won't be cheap, warns Virgin Galactic president, Will Whitehorn:

This effort will involve designing, building and marketing a launcher rather than the satellites themselves... We hope to get satellite launches underway by 2013 or 2014.

Virgin Galactic adds satellite launches to space tourism [New Scientist]

Writing in Britain's Guardian newspaper, Virgin Galactic's president Will Whitehorn attempts to explain why the company will be more environmentally friendly than you may have thought - if, of course, you'd considered the environmental impact of their plans at all:

The company is developing a 21st-century space launch system based on the principles of an entirely carbon composite construction, a unique benign hybrid rocket motor, biofuels where permissible and very high-altitude air launch and firing of the benign rocket rather than launching it from the ground.

The air launch negates the need to use dirty carbon-intensive solid chemical fuelled rocket boosters. The result is a very low-energy and low environmental impact approach to getting humans, scientific payload and eventually even small satellites into space.

The reason for this? Cost... and, it seems, the desire to revolutionize spaceflight in general on your dime:

We are not going to find better ways to get to space unless we can regularise space flight and this system will use space tourism as one means to lower the cost of space access... The highly efficient human and payload space launch systems will lead to an overdue industrial revolution in space. The alternative would be government funding of these new, less polluting systems – which is not an idea one can anticipate any public enthusiasm for.

Well, at least it's not your tax dollars at work...

Virgin Galactic: 'Getting into space has a very low environmental impact' [Guardian.co.uk]

On the 1st of February, 2003, America's first operational space shuttle, the Columbia, broke up over the skies of Texas, leading to the deaths of the seven crew members on board. An analysis of the crash in the weeks afterward revealed that damage caused by a foam strike on the orbiter's wing allowed plasma into the internal structure of the shuttle, reducing its integrity and leading to disaster.

This disaster, much like the 1986 one that destroyed Space Shuttle Challenger during lift-off, has fueled debate as to the viability of crewed spaceflight, a debate that is sure to continue. It also revealed a number of problems within the space program, namely that the shuttle fleet is overworked and outdated. Using shuttles continuously as one of the only ways into orbit in the US can be detrimental - and that's why we're seeing so many people seeking out spaceflight alternatives in the private sector.

Currently, almost all of the United State's space flight activities are projects headed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and in their relatively short history, they have undertaken a number of incredible feats - sending people to space, landing on the moon six times, maintaining two space stations and launching satellites that have increased our knowledge of our surroundings in the galaxy. However, NASA is largely unequipped to handle the growing demand for commercial space endeavors such as satellite launches and tourism because they've focused mainly on scientific and exploration missions.

NASA's original charter, The National Aeronautics and Space Act, established NASA in 1958, just as space flight was beginning with the launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1. In a move to catch up with the Russians and close the perceived gap in technology and security, NASA's mission was laid out in the first sections of the bill:

DECLARATION OF POLICY AND PURPOSE
Sec. 102. (d) The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:

(1) The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;
(2) The improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles;
(3) The development and operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies, and living organisms through space;
(4) The establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes;
(5) The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere;
(6) The making available to agencies directly concerned with national defense of discoveries that have military value or significance, and the furnishing by such agencies, to the civilian agency established to direct and control nonmilitary aeronautical and space activities, of information as to discoveries which have value or significance to that agency;
(7) Cooperation by the United States with other nations and groups of nations in work done pursuant to this Act and in the peaceful application of the results thereof;
(8) The most effective utilization of the scientific and engineering resources of the United States, with close cooperation among all interested agencies of the United States in order to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, facilities, and equipment; and
(9) The preservation of the United States preeminent position in aeronautics and space through research and technology development related to associated manufacturing processes.

While NASA's charter does indicate that it should encourage commercial enterprises, the focus of the agency has largely been one of exploration. Crewed missions to space brought back a wealth of knowledge flight after flight, while missions to the moon helped to piece together some of the secrets of the solar system's origins, while even today, robotic missions to the outer planets have reported back the existence of water on Mars, and the mineral compositions of our nearest neighbors.

In the 1970s was a shift in focus from the lunar landings that heralded the birth of NASA. David Hitt, in his book Homesteading Space, notes:

Developed in the shadow of the Apollo moon missions and using hardware originally created for Apollo, the Skylab space station took the nation's astronauts from being space explorers to being space residents.

Where the Lunar landings were somewhere between politics and genuine scientific exploration, Skylab was the turning point, when it was launched in 1973. The idea of living in space would continue through the six-year lifespan of the Skylab space station to the birth of the Space Shuttle to today's International Space Station.

Trying to maintain the pace of its missions, NASA had to strain its resources to undertake commercial endeavors. From early on, private companies such as AT&T have used NASA to launch their own commercial satellites, and that is a policy that has continued through to today. While the US Military also launches a bulk of commercial satellites, there are other problems with the agency as well. As NASA's budget gets further cut down as the economy worsens, job cuts have begun to force people away from the agency, including some higher level members, such as Martin Kress, who left his position at NASA as Deputy Director of the Glenn Research Center for National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Alabama. In his statement that was released by NASA, he noted that "The world is changing rapidly, and I see an opportunity for doing some very innovative things at the National Space Science and Technology Center" (Source)Innovation here is a key element, and is something that is difficult within such a large bureaucratic structure such as NASA. Private companies have already proven that they can accomplish much the same tasks as NASA, but at a much lower cost.

Even as the military also launches satellites, the demand has placed a burden on the launch capabilities of NASA. According to Science Fiction author Allen M. Steele, in his testimony to the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics in 2001, commercial enterprise had led to the Challenger disaster:

As stated before, NASA is ill-suited for dealing with commercial space enterprise. This was demonstrated during the early 1980s, when the demands of the satellite launch industry contributed in part ot the circumstances which led to the Challenger disaster; the Reagan administration responded by barring Commercial payloads from the space shuttle fleet. More recently, we've also seen the indecision over the purpose of the International Space Station; no one could decide whether the ISS should be a government R&D lab, a commercial space outpost, or neither or both. As a result, the ISS has been redesigned several times, causing enormous construction overruns.

In his testimony, Steele argues that the creation of a federal agency devoted to private space enterprise is needed. While NASA maintains a busy schedule of scientific missions and its own launch capabilities, this agency would encourage private space flight interests. This has yet to happen, but there has been considerable development in private space flight, most obviously with SpaceShipOne's dramatic capture of the Ansari X-Price in October of 2004.

There are many commercial alternatives to NASA which are in their early stages. These companies, and the ones that are likely to follow, will be essential in easing the burden that has been placed upon NASA's aging space fleet. They will likely do this by taking control of the more routine tasks in space: Delivering crews to their destinations, bringing up consumables and equipment to those crews, and servicing satellites in orbit. In this scenario, we would likely see NASA's duties shift to what they have traditionally been: science and exploration, rather than an all-encompassing service for ferrying everything into space.

We can see the shift towards commercialization already with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which is considered the first spaceliner. In the four years since Virgin Galactic tickets went on sale to the general public, over two hundred have been sold, at over $100,000 each. The price is likely to drop after that, but this highlights the demand for a space tourism industry. Branson's company has the right idea, and has signed contracts with Spaceport America, the first commercial spacesport, which is currently under construction. It was recently announced that a sister spaceport, Spaceport Sweden, would also sign contracts with Branson's Virgin Galactic.

The demand for commercial spaceflight exists beyond tourism of course. Another privately owned company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (Space X), made history last year when it launched the first commercial rocket into orbit, the Falcon 1. Founded by Elon Musk, the creator of PayPal, the company has been working to create a low-cost alternative to deliver payloads to space.

According to Musk:

Satellites and spacecraft urgently need a more reliable and cost effective launch vehicle than the options available today. SpaceX is confident that our Falcon rocket will achieve that end in the near future. In only nine months we've designed, built and initiated testing of our rocket's main engine, which is a testament to the capability and determination of the SpaceX team to deliver on promised goals in record time.

After several failed launches, the first successful Space X flight was in September of 2008, with another launch scheduled for 2009. In addition to these unmanned rockets, the company has announced the plans for the Dragon, a crewed module. Additionally, NASA announced in 2006 that it was awarding a contract with the company to provide resupply missions for the International Space Station. According to the company's website, there are already twenty-five planned missions on both the Falcon and Dragon vehicles, performing duties for both public and private interests.

With the grounding of the space shuttle fleet projected for 2010, the United States will need to rely on foreign powers such as Russia or the European Space Agency to resupply the International Space Station, a costly affair that will likely draw criticism from taxpayers. Companies such as Virgin Galactic and Space X both fill a growing need for alternative launch capabilities, and will likely be at the forefront of future space exploration. After all, there are entire worlds to be explored, and numerous commercial possibilities.

In the meantime, there is certainly evidence of what haste does to a program such as NASA, when safety is inadvertently compromised in order to meet a packed schedule. NASA is essentially the sole means to get cargo into orbit, but it cannot remain so. Explorers and entrepreneurs will seek out alternative means of sending equipment and humans into space, and shifting this burden to the commercial sector makes sense. This is especially true because private companies can fund their own hardware - this takes the burden off the taxpayers, who only really see the failures of the space program, and not its enormous benefits. Eventually, the private sector will reveal the true benefits of space travel, which isn't just economic, as satellites such as Hubble continually show us.

On Monday, Virgin Galactic's Branson and designer Burt Rutan gave the public our first peek at the Virgin Mothership — White Knight Two, an aircraft with a 43-meter wingspan and four Pratt & Whitney PW308 turbofans. It's gorgeous, it's gigantic, and it's going to carry Rutan's not-yet-completed aircraft SpaceShipTwo and six passengers (per flight) if all goes well. In fact, it's the first built of two planned White Knight Twos: This one is called "VMS [Virgin Mothership] Eve," after both Branson's mother and the Biblical pioneer of humanity.

As this BBC news graphic shows, the plan is for White Knight Two "Eve" to carry SpaceShipTwo to an altitude of about 15,000 meters, where SpaceShipTwo will then disembark and fire its engines for the biggest stage of the journey. It has to go up to at least 100,000 meters to break the Kármán line, or the official boundary of space according to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Virgin Galactic's flight plans have it at 110,000 meters.

Near the top of the curve — specifically, after SpaceShipTwo's engines shut off and as it coasts to the highest point in its trajectory — passengers will experience weightlessness for a sustained six minutes. This explains the price hike to $200,000; six straight minutes is a bit more than you'd get out of a $3,675 parabolic flight with the Zero Gravity Corporation. After that, as they say, it's all downhill.

On Virgin Galactic's website, passengers (read: people who can afford to make deposits over $20,000) are described as astronauts. But the thing is, they're not exactly; in my view, astronauts are chosen for the value of their skills and expertise, and they're either wild daredevils or bewildered victims. Virgin Galactic's customers will be the first visitors to space who are tourists — not astronauts. So it's fitting, now that Branson estimates a maiden voyage in 18 months, for us to take a nostalgic look back at the first ever astronauts to cross the Kármán line.

The first living Earth creatures in space were a couple of fruit flies, who coasted past that 100-km boundary in a V-2 rocket in 1947. If that doesn't count for you, Albert II the Rhesus monkey went up on June 14, 1949 — also in a V-2 rocket. It didn't work out very well for him, though, as his parachute failed and he perished on impact. In 1950, the United States launched mice into space with V-2s; in 1951, the Soviet Union raised the stakes and sent two dogs up in an R-1. Both survived.

Several more Soviet dogs and American mice made the journey past the boundary of space in the 1950s, but the next first explorer was Laika, a stray dog who went from sniffing dumpsters in Moscow to being a canine cosmonaut. Laika went farther than any of Virgin Galactic's tourists will go on SpaceShipTwo; on November 3, 1957, inside Sputnik 2, she completed a full orbit of the Earth. (Yup, that's right — the first Earthling to orbit the planet had two X chromosomes.) She probably didn't finish many more, however, because the spacecraft cabin's thermal control system malfunctioned and she died about five hours into the flight. Laika's story is tragic, but it gets worse: Soviet engineers did not design Sputnik 2 to be retrievable. Nobody expected her to get back to Earth alive.

Life was kinder to Ham the chimp, a primate from Cameroon who found his way to the US Air Force and eventually into a Mercury capsule on top of a Redstone rocket. His suborbital spaceflight took place on January 31, 1961, and he emerged from splashdown with only a bruised nose to show for it.

That April, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in known history to orbit the Earth. He had spent his adolescence building and flying small-scale unmanned aircraft, and entered military flight school in 1955. After five years in the Soviet Air Force and another year of rigorous training in the space program, he was selected for this historic honor.

In December 2009, according to Branson, he and his family will become the first in known history to enter space — having paid for it themselves. After them come William Shatner, Signourney Weaver, Stephen Hawking, and ... Paris Hilton. Yeah, space tourism is beginning. One must wonder where it will take us.

Images from The Huffington Post, BBC News, WIRED Magazine, Wikipedia.

The new system will be "hundreds of times" safer than current space travel, says Rutan. That will bring it up to the safety standards of commercial air travel in the 1920s. "Don't believe anyone who tells you that the safety level of new spaceships will be as safe as the modern airliner," he adds. His company already lost three engineers in an explosion during a "cold" test of the nitrous system last summer. [NYTimes, via Mark Pritchard]