The Galaxy Girls

The Galaxy Girls

The colonization of space by mankind is not likely coming anytime soon.

That’s because the human body is not yet able to handle long-haul spaceflights in zero to low gravity, or walking on alien planets, such as Mars – where the lack of a magnetic field makes humans’ fleshy bodies prone to space radiation.

Even so, a research team reported in a new study that the prospects to expand beyond Earth aren’t all gloomy.

“There’s no showstopper,” Christopher Mason, a professor of physiology and biophysics and one of the leaders of the new research told the Washington Post. “But there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to safely get to Mars and back.”

For their paper, Mason and his colleagues analyzed medical data collected by the Space Omics and Medical Atlas (SOMA). The data trove is considered the most comprehensive medical database that shows what happens to spacefarers when they leave the planet.

Most of the data used derives from the all-civilian Inspiration4 spaceflight mission in 2021, operated by SpaceX. The four-person crew provided extensive biospecimens before, during and after the mission.

The research team then compared this information with medical and biological research on 64 astronauts from NASA.

Looking into gene activity and immune system responses, they came across a series of findings and changes to our bodily constitution – but no “red flags.”

One of the key changes was that telomeres – structures found at the end of chromosomes – elongated after three days in space. The immune system also experienced alterations, with some anti-inflammatory proteins increasing, while virus-fighting anti-gens saw a reduction in numbers, Futurism explained.

But what stood out was the recovery period between genders: Women were able to recover quicker from spaceflight than men, who “appear to be more affected by spaceflight for almost all cell types and metrics,” the team wrote.

The authors cannot explain this phenomenon but they suggested it has to do with physiological stresses and adaptions women experience during pregnancies.

Even so, they added that the analysis could help develop innovative tools and pharmaceuticals to allow humans to explore the final frontier.

Otherwise, some scientists told National Geographic in 2019 that future space missions could be entirely made up of women. They noted that women suffer less from the effects of spaceflight and consume up to 25 percent fewer calories than men.

The Early Days At Vandenberg Air Force Base

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The US Air Force developed the Thor launch vehicle from an intermediate range ballistic missile. Throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s, Thor was a workhorse, carrying numerous classified payloads into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. (credit: Douglas Aircraft Company brochure)The little rocket that could: Thor in the early days at Vandenberg (part 1)by Dwayne A. Day Monday, June 24, 2024 In the mid-1950s, as the United States Air Force first began considering how it would launch satellites into orbit, the obvious choice was the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile then under development. Atlas was expected to have the required performance to put a good-sized payload—several thousand kilograms—into low Earth orbit. But Atlas was relatively expensive and difficult to use, and bigger than many missions required. Fortunately, the Air Force had under development a smaller missile that could also loft a payload into orbit, the Thor intermediate range ballistic missile. Thor’s lower cost and easier handling made it a more useful rocket for the Air Force, and by the late 1950s, Thor was assigned to carry an increasing number of satellites to orbit, including the CORONA reconnaissance satellites and growing families of military and civilian satellites. When Thor was withdrawn from its missile role, many vehicles were freed up for conversion to launch satellites. Thor evolved over the next several decades into Thor-Delta and eventually the Delta II rocket, and was referred to by some in the space program as the workhorse rocket of the early American space program.The Thor pads at Vandenberg were kilometers away from the storage and processing facilities. They were towed to the launch sites on trailers. (credit: Douglas Aircraft Company brochure)Although Thor launched unclassified payloads from Florida, most of the Vandenberg Thor launches were classified and were only officially declassified starting in the 1990s. Because of their missions, the Air Force released very few photos of the launches. There were unclassified photos of most of the launches in military and corporate archives, but it wasn’t until dedicated researcher Peter Hunter began laboriously sorting and scanning hundreds of photos in a corporate collection in the late 1990s that it was possible to document many of the launches.The early Thor pads at Vandenberg were relatively minimalist. Most launch preparation was performed with the vehicle horizontal and it was erected vertically only a short time before launch. (credit: Douglas Aircraft Company brochure)Recently, even more photos have become available of early Thor operations at Vandenberg, such as preparation for launch, and the ground support equipment used at several of the early Thor pads. The photos and illustrations provide a good sense of the size of the vehicle as well as the relative isolation of the early launch complexes, some of which were located very close to the Pacific Ocean. Thor burned kerosene and liquid oxygen, and these were trucked out to the remote pads.As payloads grew in mass, Douglas Aircraft Company added solid rocket motors to the Thor. The solid rocket motors were taken to the pad on trailers and the entire trailer was tilted to attach the rocket to the core vehicle. (credit: Douglas Aircraft Company brochure)Most of the military payloads placed into orbit by Thor in the early 1960s launched from a few pads at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Although they originally had different names, they were eventually designated Space Launch Complex 1 with its East and West pads, Space Launch Complex 2, also with East and West pads, and Space Launch Complex 10. There was also a pad for training Royal Air Force crews to launch Thor missiles, which the RAF operated in the United Kingdom, although not all RAF launches were from that pad.Three SRMs were attached to early Thors to increase performance. The first of these launches took place in March 1963 with a LANYARD reconnaissance satellite, but it failed to reach orbit. (credit: Douglas Aircraft Company brochure)Eventually, by the mid-1960s, Thors were also launched from a converted Atlas pad, Space Launch Complex 3 West, a location that was initially the Navy’s Point Arguello Launch Complex (PALC) before it was incorporated into Vandenberg. Some Atlas and Thor rockets in the early years officially launched from PALC pads before those pads were redesignated as Space Launch Complex 3. At Vandenberg, SLC is pronounced “slick.” Slicks 1 and 10 have been retired. Nearby, Slick-10 has been preserved as a national historic site.At Vandenberg throughout the 1960s multiple launch pads were launching Thor rockets. SLC-2W was later converted to handle Delta and then Delta II rockets, with the last Delta II launching from that pad in 2018. (credit: USAF)Many of the newly discovered photos lack labels, but they are almost all associated with Slick-2 at Vandenberg which eventually became NASA’s Delta II pad until the last Delta II launch from there in 2018. Slick-2 has now been converted to launch Firefly Alpha rockets, such as one scheduled to lift off later this week carrying several NASA-sponsored smallsats.The three Castor solid rocket motors were carried to the pad on trailers and the entire trailer was rotated to attach the motor to the core vehicle. (credit: USAF)Thor underwent many upgrades over the years. These included upgrades to the core Thor vehicle, the addition of solid rocket motors, and the incorporation of various upper stages. The Air Force still had the Atlas for larger payloads, but even the upgraded Thor was significantly cheaper, so for many years the goal was to squeeze more performance out of the Thor to carry payloads that were getting heavier, thus avoiding a costly switch to the Atlas.A Thor on the pad in the early 1960s. Note the coverings for the rocket nozzles. (credit: USAF)The Castor solid rocket motors increased the performance of Thor enabling it to carry heavier payloads. Although Atlas was also available, it was more expensive. (credit: USAF)Because of its origins as a road-mobile missile intended to be moved around Europe, Vandenberg pad operations for Thor were a bit more basic than one might expect, and the photos often depict this. The rocket was driven to the launch pad on a trailer towed by a truck. The trailer was unhitched and a long shed on wheels was rolled over to protect the rocket and later the upper stage and payload when they were brought to the launch site.By the early-mid-1960s, the Air Force was launching multiple Thors per month. Many of them were carrying reconnaissance satellites to provide intelligence data on the Soviet Union. (credit: USAF)Space Launch Complex-1 West at Vandenberg was located very close to the water. The large shed covered the Thor and its payload for launch preparations and was pulled back so that the rocket could be erected. (credit: USAF)In preparation for launch, the entire trailer, wheels and all, was lifted vertically to set the rocket on its stand. The trailer was then lowered and removed. Other trailers were used to take solid rocket motors to the pad so they could be attached to the core stage. There was no launch tower, and until the switch to Slick-3, workers accessed the top of the rocket and the payload using long cherry-pickers. Because Thor had been designed as a missile, it was also designed to be fueled and fired relatively quickly, but the payloads were significantly more complicated and required greater care and attention at the pad.A Thor equipped with three Castor solid rocket motors and an Agena upper stage. Note the workers on the cherry picker accessing the Agena upper stage. This was most likely a CORONA reconnaissance satellite mission, and the top of the rocket, with the payload, was covered with an air conditioned cooling blanket. (credit: USAF)Next: PALC and Project EmilyDwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.

The Mirage At The Core Of Space Commerce

As companies work to develop commercial successors to the ISS, an open question is what markets they will serve. (credit: NASA)

The mirage at the core of space commerce, space stations, and other options

by Roger Handberg
Monday, June 24, 2024

Space commerce is repeatedly described as entering an era of tremendous economic expansion, one where the future is bright. Such assertions are now driven by the explosion in launches carrying humans and satellites into orbit. These satellite constellations and other events demanded a dramatic expansion in the launch capacity from the governments and corporations. SpaceX, with its reliable and less costly launches, is critical for fueling these expansive views of space economics. As other launch vehicles come into service, more launches translate into more satellites entering orbit at lower costs. The problem becomes that these spacecraft may enter a marketplace that is becoming saturated. Whether this situation can be sustainable is the unknown haunting the industry.

Essentially, the analysis here suggests the mirage at the core of space commerce is simply that there is no there there. The various proposals for expanding space constellations are in effect doing the same thing over and over. Transmitting data in some form lies at the heart of most such enterprises, be it telephony, Internet, video, navigation signals, or remote sensing. Newer options are on the way but essentially do the same thing only better.

The analysis here suggests the mirage at the core of space commerce is simply that there is no there there. The various proposals for expanding space constellations are in effect doing the same thing over and over.

All of these options produce a signal readily transmitted to and from Earth from different locations or to other space-based locations for transmittal to final users or locations. Since the advent of Space Age, sending signals of various types has been the product delivered globally. The new systems—Starlink and OneWeb, for example—claim to do so with greater bandwidth to all locations, especially for those formerly isolated from the worldwide communications network. In the 1960s, Intelsat was the first effort at such activities, with some success initially but later superseded by other vendors, both government and commercial. Iridium in its initial iteration was a step farther but failed due to being too costly. The market then was too fragmented and poor to support Iridium’s pricing for telephony. The US Defense Department saved Iridium because of its need for global communications without building dedicated defense comsats to support such diverse efforts. An even more elaborate Internet-focused option, Teledesic, never flew for technological and market reasons. The rise of cellular telephony undercut the more expensive space-based systems. Those cost parameters are now changing, making the new constellations economically viable at least prior to launch. Overcoming the cost differential while providing reliable coverage remains the central task.

However, while the economic case is considered more viable, how many distinct systems are economically competitive is unclear. Being first or at least early is supposed to be effective in terms of economic viability. The difficulty comes if the existing systems are not necessarily compatible, creating a series of stovepipes rather than a global system. You saw that the issue arise initially with satellite-based navigation. The US GPS system competed with the Soviet, now-Russian GLONASS system, so companies built receivers that could accept signals from both. That has now been extended to incorporate China’s Beidou and Europe’s Galileo signals for what are now known as Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).

These satellite navigation systems are sustainable because governments for assorted reasons have chosen to support such systems, which are available to international audiences. There have been some suggestions that states should mandate a more limited approach. GNSS works on the premise that potential users will employ whichever system’s signal provides the greatest benefit. Some voices have suggested that a state’s nationals should be mandated to employ their signal first and only rarely access others. This would provide economic benefit but squeezes out other systems and their affiliates.

The point is not the implicit mercantilism of such an approach. This is possible because GNSS is built around a signal available to all but one where more accurate signals are restricted to selected users. Such restrictions already exist about providing more accurate and robust signals restricted to national militaries and other selected users. So, even in an arrangement that appears open to all, a competitive advantage can be created. More simply, governments can unilaterally limit what specific signal access is built into navigation devices, creating an unequal playing field. India and China with vast populations present the best case for pursuing such a restrictive or nationalistic approach. Such a two-tier approach commercially reverses the direction the GNSS has taken to this point.

Space activities can facilitate economic growth without question, but future growth may prove more limited. This can be labelled the “Star Trek” economic model. The fictional universe of Star Trek operates in a universe where the vast economic resources are required to support the marvelous technology embedded in the Enterprise and other symbols of a Federation power. (Other shows dip slightly into that grubbier side of space activities.) “Deep Space 9” presented a glimpse of the larger economic reality underlying the Star Trek universe while “Babylon 5” in another setting portrays space commerce. albeit in an abbreviated sense.

Space activities can facilitate economic growth without question, but future growth may prove more limited.

Currently, space commerce is still tied to the movement of packets of information from space to other locations either in orbit or on the ground. The question remains still what exactly will space commerce produce that justifies the cost of being out there in space. Some argue that moving to outer space and the planets is crucial for preserving humanity. This dystopian view sees the Earth as essentially doomed due to human arrogance and lack of control over its worse impulses. The result is global pollution, climate warming, and other injuries to the environment such that the world is poisoned. The last humans should turn out the lights as they depart for more unspoiled environments. There is a cartoon by Wiley Miller in Non Sequitur showing two astronauts standing in a lunar garbage dump saying, paraphrased, “This is full, on to Mars.” The theme being human actions will not change, just the locations. Therefore, space commerce becomes part of that human desire to delay the future, inevitable as it appears.

Space commerce’s understood, but often obscured, reality is that ultimate successful economic exploitation of space as a location has a material dimension, one that is not recognizable in most space commerce endeavors that are focused on better and more efficient movement of information. Space commerce focused on material processing, either manufacturing materials lifted to orbit or resources accessed in space, is the ultimate reality. Mining operations on the lunar surface or an asteroid are often touted as possible economic bonanzas awaiting whoever is first.

The realities of space mining, though, are more problematic than often stated. The costs and difficulties associated with accessing the potential mining sites and processing whatever material is mined becomes an impediment to progress. Are the materials initially processed into usable form for further processing or is it returned to Earth for processing, later possibly returning to space for use?

Space commerce represents the future of human exploitation of space, but one must be clear as to what that means in the short and long term. Short-term goals envision exploiting an existing market such as communications or navigation services. However, this is a short-sighted perspective, one that is inherent in space commerce. The focus remains short term, however, rather than concentrating on long-term processes that engage with the physical reality of space. Otherwise, space commerce will grow but remain essentially Earth bound.

You see that pattern plays out in the continuing struggle to establish a permanent human presence in Earth orbit. The Soviet Union, the United States, and now China have placed independent space stations in orbit. Other states send missions and, in the case of the International Space Station, components to the respective space stations. In all three cases, prestige and national security were the original policy drivers, not any commercial aspect as a prime objective.

The Soviets sent a series of increasingly capable space stations to orbit culminating in the Mir Space Station. The US first space station, Skylab in 1973. was a vestige of the already cancelled Apollo Applications Program to create a space station. After three expeditions to Skylab, the station was abandoned, it entered the Earth’s atmosphere, burning up over Australia. The Soviet Union fell in 1991, but the Mir Space Station continued until 2001 when it was deorbited. The Russian Federation had joined the US-led ISS and no longer had sufficient resources to sustain Mir and contribute to the ISS. The United States in the 1990s flew shuttle missions to Mir, bringing US crew to the station for long-duration missions. US concerns included the unknowns of long-duration space access on the human body.

Construction of the ISS was a drawn-out exercise in assembling the various components designed and built by other states. Construction also was delayed due to the shuttle Columbia accident. NASA Return-to-flight efforts took several years. The ISS was completed in 2011 but the station continually evolves to include new missions and experiments. Regardless, the ISS is expected to be retired and deorbited around 2030 or later; the exact date depends on the physical integrity of the station. Whether a successor space station will be complete or at least under construction is unclear given the uneven and slow development process. NASA now lacks the political energy to put a second ISS in orbit as program leader. The new approach tracks recent programs developing crew and payload access to the ISS through commercial partnerships. Currently, NASA provides startup funding with more to follow, leaving funding the balance to the space station developers. NASA will become a tenant on the new station, not the owner, while investing perhaps 40% of the developmental cost. Commercial vendors will be responsible for developing and operating such facilities. That increases the pressure on the developers to find a revenue source that will justify the costs of developing, building, and operating such an enterprise. The problem central to their dilemma is what size structure to build to meet real or perceived demands.

Microgravity materials processing holds the promise of economic growth but first the products produced must prove an economic or social benefit justifying the cost.

China embarked on its space station program, Tiangong, with a predecessor structure orbited first followed by the current permanent structure. Tiangong became fully operational in 2022 with expansion of the station planned to grow the station from three modules to six, effectively doubling the workspace and allowing more crew on board. Its life span is estimated at 14 years, meaning at some point it would be the only space station in orbit if the ISS replacement program falters. China has opened participation to other states with mixed success. Russia has announced a new space station, although whether that will occur depend on Russian economics and its ability to convince other BRICS states to build modules for the it, effectively mirroring the development of the ISS.

Now, forgotten, the original concept for the US space station envisioned a space station operating in a cloud of free flyers. The space station could provide a place for crew, whose activities would focus on completing tasks sent from Earth such as science experiments including manufacturing projects. This is what occurs on the ISS and Tiangong. The new configuration sees those tasks completed on the free flyers, which minimize vibrations and other impediments that adversely impact experiments of the production of economically valuable goods. The crew can monitor the free flyers, checking for problems and bringing raw materials to production sites. This could also be a backup facility if tourist hotels in orbit appear.

Space tourism has often been cited as the way to the future in space activities. Initially, that reflected efforts to operate launch technologies more safely, efficiently and more frequently. The object of the Ansari X Prize in 2004 was to push development of launch vehicles capable of reaching the edge of space, returning safely, and flying again within an abbreviated time. That goal was accomplished but nothing much happened since suborbital flight was self-limiting. The game change came when SpaceX began launching to LEO with the first stage returning to landing sites on seacraft or launch pads. The effect was to accelerate the effective launch rate with a reduction in price. Space activities, whether civil or military work within an environment where once a task has been accomplished, others can figure out their solution to fulfill the same task. SpaceX Falcon 9 dominates the market (meaning prices came down but not as much as could be expected if there were competitors) but competitors are moving closer to successful launch and recovery.

The space station concepts are built on the assumption that the launch rate will further accelerate, lowering costs of access and operation. This projected change brings the central question into the foreground: can space dwellers ever be self-sufficient or does the situation continue of space activities of necessity supported from Earth and bound to Earth? Space tourism may bring more individuals to space, but their numbers will be limited by the cost. Is a highly stratified space society the goal? Wealthy individuals go to space, the same group who go on safari and mountain climbing. Their presence is transitory, the means for their survival transported them while their money only benefits the operators on Earth.

Microgravity materials processing holds the promise of economic growth but first the products produced must prove an economic or social benefit justifying the cost. Until that potential is tapped, space commerce remains refinements of what happened in the 19th century when the telegraph accelerated the spread of information exponentially. Now, humans stand on the cusp of a dramatic expansion of humanity into space, but the economic underpinning remains fragile. Moving to the next level does not demand immediate access to Mars but the creation of a viable, resilient human space economy.

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Roger Handberg is a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida.

Suborbital Spaceflight’s Crossroads

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity, attached to its VMs Eve mothership aircraft, takes off June 8 on its final commercial suborbital flight. (credit: J. Foust)

by Jeff Foust
Monday, June 24, 2024

If one tried to compile a list of key locations in the history of commercial human spaceflight, launch sites immediately come to mind. They include Mojave Air and Space Port, which hosted SpaceShipOne’s first suborbital spaceflight 20 years ago this month, as well as Blue Origin’s and Virgin Galactic’s commercial spaceports in West Texas and New Mexico, respectively. Then there’s Cape Canaveral, where SpaceX is launching commercial Crew Dragon missions for NASA and private customers.

An unlikely addition to that list would be the Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles Hotel. Nothing seems remarkable about the hotel itself (other than, perhaps, that it is in walking distance of LAX in car-centric Los Angeles.) But it has, over the years, hosted a series of space conferences that traces the changing fortunes of commercial space. In the late 1990s into the early 2000s, it was the site of the Space Frontier Foundation’s annual conference, promoting a more commercial version of space in an era of X Prize competitors and other reusable launch vehicle startups.

“It’s better than any ride you’ve taken,” Stern said of his flight on Virgin Galactic.

In the last two decades, the National Space Society used the hotel for its annual International Space Development Conference (ISDC). In 2006, Virgin Galactic discussed its first group of 100 “founder” astronauts while Burt Rutan wondered what happened to the other X Prize competitors. That conference also featured a talk by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shortly after the failed first launch of the Falcon 1 where he said the company had been working on designs for a crewed capsule. Musk returned to the same hotel eight years later, the company now flying cargo to the ISS on that Dragon capsule, to accept an award at the 2014 ISDC. Four years later, it was Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos’s turn to be recognized at the 2018 ISDC there, although his presentation is remembered by most for the announcement that Amazon had acquired the sci-fi series “The Expanse,” saving it from cancellation.

When the ISDC returned to the Sheraton last month, it could now finally recognize people who had flown on commercial suborbital spaceflights. The same award that Musk won a decade ago, the Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award, this year went to actor William Shatner. The award was primarily for his role on Star Trek, but also for actually going to space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard in 2021.

He mentioned the flight in his remarks accepting the award, even if he got an important detail wrong. “I was asked, after some manipulation, some machination, to go up on the Blue Horizons spaceship,” he recalled, mangling the name of the company that provided him with the ticket.

His comments were a mix of humor, poking fun at Bezos’s flight “on the Blue Horizons ship” before his trip, and revisiting his “enormous experience” on his own flight, including the emotional reaction he had after landing. “It’s apparently not uncommon to feel the preciousness of the Earth,” he said, a reference to the Overview Effect. “I feel in grief for the Earth.”

William Shatner discusses his suborbital spaceflight on New Shepard at the International Space Development Conference May 24. (credit: J. Foust)

The day after Shatner’s award, the conference hosted a luncheon with Alan Stern as speaker. He used the speech to discuss his flight on Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity suborbital spaceplane, testing plans to use the vehicle for research. “It’s like the transition from mainframes to PCs,” he said of the potential of suborbital research, something he has been advocating for more than a decade.

He talked about the long planning, including “overwhelming meetings,” for the flight, as well as the experience of going to space and back in a matter of minutes. “It’s better than any ride you’ve taken.”

The flight Stern took last year was a training run of sorts for an astronomical research flight, funded by NASA, he plans to take with Virgin Galactic. The date of that, though, is not clear after Virgin Galactic announced days after Stern’s flight in November that it would retire VSS Unity and focus its resources on developing the next generation Delta-class vehicle. That will not begin commercial flights until some time in 2026.

The speeches, which could be seen as celebrating the process of suborbital spaceflight, come as the industry approaches a crossroads 20 years after SpaceShipOne’s first trip to the edge of space. Blue Origin has just started resuming crewed New Shepard flights after a long hiatus, but even that mission suffered a problem. Virgin Galactic, meanwhile, is betting the company that it can complete development of those new Delta vehicles and get them into profitable service before the company runs out of cash.

New Shepard descends with one of its three main parachutes failing to open fully on the NS-25 flight May 19. (credit: Blue Origin webcast)

Parachute issue

Until recently, New Shepard had not flown any people since a successful flight in August 2022. The following month, on a payload-only flight, an engine problem triggered the capsule’s abort motor, allowing it to land safely while the booster was destroyed. An investigation concluded that the engine nozzle suffered structural failure because of excess heating, leading to design and other changes.

“They’ve been great at sharing data with us. They don’t really have any kind of root cause yet, and we continue to follow along with them,” NASA’s Stich said of Blue Origin and its parachute issue.

New Shepard returned to flight last December with another payload-only mission, but the company said at the time that it would resume flying people “soon.” That “soon” turned out to be about five months, with the NS-25 mission launching May 19 with six people on board, most famous among them Ed Dwight, a Black astronaut candidate from the 1960s who completed Air Force training but was never selected by NASA or the Air Force.

The flight, though, was not without incident. During the capsule’s descent, only two of its three parachutes fully opened. That was sufficient for a safe landing, although at perhaps a slightly higher speed than usual: the flight lasted a little under ten minutes, about 20 seconds shorter than average. (Blue Origin, which had displayed speed and altitude during earlier phases of flight, did not for the capsule’s landing.)

Nearly two weeks later, at a briefing about a Boeing CST-100 Starliner launch attempt, NASA confirmed that it had bene notified by Blue Origin of an issue with its parachute so that the agency and Boeing could confirm it did not affect their spacecraft.

Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, said at the briefing that a line intended for “reefing” the parachute, or controlling the opening of the parachute, was not cut as planned. “In this case, one of the parachutes was stuck in what I would call first stage” of the reefing process, keeping it from opening further.

An investigation confirmed that the problem with the line cutter on the New Shepard parachute was not common to those used on Starliner. Stich praised Blue Origin for its willingness to exchange data. “They’ve been great at sharing data with us. They don’t really have any kind of root cause yet, and we continue to follow along with them.”

Blue Origin provided few other details, beyond that the capsule could safely land even if only parachute opened. “We perform thorough post-flight reviews of every flight system, and that analysis continues,” it said in a statement. “We continue to share data and analysis of our parachute deployment with our chute supplier, NASA, and launch providers.”

The company has not revealed plans for the next New Shepard flight or how many flights it expects to perform this year. Even before NS-25, though, there was speculation in the industry that Blue Origin would deprioritize New Shepard to focus on its New Glenn launch vehicle, Blue Moon lunar lander, Blue Ring transfer vehicle, and Orbital Reef space station: a lot even for a company of the size of Blue Origin or the wealth of its founder.

The assumption is that, for now, Blue Origin will continue New Shepard flights at a modest flight rate: one every month or two, perhaps. But the company’s long-term ambitions appear to be tied to bigger, and more lucrative, projects.

VSS Unity is towed back to the main terminal building at Spaceport America after the Galactic 07 flight. (credit: J. Foust)

All in on Delta

Nearly three weeks after New Shepard’s return to crewed flights, Virgin Galactic closed the book on VSS Unity. The Galactic 07 mission included two pilots, three private astronauts, and one Turkish researcher, Tuva Atasever. He conducted several experiments on a flight arranged by Axiom Space, which had flown another Turkish astronaut, Alper Gezeravci, on a mission to the International Space Station earlier this year. (Atasever was the backup on that orbital flight.)

“Other people have aims of going to Mars, which is equally absolutely and utterly extraordinary,” Branson said. “But what we want to do is enable many people to experience what our astronauts experienced today.”

Taken in isolation, Galactic 07 was a typical commercial flight for Virgin Galactic. The three private astronauts—their identities not revealed until after Unity glided to a landing back at Spaceport America in New Mexico—said they were thrilled with the experience. Atasever, like Stern, praised the ability to do research on the suborbital spaceplane. “The experimental side of the flight was a huge success,” he said at a press conference after the flight.

The audience for Galactic 07 was bigger than many previous flights, at least since Richard Branson’s trip to space on the vehicle nearly three years ago. That included friends and family of those who flew on the vehicle as well as many company employees. Even Branson himself was there to see the final planned flight of Unity.

In comments after the launch, Branson said he still backed the founding vision of Virgin Galactic sending “thousands and thousands of people” to space. “That’s the aim of Virgin Galactic. Other people have aims of going to Mars, which is equally absolutely and utterly extraordinary,” he said. “But what we want to do is enable many people to experience what our astronauts experienced today.”

To enable that vision, the company needs to be successful on its transition to the Delta-class vehicles. Last November, the company said it would gradually phase out Unity, which was not profitable to operate, so that it could devote its roughly $1 billion of cash on hand to complete Delta and get it into service. The company concluded it could not count on raising more money selling stock give the state of the market—and the state of the company’s share price—and had to focus on getting the Delta vehicles flying.

The plan that Michael Colglazier, CEO of Virgin Galactic, laid out in an earnings call in May calls for getting two Delta vehicles flying in 2026, performing three flights a week with six customers on board, compared to one Unity flight a month with four customers. Virgin will continue to use its existing VMS Eve mothership plane (formerly known as WhiteKnightTwo) for those flights.

“With the launch of just our first two Delta ships, we expect to operate a robust and meaningful business with positive operating cash flow,” he said. Specifically, he projected flying 750 people in that first year of operations, about the size of its current backlog of customers, for an average price of $600,000 each, for $450 million in revenue.

Thus, it becomes a race for Virgin Galactic: demonstrate it can get the Delta spaceplanes flying, and at a flight rate and ticket price that is profitable, before its cash reserves (at $867 million as of the end of the first quarter) are exhausted.

Virgin Galactic is confident it can pull it off because Delta is not a totally new design. On the outside it will look “exactly the same,” Mike Moses, Virgin Galactic spaceline president, told reporters the day before Galactic 07. “But the real change is what’s under the hood, so to speak, in how it was designed, how it was built and how it’s operated.”

“It was a great flight. Unity flew near perfect. The crew did great,” Moses said. “So, from that standpoint, let’s turn it around and do again. But from a momentum standpoint, we understand we have to stop now and go focus on Delta.”

That includes the use of different composite materials and manufacturing techniques as well as greater use of contractors, which will build major components of Delta spaceplanes and send them a new facility Virgin Galactic will soon open outside Phoenix where it will perform final assembly and testing. That is a less artisanal approach than development of Unity and its predecessor, Enterprise, in Mojave and intended to be both less expensive and better suited to production of more vehicles.

During the flight hiatus, there will be a lot of work behind the scenes, adjusting procedures at Spaceport America to accommodate a much higher flight rate. “We want to hit the ground running when Delta shows up,” Moses said in an interview after the Galactic 07 flight. That will involve using Unity not as a flight vehicle but one for those ground operational tests.

Once the first Delta vehicle shows up at the spaceport, he said he expected a flight test program lasting roughly 8 to 12 months, starting with glide flights to compare how it handles versus Unity, then into powered spaceflights.

He described as “bittersweet” seeing Unity’s final flight. “It was a great flight. Unity flew near perfect. The crew did great,” he said. “So, from that standpoint, let’s turn it around and do again. But from a momentum standpoint, we understand we have to stop now and go focus on Delta.”

Two decades after SpaceShipOne

The Galactic 07 flight took place less than two weeks before the 20th anniversary of SpaceShipOne’s first flight to 100 kilometers, the precursor to the two flights in September and October 20204 that allowed it to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize.

Nicola Pecile, the Virgin Galactic pilot for the mission, referenced the anniversary in his remarks after the flight. “It is kind of sad to see Unity fly on its last commercial flight,” he said. “But our efforts are really working on the next generation.”

Two decades ago, the flight of SpaceShipOne seemed like a turning point, the opening of a new era commercial human spaceflight. The X Prize was founded in the mid-1990s on the argument that reusable launch vehicles required high flight rates and thus large markets to close their economic cases. Human spaceflight provided that large market and the ability to start with less-demanding suborbital flights before moving into orbital ones and going after new markets.

But that’s not how the future unfolded. Suborbital human spaceflight has not become the stepping-stone to low-cost orbital launch envisioned decades earlier. At best, Blue Origin has used New Shepard to test technologies it will use on its New Glenn orbital rocket, whose first is, perhaps, just a few months away. SpaceShipOne and its successor SpaceShipTwo (VSS Unity) are unlikely to evolve into any kind of reusable orbital launch system.

Suborbital vehicles may have had indirect benefits, like stimulating public interest and passage of legislation to support the commercial launch industry. However, the real innovation in spaceflight in June 2004 was not taking place in the skies above Mojave but a couple hours away in El Segundo, California, where SpaceX was taking its own path towards lowering the cost of accessing space. That was not obvious then—it was easy to dismiss the company as a curious dalliance by a dot-com millionaire—but it is clear today it has had a far greater impact on the space industry than suborbital vehicles.

If the pattern holds, in the next four to six years ISDC will return to the Sheraton Gateway. At that point it will be clear if commercial suborbital human spaceflight has any future. Perhaps Blue Origin will be continuing New Shepard flights at a steady pace, flying several dozen people a year. Virgin Galactic’s bet on Delta may have paid off, allowing the company to at least survive, if not grow into a company flying hundreds a year from New Mexico and possibly other locations. Or, maybe, the suborbital arc will be complete, but not forgotten.

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Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

Book Review: “The People’s Spaceship”

Review: The People’s Spaceship

by Jeff Foust
Monday, June 24, 2024

The People’s Spaceship: NASA, the Shuttle Era, and Public Engagement after Apollo
by Amy Paige Kaminski
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024
hardcover, 336 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-8229-4766-0
US$60.00

NASA today embeds public outreach in nearly every aspect of its activities. “Slow Your Student’s ‘Summer Slide’ and Beat Boredom With NASA STEM” declares a recent NASA release, explaining how agency resources can keep kids entertained and educated during summer vacation. (“Finally, summer isn’t complete without a sweet treat, so bake some sunspot cookies. Real sunspots are not made of chocolate, but in this recipe, they are!” it states.) People can also register to virtually “attend” for this week’s scheduled launch of the GOES-U weather satellite, giving people access to mission updates as well as “curated mission resources.” The unstated rationale for the mission updates, educational activities, and even cookie recipes is to build and maintain public support for the agency and its programs.

The shuttle opened the door to greater public participation in spaceflight that NASA, at least initially, welcomed as a means of building support for the shuttle.

In the early years of NASA, the agency did its share of public outreach as well, through the news media as well as tours and other activities. But agency leaders said at the time they were not motivated by public support during its race to the Moon. “In NASA we do not translate interest in as support for. We only acknowledge the interest and try to supply goods and services on a reactive basis,” claimed Tom Paine, NASA administrator, in 1970.

That changed with the end of Apollo, argues Amy Paige Kaminski in her new book, The People’s Spaceship. Budget cuts forced NASA to find a new direction for human spaceflight, resulting in the shuttle program. That vehicle, intended to reduce the costs of accessing space, came at a time when NASA was redirecting its focus to more practical applications. The combination, she notes, opened the door to greater public participation in spaceflight that NASA, at least initially, welcomed as a means of building support for the shuttle.

Those efforts took many forms. Some are familiar to most, like the expansion of the astronaut corps from primarily test pilots (all white males) to include more scientists and engineers, including women and minorities, as well as payload specialists not strictly astronauts. Later, emboldened by a vision of the shuttle making spaceflight routine, that expanded to efforts to fly more ordinary citizens.

Those efforts involved more than flying a more diverse set of people, though. NASA sought to attract commercial customers for the vehicle, either for launching satellites or doing research. It also reached out to universities and the public at large through the Get Away Special (GAS) program to fly items in canisters placed the shuttle’s payload bay, or for flying experiments inside the cabin. There were more passive opportunities as well, as NASA extended invitations to watch shuttle launches and landings or cooperating with filmmakers, like IMAX.

Those efforts showed that while they could be effective in attracting support and even pride in the shuttle program, it could sometimes be difficult to control how the public wanted to be involved with the shuttle program. People purchased reservations for GAS cans to fly research, but also for flying artwork. Kaminski notes some people wanted to fill GAS cans with collectable items to be resold after their return to Earth. “A Dallas retailer hoped to fly gerbils in a GAS can with the same intent,” she writes. That led to concerns within NASA about tarnishing the agency’s reputation, resulting in stricter guidelines about what could or could not be flown.

Some people wanted to fill GAS cans with collectable items to be resold after their return to Earth. “A Dallas retailer hoped to fly gerbils in a GAS can with the same intent.”

The Challenger accident led NASA to revisit many of those efforts, most notably with the Teacher In Space effort and plans to fly journalists and artists. It also scaled back the GAS and related programs. Public participation continued in other ways, though, up until the retirement of the shuttles and their placement at museums and centers across the country.

Kaminski concludes the book with some lessons for NASA to apply public participation to the Artemis program. “One thing that is clear that today, perhaps even more so than in the shuttle era, many people can and want to participate directly in space activities,” she writes. That doesn’t mean flying spaceflight participants on Orion, but could leverage potions like prizes or online forums to solicit ideas and concepts outside of the conventional space industry. That involves “giving up some control” by NASA, she acknowledges, but can lead to a “rich and democratic” future for the United States in space. It will likely require something more than cookie recipes.

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Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

Gas Stations in Space

• The Merge
• Posts
• 🔷 Gas Stations in Space

If you’re new around here, welcome to the club!

⛳ Happy Father’s Day—enjoy a stroll in those New Balance dad shoes. Maybe a round of golf? If you need balls, we got em. Scroll for this week’s giveaway!

🔷 Small Favor – a ton of you listen to our podcast, mostly on Apple and Spotify—but almost no one clicks the rating button. Could you do us a solid and click the button—5 stars or bust! Bonus points if you spend the extra 10 seconds and write a short review.

NASA

Gas Stations in Space

The Space Force plans to launch a first-of-its-kind logistics mission in 2026, demonstrating the ability to maneuver and service spacecraft in orbit. This mission, involving on-orbit refueling and maintenance, aims to enhance satellite longevity and functionality.

What

Imagine if fighter jets had to carry all their mission fuel on board—without refueling. It would constrain the mission duration and even influence the design of the aircraft. Satellites are the same way, except when they run out of fuel, they are junk. For this reason, satellites are designed around a lifetime fuel supply.

Refueling ships underway has been a thing since the 1920s and aerial refueling has existed since the 1950s. But what about refueling satellites in orbit?

So What

The ability to maneuver and service spacecraft in orbit could revolutionize space logistics. Traditionally, satellites are abandoned once they deplete their fuel or face technical issues, leading to increased space debris and driving more launch missions to replace them.

On-orbit servicing can extend the lifespan of satellites, making space operations more sustainable and cost-effective. This niche is small but expected to more than double by 2030, and the military is definitely interested.

Last year, the Space Force awarded Astroscale $25.5m for an on-orbit refueling vehicle. More recently, Starfish Space was awarded a similar $37.5m contract to develop, launch, and operate an on-orbit servicing satellite. Notably, both of these contracts are augmented with private money.

What they are refueling is one thing—where they are refueling is the other. Both companies are targeting geostationary orbit (GEO), where $250m+ satellites—some the size of school buses—live.

These large distant satellites do military-like things like GPS, communication, and spying. But because they are way out there—roughly 69X further from Earth than SpaceX’s Starlink—they’re also expensive to get into orbit.

But…

The military and intelligence community have long treated these expensive, high-value GEO satellites as vulnerabilities—they are huge targets, there are not many of them, and it takes 5+ years to get a replacement in orbit.

Because of this, there’s been a massive shift to low-cost distributed constellations in low Earth orbit (LEO), which the Pentagon calls proliferated low Earth orbit (pLEO).

Now What

While the Space Force’s 2026mission is still a go (for now), there is a growing mis-match of this GEO refueling initiative when the Pentagon is moving to low-cost LEO. When you factor in the rapidly dropping cost-to-launch, the economics might not make sense—even if the tech works.

The Space Force is still grappling with the refueling math and is doing a deep-dive study on orbital refueling to clarify not only the military utility but also the business case to clear the confusion with industry.

In That Number

16,000

An estimated 16,000 energy drinks roll off the Morshynska beverage factory in Ukraine to support soldiers with caffeine.

TRIVIA

How long was the shortest war in history?

A) 40 minutes
B) 11 hours
C) 6 days
D) 1 week

On the Radar

The Space Force’s new Resilient GPS program is facing skepticism from Congress. The program intends to augment the existing 31 GPS satellites with a constellation of small navigation satellites. While the new LEO constellation would provide a layer of resiliency for the existing GEO satellites, some lawmakers think it doesn’t fundamentally solve the jamming and spoofing vulnerabilities.  

• The Merge’s Take: First, did you even read the feature topic above? The Resilient GPS program is projected to cost $1B over the next five years—which sounds like a lot—but that’s an entire constellation for the cost of 4 regular GPS satellites. Second, because those satellites are 20,000 miles closer, the signal is inherently much stronger and harder to jam (like Starlink).  

It was a big week for Merlin Labs and EpiSci. Merlin Labs secured a $105m production contract to implement autonomy on SOCOM fixed-wing aircraft, starting with the C-130Js. EpiSci announced they were selected for DARPA’s AIR program, which will use autonomously-flown F-16s for multi-ship, beyond visual range (BVR) counter-air scenarios. Then the announcement dropped that Merlin is buying EpiSci.

• The Merge’s Take: The acquisition of EpiSci is a great strategic move, bringing together a company that was focused on integration and certification of autonomy onto large multi-crew aircraft (Merlin) and a company that has been focused on applying autonomy across tactical mission areas (EpiSci). This acquisition significantly bolsters positions on both ends of that spectrum and they can work to meet in the middle. OBTW, Merlin’s $105m contract is icing on the cake—it’s the largest known aerial autonomy award from the Pentagon, reflecting the growing importance of autonomous systems in military aviation beyond fighter-like CCAs.

The Air Force’s 6th-gen fighter isn’t safe from budget cuts. The Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program is facing critical decisions as leaders decide whether to continue or cancel. The NGAD initiative aims to develop a 6th-gen fighter aircraft with advanced stealth, next-gen adaptive engines, AI-driven systems, and enhanced sensors to maintain air superiority against near-peer adversaries. However, the substantial costs, timelines, and threat environment changes have prompted debates about the program’s viability and return on investment.

• The Merge’s Take: This decision should not be taken lightly. On the one hand, the NGAD program was only projected to buy ~200 fighters that cost ~$300m apiece. That’s about the same size as the F-22 Raptor fleet, which is well-known for being a scarce resource in high demand because politics killed the program. And the economics aren’t pretty—the ~$300m price tag for 1 NGAD would buy 4 F-35s. On the other hand, NGAD is essentially the only Air Force program pushing several next-gen air domain technologies to high tech readiness levels (TRL). If the program dies, it will create a generational gap across the tech portfolio. Killing the program might also be another massive blow to Boeing, one of the 2 contractors in the running. Maybe there’s a universe where NGAD stays alive as a tech maturation program?

They Said It
“I thought, I’ll try to give at least one more command, one of the easiest: to lower altitude to a minimum, and then at that altitude, if I’m lucky enough, then that bastard will have GPS.”

— Ivan Kaunov, explaining the experience of manually piloting a drone over the Russian line in Ukraine. He’s one of dozens of Ukrainians building their own tech solutions. His is called Buntar-1 (a “Rogue One” Star Wars reference), which works on software that programs missions so that the drone can operate free from the operator.

Things That Almost Go Boom

Discoverer One was launched in February 1959, a little over a month after the Discoverer Zero accident. The Air Force announced that it was in orbit, but those involved in the launch concluded that it most likely fell over Antarctica, and the spacecraft was never tracked in orbit. Discoverer suffered a string of failures before achieving success in summer 1960 and making possible the first reconnaissance satellites. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection)

by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, June 17, 2024

According to the US Air Force, the first military satellite launch attempt at Vandenberg Air Force Base took place on February 28, 1959, with the successful orbiting of Discoverer 1. As usual, the reality is more complicated. Discoverer 1 most likely never made it into orbit, falling to Earth over Antarctica. Discoverer 1 had been preceded over a month earlier by another operation which was not publicly acknowledged and was known to a small community as “Discoverer Zero,” and nearly ended in tragedy.

Failure was part of the business. In fact, people in the media and in the missile field had come up with a new euphemism for something that was difficult to do. They called it rocket science.

On January 21, 1959, the first Discoverer spacecraft sat on its pad at Vandenberg awaiting launch. Discoverer was a cover story for the Corona reconnaissance satellite program. This was not a public launch event. It was not going to be like the embarrassing Vanguard launch a little over a year before. There was no network of TV cameras staring at the little rocket on the launch pad on the Pacific Coast, waiting to see it blow up and embarrass the United States Air Force. In fact, this launch attempt had not even been announced beforehand. If it reached orbit, the Air Force would announce that it was in orbit. That was it.

The Thor-Hustler rocket stood 78 feet (23.8 meters) tall, although it was rather insignificant amid the chaparral, sand dunes, and rolling mountains of the rugged central coast of California. The Pacific Ocean was a short walk away, breaking on jagged shore.

The payload at the top of the Hustler consisted primarily of test instruments under a nosecone. It bore little resemblance to the intended payload of later Discoverer missions, which would soon include a reentry vehicle designed to return to Earth.

The United States had blown up a lot of missiles and rockets in the previous two years. Failure was part of the business. In fact, people in the media and in the missile field had come up with a new euphemism for something that was difficult to do. They called it rocket science.

By this time, 29 Thor missiles had been launched from Cape Canaveral, with 22 partial or complete successes. Six of these had been Thor Able launches, and three had lifted the Lunar Probe and Pioneers 1 and 2 into space. This Vandenberg launch was only about a month or so late from the original launch date, a minor slip considering that the program did not even exist a year before. On December 16, 1958, a little over a month before, Vandenberg Air Force Base was christened as the Air Force’s west coast launch facility with its first missile shot: a Combat Training Launch of a Thor IRBM, which successfully flew 2,400 kilometers (1,300 nautical miles) downrange into the Pacific. The little missile had essentially proven itself by this time after multiple test flights and was ready to become operational overseas. Thor Able had also proven itself as a space launcher. Although the Air Force still wanted to increase Thor reliability to 80 or 90%, most of the problems with the rocket had been ironed out by early 1959.

The Hustler was a different story. In fact, officially it did not even have a name. Some people called it Hustler after its Bell engine, which had been destined for the now-canceled “Pilotless Propulsion Pod” (i.e. a missile) for the B-58 Hustler supersonic bomber. Some called it the WS-117L. But most of those who worked on it at Lockheed Building 104 at Sunnyvale, California, north of Vandenberg, referred to it simply as “the vehicle.” This particular vehicle was called by its serial number, 1019.

The suit with the most patches over it went to the highest-ranking member of the pad crew, based on the belief that the extra level of fabric from all the patches offered greater protection to the wearer.

On this cold day in January the pad workers performing the final checkout of the rocket and spacecraft were busy. There were only a few of them—less than a handful, all enlisted men—working at the base of the vehicle on its concrete launch pad. They were encased in heavy protective clothing, called “acid suits,” designed to protect them from the Hustler’s dangerous, acidic propulsion fuel. The rocket used Inhibited Red Fuming Nitric Acid as an oxidizer. It was every bit as nasty as its name implied. IRFNA (pronounced “urfna”) was combined with JP-4 jet fuel on the first missions. When IRFNA blew up, it created what rocket engineers called a BFRC, for “big frigging red cloud,” (except they didn’t say “frigging”)—toxic smoke that would kill you painfully, and kill you dead.

Lockheed engineers already had plans to substitute a different fuel for the JP-4, but it was the IRFNA that everyone worried about, and that was why they wore the acid suits. If an acid suit got a hole in it, technicians would slap a patch over it. The suit with the most patches over it went to the highest-ranking member of the pad crew, based on the belief that the extra level of fabric from all the patches offered greater protection to the wearer.

Screengrab from a 1980s-era Lockheed video about the Agena upper stage. This shows the January 1959 pad accident at Vandenberg Air Force Base that nearly killed personnel working on the rocket. They ran away, some even driving away in vehicles. The accident became known as “Discoverer Zero.” (credit: “The Agena, Lockheed’s Vandenberg Heritage”, 1989 video)

The Thor was unfueled—its kerosene and liquid oxygen would be loaded just before launch. But the Hustler was receiving its supply of IRFNA when someone decided to conduct a test of the Hustler Guidance and Control Auto Sequencer. This device, known as the “D” timer, controlled various events during the vehicle’s ascent into orbit. Within the blockhouse, less than a kilometer away, an alarm horn suddenly went off. Controllers frantically looked over their instruments, trying to discern what was wrong.

Out at the pad several of the workers who were farther away from the vehicle noticed smoke emerging about 18 meters up, from the spot where the Hustler and the Thor were connected. This was bad, they knew. Really bad. They ran, scattering as fast as they could to hide behind concrete blast walls on the pad. Some jumped in vehicles and drove away at high speed.

One person who did not see this was the crew chief, who was standing right next to the vehicle in his patched acid suit when smoke started pouring out of the rocket high above his head. He was apparently checking his clipboard when a square aluminum plate fell off the Hustler and clanged at his feet. He too decided that the last place he wanted to be was next to hundreds of kilos of Red Fuming Nitric Acid and he beat a hasty retreat for safer ground.

The whole experience was an embarrassment. The Air Force had flown several space missions during the preceding year. How come this one nearly blew up while people were on the pad?

Surprisingly, there were two color film cameras pointed at the rocket that were running at the time. Even more surprisingly, the film was preserved. Unfortunately, the only known footage is in a low-quality video produced by Lockheed in 1989 (“The Agena, Lockheed’s Vandenberg Heritage”), and it is doubtful that Lockheed kept the original film. But the video still shows what happened, with smoke coming out of the rocket and at least eight or more pad workers running away. Some who were a farther distance hopped into vehicles and drove off at high speed. Screengrabs do not convey the panic of the men that day like the low-quality video does. People running and driving that fast from a smoking rocket clearly thought they might die. If Lockheed still has the film locked away in a vault somewhere, they should donate it to a museum.

Inside the blockhouse the controllers had realized what was happening. Somehow the Hustler’s internal timer had been activated. The vehicle behaved as if the Thor had burned out after boosting it high into the atmosphere. First it fired the explosively activated collar that held the two vehicles together so that they could separate. Then it had fired its small solid-propellant ullage rockets used to push the Hustler away from its spent booster and push the propellant in its tanks to the rear so that the engine could fire. These rockets were located on the aft end of the Hustler, between it and the Thor’s upper liquid oxygen tank. A few seconds later, the sequencer had ejected covers over the spacecraft’s antennas and horizon sensors—the aluminum plate that landed in front of the Crew Chief was one of these covers.

Fortunately, someone in the blockhouse reacted quickly. He immediately cut power to the rocket and yanked the fuel levers so that the Hustler’s toxic fuel began draining out of the rocket and back into its storage tanks. The rocket sat there for a long time as everyone waited in horror to see if the IRFNA might explode from the heat of the ullage rockets, or if the unsecured Hustler—which now sat on top of the Thor without anything other than gravity holding it there—might tip over in the wind, fall to the ground, and burst into a fireball.

Another screengrab of the incident. Workers were preparing the rocket for launch when a “sneak circuit” caused the upper stage timer to activate. This ejected covers and the attachment rings, and then fired the solid rocket ullage motors on the upper stage, which was fueled with dangerous and toxic propellant. Fortunately, the rocket did not explode or topple over, and nobody was injured. The accident forced a change in how the Air Force prepared rockets for launch. (credit: “The Agena, Lockheed’s Vandenberg Heritage”, 1989 video)

The whole experience was an embarrassment. The Air Force had flown several space missions during the preceding year. How come this one nearly blew up while people were on the pad? Although the launch attempt had not been named beforehand, after the vehicle was secured and hauled back down to horizontal and everything was made safe, those who knew about it began calling it “Discoverer Zero.” The trade magazine Aviation Week, which had by now changed its name to Aviation Week & Space Technology, dutifully reported the failure a week later.

In the investigation that followed, Air Force and Lockheed officials quickly determined what had gone wrong. Somehow there was a “sneak circuit” between the Hustler, Thor, and the blockhouse. This sneak circuit had activated the event sequencer, which commanded certain things to happen on the spacecraft at certain times and in specific order. This sneak circuit had crept into the system because nobody had been assigned the task of overseeing the interaction of all of the vehicle’s separate systems with the Thor and the systems in the blockhouse. There were people who ran full checks of the Hustler on the ground, but not in concert with the other systems.

The ballistic missile program had learned the lesson of systems engineering. The military space program had not yet learned the lesson of systems engineering. Discoverer Zero was the result.

According to Frank Buzard, a young Air Force officer who was in charge of the overall launch program, the quick fix to the problem was easy. Lockheed engineers developed a system for testing the sequencer without activating any of the Hustler equipment. They also reviewed all the wiring diagrams to find just exactly where the sneak circuit was and eliminate it. The review of the wiring diagrams had to be done by hand, laboriously poring over blueprints and other information, figuring out how one system connected to the others. (See: “Sharp as a tack,” The Space Review, February 6, 2012.)

But the real failure was not because of equipment, it was a problem with planning and procedures. This was a failure of systems engineering—the interaction of complex systems all tied together.

Dan DeBra was one of the Lockheed engineers working on the vehicle in the company’s Sunnyvale facility in Building 104, a self-described “peon” who worked on proposing other missions for the rocket. He was one of the people who helped define how a Sentry Hustler would differ from a Discoverer Hustler, and how a Discoverer Hustler could be adapted to other space applications. He was not at the pad for the failure of 1019, and the first test was not his responsibility, but he knew a lot about how the vehicle was supposed to work because it was his job to try and convince other users that their vehicle could do amazing things.

As DeBra pointed out, the discovery that systems engineering had failed on this launch was not a startling revelation in retrospect. It is the type of lesson that all designers of complex machines eventually learn, and often have to relearn. Beginning around the turn of the 19th century, manufacturers recognized that as the products they produced became more complicated, designing and building them became more chaotic. Many people worked on a set of engineering blueprints, modifying their own individual parts. When the blueprints reached the workmen building the machine, parts did not fit or work as designed. The solution was to have a master designer sign the blueprints. No change could be made to them without his agreement and signature. Clear lines of responsibility and accountability had to be established or things would go wrong on the manufacturing floor, or worse, the machine would break down completely. Nobody had done that with the Hustler and the designers all smacked their foreheads when they realized it. It was so obvious, and yet they had missed it.

Every organization eventually learns the lesson of systems engineering. They learn that one part of a complex machine can affect another part in unforeseen ways. They learn that someone has to be responsible for the entire system and aware of its individual components so that they do not interfere with each other. And they learn that communication, and procedures for communicating, are important for success. The earlier they learn this lesson the better. Skip it and rockets blow up.

The ballistic missile program had learned the lesson of systems engineering. The military space program had not yet learned the lesson of systems engineering. Discoverer Zero was the result.

Fortunately, nobody died.

As Buzard said, “the primary lesson from 1019 remains—you must conduct an all-up end-to-end test in the final configuration of the spacecraft before it leaves the factory and again on the launch pad when it is mated to the booster and the launch facility and blockhouse.”

Colonel Lee Battle was in charge of the Air Force’s Discoverer program office in Los Angeles. He felt that Discoverer Zero had been a warning. They needed to implement better checks and procedures. He made this a major component of his management of Discoverer, insisting that Lockheed designate certain people to be responsible for the overall integration of the vehicle. He insisted that the program office and contractors clearly designate the procedures to be followed for each step of a launch and operation of a space vehicle. He made specific officials accountable for the success of the system. Battle was tireless, even obsessive, about this. They had to fix these problems before they started flying rockets.

Battle believed that all failures were preventable. “There is no such thing as a random failure!” Battle would declare. It would become his mantra.

Within the program office in Los Angeles, this became known as the “Lesson of 1019,” often shortened to “1019.” All Battle or anyone had to do was say “1019” and everyone knew what they meant: check to make sure that nothing has been missed, that doing one thing will not cause something else to go wrong. Emphasize “systems integration” so that all of the complex parts of a spacecraft will work properly together. Quality control was vital and required constant vigilance. When the Lockheed engineers finally took vehicle 1019 apart back in the factory, they found several flaws that would have prevented it from ever reaching orbit.

Battle later incorporated this lesson into an overall list of his rules for successful military space operations (Battle’s Laws can be downloaded here). Among rules like “Don’t over-communicate with higher headquarters,” there was “System integration is very important,” and below it the entry “1019.” These rules became known as “Battle’s Laws.” They were later simplified and shortened and posted in the Discoverer Program Office. Young officers were instructed on their importance for successful programs. “1019” was dropped from the shortened version, but by that time everyone in the office had the lesson of systems integration drummed into their skulls.

“It was a common remark back in those days, ‘Well, there was a random failure of a two-cent component that caused this $5-million thing to blow up,’” Frank Buzard recalled. “Well, you never used the words ‘random failure’ around Lee Battle, because the result was very predictable. I mean there was an explosion.” Battle believed that all failures were preventable. “There is no such thing as a random failure!” Battle would declare. It would become his mantra.

Discoverer Zero never got another chance to fly. The Thor rocket was damaged. The upper hemisphere of the kerosene tank had been compressed inwards by the thrust from the Hustler’s ullage rockets. But it was salvageable and the Air Force sent it back to Douglas for repair.

Vehicle 1019 was another matter. Dan DeBra remembered seeing it after it had been returned to Lockheed’s assembly facility in Sunnyvale. It had been cleaned up and he did not see any obvious signs of damage. But nobody trusted the vehicle. IRFNA had spilled over 1019’s aft equipment rack. IRFNA was acid and acid did nasty things to metal, rubber, copper, and plastic. Nobody wanted to sign off on the spacecraft, certifying that vehicle for flight ever again. And because it was one of the very first vehicles, it lacked improvements that were being incorporated into newer models. 1019 became a hangar queen, used for tests and fit checks in the factory and destined never to make it into space. But its legacy lived on in the military space program.

The only known image of the “Discoverer Zero” launch vehicle on its pad. The upper stage—not yet named Agena—would be salvaged and become a “hangar queen,” never to fly. The Thor was eventually refurbished and used in a later flight. (credit: “The Agena, Lockheed’s Vandenberg Heritage”, 1989 video)

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Dwayne Day can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.

Artemis Accords Lift Off

Mkhitar Hayrapetyan, Minister of High-Tech Industry of the Republic of Armenia, signs the Artemis Accords June 12 as (from left) Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Jennifer Littlejohn, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, and Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia to the United States Lilit Makunts look on. (credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

by Jeff Foust
Monday, June 17, 2024

At the end of 2022, more than two years after the rollout of the Artemis Accords, 23 nations had signed the document outlining best practices for sustainable space exploration. Since eight of the countries had signed the Accords at once at an unveiling event in October 2020, it meant that 15 nations had joined since then.

The pace has picked up considerably since then. Ten countries signed the Artemis Accords in 2023, ranging from major spacefaring countries like Germany and India to Angola, which has yet to sign the Outer Space Treaty, the foundational document of international space law. So far this year another ten have signed, most recently Armenia last week.

“In today’s rapidly expanding space activities, it is very important to set rules for long-term safety of outer space,” said Drucker.

That has resulted in a regular series of signing ceremonies, some in the countries that were signing the Accords and others at NASA’s headquarters. The ones in Washington followed a similar script: remarks by NASA administrator Bill Nelson and, typically, a State Department official, along with the minister and ambassador of the country signing the Accords. After the remarks, they sign copies of Accords, pose for pictures, and then head on out.

The pace of signings resulted in a doubleheader of sorts on May 30: NASA headquarters hosted one ceremony that morning for Peru and another, a few hours later, for Slovakia. The two events followed similar scripts, although after the second event some of the Slovak officials lingered in the room, taking pictures of themselves in front of NASA backdrops or at the podium with NASA’s logo.

But why are more countries signing up for the Accords after nearly four years? Some countries have seen the Artemis Accords as a way to get involved in the overall Artemis lunar exploration effort, even though signing the document doesn’t guarantee any roles in Artemis.

“This opportunity will allow to Peru to participate in activities related to the exploration and sustainable use of space resources as well as to promote scientific and aerospace development in our country,” said Peru’s foreign minister, Javier González-Olaechea, at his country’s signing ceremony.

Others see signing the Accords as a signal that they intend to be a responsible actor in space, backing practices like transparency, registration of space objects, and mitigating creation of orbital debris.

“In today’s rapidly expanding space activities, it is very important to set rules for long-term safety of outer space,” said Tomáš Drucker, Slovakia’s minister of education, research, development and youth. “These rules should ensure that space activities are safe, clean and sustainable, benefiting all nations. By fostering commercial and public private partnerships and hastening international cooperation, we can achieve these goals together.”

US officials say they are seeing growing momentum for the Accords. “As the number keeps growing, there’s more and more interest,” said Valda Vikmanis-Keller, director of the Office of Space Affairs at the State Department, at the Meridian Space Diplomacy Forum April 30. “Countries are looking around and realizing that their neighbors, other international partners, have signed, and I think there’s a growing curiosity.” She added that while the US had earlier been proactive in discussing the Accords with countries, now countries are approaching the US about signing.

The level of engagement among countries to get them to sign the Accords has varied widely. Iceland, for example, didn’t even bother with a signing ceremony, instead providing a signed copy of the Accords, apparently unsolicited, to the State Department last October. “For others, it’s a very sustained discussion,” Karen Feldstein, NASA associate administrator for international and interagency relations, said at the Meridian forum.

“A race to define, sign up to, implement, live by principles for safe and responsible and sustainable exploration is, for me, a race worth having,” said Feldstein.

On one level, the Artemis Accords carry limited weight. It is a non-binding document, unlike a treaty, with effectively no penalties for not adhering to its principles. But US officials see that as a strength. “Having the Accords being non-binding lowers the barrier to entry,” Feldstein said, useful since the signatories have a wide range of expertise and experience in spaceflight.

Signing the Accords, they argue, shows a commitment to responsible space activities that doesn’t end with the signing ceremony. “The Accords are the beginning of a discussion,” said Vikmanis-Keller. “They bring together people in these discussions. They are free and frank and open in a unique way that perhaps other fora don’t allow.”

That includes heads-of-agencies meetings of Artemis Accords signatories held during the last two International Astronautical Congresses (IAC) in Paris in 2022 and Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2023; another is planned for the next IAC in Milan in October. There have also been more in-depth workshops to discuss topics related to the Accords in more detail.

The latest workshop, held at the Canadian Space Agency headquarters in suburban Montréal last month, included representatives of 24 signatories. In a statement after the meeting, NASA said participants discussed topics of non-interference, transparency and exchanges of scientific data, as well as conducted “a tabletop exercise centered on further defining and implementing key tenets.”

Feldstein said those efforts have already had results. Earlier discussions led to agreement among countries on a basic set of information about lunar missions that countries would share to ensure those missions did not interfere with those from other countries. NASA used that earlier this year to provide information on two lunar lander missions by Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines that carried NASA payloads.

The efforts around the Artemis Accords come as China is offering its own version, through the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) program. Countries that agree to participate in ILRS—11 as of last month, when Serbia joined—also agree to follow a set of principles intended to be analogous to the Artemis Accords.

It is difficult to compare the ILRS principles with the Accords since China has not released a public version of those principles. However, speaking at the Meridian forum, NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy said it was her understanding that the two documents were similar.

“The ILRS has many similar characteristics to the Artemis Accords,” she said. “Probably the most notable differences, from our perspective, is that we have a commitment to open science and the sharing of scientific data, and transparency.”

There is nothing, officials said at the forum, that prevents a country from both signing the Artemis Accords and joining the ILRS.

US officials downplayed any competition between the Accords and the ILRS principles. “China, feeling the need to articulate its own version of those kinds of principles after the Artemis Accords were completed, is I think a tremendously good thing,” Feldstein said. “A race to define, sign up to, implement, live by principles for safe and responsible and sustainable exploration is, for me, a race worth having.”

There is nothing, both Feldstein and Vikmanis-Keller said at the forum, that prevents a country from both signing the Artemis Accords and joining the ILRS. To date, no countries have done both, although there is speculation that a couple ILRS signatories, South Africa and Thailand, are at least considering signing the Accords.

Officials said they expect more countries to sign the Accords in the months to come. Asked to estimate how many countries would be signatories by the end of the year, Feldstein declined to give a number but Vikmanis-Keller offered a personal, unofficial prediction: 57. The pipeline of countries in discussions about signing the Accords is not public, although the State Department noted in May, after a meeting of the U.S.-Portugal Standing Bilateral Commission, that talks were underway about Portugal signing the Accords.

That growth is a sign of optimism about the future of space exploration, advocates of the Accords argue. “The increasingly rapid growth the Artemis Accords demonstrates a global belief in a better future for humanity in space,” said Mike Gold, a former NASA official who led development of the Accords at the agency in 2020 and is now chief growth officer of Redwire. “During a time when we see so much conflict and pain in the world, Artemis provides a light that can show us a path toward a future full of wonder.”

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Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

The Rush To Return Humans To THe MoonAnd Build Lunar Bases Could Threaten Opportunities For Astronomy

The same commercial capabilities enabling new science at the Moon, like the LuSEE-Night radio astronomy experiment, could also jeopardize that research. (credit: NASA/Firefly Aerospace)

by Martin Elvis
Monday, June 17, 2024

The 2020s have already seen many lunar landing attempts, although several of them have crashed or toppled over. With all the excitement surrounding the prospect of humans returning to the Moon, both commercial interests and scientists stand to gain.

The Moon is uniquely suitable for researchers to build telescopes they can’t put on Earth because it doesn’t have as much satellite interference as Earth or a magnetic field blocking out radio waves. But only recently have astronomers like me started thinking about potential conflicts between the desire to expand knowledge of the universe on one side and geopolitical rivalries and commercial gain on the other, and how to balance those interests.

As an astronomer and the co-chair of the International Astronomical Union’s working group Astronomy from the Moon, I’m on the hook to investigate this question.

Everyone to the south pole

By 2035—just about a decade from now—American and Chinese rockets could be carrying humans to long-term lunar bases.

Only recently have astronomers like me started thinking about potential conflicts between the desire to expand knowledge of the universe on one side and geopolitical rivalries and commercial gain on the other.

Both bases are planned for the same small areas near the south pole because of the near-constant solar power available in this region and the rich source of water that scientists believe could be found in the Moon’s darkest regions nearby.

Unlike the Earth, the Moon is not tilted relative to its path around the Sun. As a result, the Sun circles the horizon near the poles, almost never setting on some crater rims. There, the never-setting Sun casts long shadows over nearby craters, hiding their floors from direct sunlight for the past four billion years, 90% of the age of the solar system.

These craters are basically pits of eternal darkness. And it’s not just dark down there, it’s also cold: below –250 degrees Celsius. It’s so cold that scientists predict that water in the form of ice at the bottom of these craters, likely brought by ancient asteroids colliding with the Moon’s surface, will not melt or evaporate away for a very long time.

Surveys from lunar orbit suggest that these craters, called permanently shadowed regions, could hold half a billion tons of water.

The constant sunlight for solar power and proximity to frozen water makes the Moon’s poles attractive for human bases. The bases will also need water for drinking and washing, and to grow crops to feed hungry astronauts. It is hopelessly expensive to bring long-term water supplies from Earth, so a local watering hole is a big deal.

Telescopes on the Moon

For decades, astronomers had ignored the Moon as a potential site for telescopes because it was simply infeasible to build them there. But human bases open up new opportunities.

The radio-sheltered far side of the Moon, the part we never see from Earth, makes recording very low frequency radio waves accessible. These signals are likely to contain signatures of the universe’s “Dark Ages,” a time before any stars or galaxies formed.

Astronomers could also put gravitational wave detectors at the poles, since these detectors are extraordinarily sensitive, and the Moon’s polar regions don’t have earthquakes to disturb them as they do on Earth.

But activities that will help sustain a human presence on the Moon, such as mining for water, will create vibrations that could ruin a gravitational wave telescope.

A lunar gravitational wave detector could let scientists collect data from pairs of black holes orbiting each other very closely right before they merge. Predicting where and when they will merge tells astronomers where and when to look for a flash of light that they would otherwise miss. With those extra clues, scientists could learn how these black holes are born and how they evolve.

The cold at the lunar poles also makes infrared telescopes vastly more sensitive by shifting the telescopes’ blackbody radiation to longer wavelengths. These telescopes could give astronomers new tools to look for life on Earth-like planets beyond the solar system.

And more ideas keep coming. The first radio antennae are scheduled to land on the far side next year.

Conflicting interests

But the rush to build bases on the Moon could interfere with the very conditions that make the Moon so attractive for research in the first place. Although the Moon’s surface area is greater than Africa’s, human explorers and astronomers want to visit the same few kilometer-sized locations.

But activities that will help sustain a human presence on the Moon, such as mining for water, will create vibrations that could ruin a gravitational wave telescope.

Also, many elements found on the Moon are extremely valuable back on Earth. Liquid hydrogen and oxygen make precious rocket propellant, and helium-3 is a rare substance used to improve quantum computers.

But one of the few places rich in helium-3 on the Moon is found in one of the most likely places to put a far-side, Dark Ages radio telescope.

Finally, there are at least two communications and GPS satellite constellations planned to orbit the Moon a few years from now. Unintentional radio emissions from these satellites could render a Dark Ages telescope useless.

The time is now

But compromise isn’t out of the question. There might be a few alternative spots to place each telescope.

In 2024, the International Astronomical Union put together the working group Astronomy from the Moon to start defining which sites astronomers want to preserve for their work. This entails ranking the sites by their importance for each type of telescope and beginning to talk with a key United Nations committee. These steps may help astronomers, astronauts from multiple countries and private interests share the Moon.

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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Martin Elvis is an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian. He has published nearly 500 papers on supermassive black holes that have been cited over 38,000 times. He publishes widely on asteroid and lunar resources and the space economy.

Review: Space Documentaries Of The Past And Present

Reviews: space documentaries of the past and present

by Jeff Foust
Monday, June 17, 2024

Apollo 13: Survival
directed by Peter Middleton
2024, 96 mins.

Wild Wild Space
directed by Ross Kauffman
2024, 93 mins.

The DC/DOX documentary film festival, held over the weekend in Washington, included two films on space topics. The subjects and filmmaking approaches are very different, but the two perhaps have more similarities than one might think.

The film manages a dramatic pacing of events through the mission, even though the viewer knows the ultimate outcome.

On Saturday afternoon, the National Archives hosted the US premiere of Apollo 13: Survival, a documentary about the Apollo 13 mission. The movie relies on archival footage—from NASA, television networks, and even the family of astronaut Jim Lovell—to retell the story of the one of the most famous missions in the history of spaceflight. Its approach draws parallels to 2019’s Apollo 11, which also relied on archival footage and eschewed the use of narration or interviews (see “Review: Apollo 11”, The Space Review, March 4, 2019).

Both documentaries faced a similar challenge of retelling the story of a mission most people were already familiar with The makers of Apollo 13: Survival faced an additional challenge: many people were familiar with Apollo 13 because they had seen the movie of the same name, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks. Could reality match up to a dramatic retelling of reality?

Fortunately, the answer was yes. The film manages a dramatic pacing of events through the mission, even though the viewer knows the ultimate outcome, from the service module explosion enroute to the Moon to the various efforts to keep the crew alive and bring them back to Earth. The climax of the film is the capsule’s reentry, building up dramatic tension as the seconds tick by waiting for the crew to restore communications after the radio blackout, even as you know that the radio will come to life—eventually.

The film uses footage that, at the very least, has been rarely used, if at all. There is also audio that is similarly obscure or novel: astronaut Tom Stafford calling Vice President Agnew to provide an update on the situation with the spacecraft, or Ken Mattingly calling Marilyn Lovell to tell her what was going on. On the other hand, the film gives less attention to other, better-known aspects of the mission: the effort to develop an adapter for the carbon dioxide scrubber cartridges, highlighted in the Ron Howard movie, is included only briefly in this documentary, as the crew follows instructions radioed from mission control on how to construct the adapter.

Of the three astronauts on Apollo 13, the film focuses more on Lovell, the commander, than Fred Haise or Jack Swigert, following his family closely before and during the mission. That was in part because of the cooperation provided by the Lovell family, which provided family films that were incorporated into the documentary.

“I saw family videos, and the emotion of my mom was very emotional to watch, to be honest with you,” said Susan Lovell, one of Jim Lovell’s daughters, during an on-stage interview after the screening. She said the filmmakers contacted her and her father in early 2021, seeking both permission to create the documentary as well as to access family archives.

That interview ultimately led to a comparison of the documentary with the movie Apollo 13. “I think the movie Apollo 13 personally was extremely well done,” she said. “It followed the true events of what really happened on that flight.”

But, she said, the 1995 movie took some artistic license. “You had to have some of that in there in order to keep the audience’s attention,” she said. One example she gave was a line in the movie attributed to Jim Lovell’s mother: “If they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it.”

The documentary Apollo 13: Survival, though, shows you can keep the audience interested without the dramatic license of invented quips.

A still from Wild Wild Space featuring Astra CEO Chris Kemp (left).

A few hours later, and a few blocks away, the E Street Cinema hosted the world premiere of Wild Wild Space. The documentary is based on Ashlee Vance’s book When the Heavens Went on Sale, which profiled several space startups seeking to find their place in a space economy opened up by the success of SpaceX (see “Review: When the Heavens Went on Sale”, The Space Review, May 15, 2023).

“There’s not many people that in my experience would have the courage to do something like that,” Vance said of the access Astra’s Chris Kemp provided to filmmakers.

Three of the companies profiled in Vance’s book make it to the screen: Astra, Planet, and Rocket Lab. The three are interconnected, with Planet buying launch services from the two rival rocket companies; Chris Kemp worked as a consultant for Planet to study potential launch companies, including Rocket Lab, before going on to start Astra. Both Astra and Planet’s founders worked for Pete Worden when he ran NASA’s Ames Research Center and turned it into a hotbed for innovation. (Worden is among those beyond the company founders interviewed in the documentary.)

The triumphs and tribulations of those companies are probably familiar to most readers, whether or not they have read the book, but the film is compelling nonetheless. Part of it is the footage in the movie, taken behind the scenes at some of the companies as they developed their spacecraft and launch vehicles. We see Peter Beck cheering on his young company’s first suborbital rocket launch, one that, had it failed, may have meant the end of Rocket Lab. There is a lot of footage inside Astra as the company struggled to get its rockets flying, including one launch where the vehicle fell back to earth, exploding next to the pad.

Another part of the film’s success is highlighting the personalities of those involved. Kemp and Beck were interviewed for the movie, as well as Planet co-founders Robbie Schingler and Will Marshall. The contrasts in personalities between, for example, Beck and Kemp, extend to their companies and their approaches to doing business.

Kemp is perhaps the closest to a central character in the documentary, tracing his arc from computer nerd to confident (or overconfident) rocket company CEO. “Chris is a very generous and brave person,” Vance, who was a producer of the movie, said in an on-stage interview after the screening, noting that Kemp gave him and the filmmakers extensive access. “There’s not many people that in my experience would have the courage to do something like that.”

The companies featured in Wild Wild Space have gone in different directions. Planet is now operating a constellation of imaging satellites while working on a new generation, and Rocket Lab is preparing for its 50th Electron launch as soon as this week as it develops the larger Neutron rocket. Astra, though, has not launched since a failure two years ago and had flirted with bankruptcy in recent months as it struggled to stay alive. (Firefly, the fourth company profiled in Vance’s book, isn’t included in the movie; director Ross Kauffman said after the screening that he decided to focus on the other three because of their connections with each other and with Worden.)

The film doesn’t shy away from those problems or other issues facing the industry, like concerns about space debris or a loss of privacy from fleets of commercial imaging satellites. However, the movie is neither a warning of the dangers of commercial space nor an uncritical celebration of space entrepreneurship.

Some of the loudest cheers during the film, for example, came when spaceflight expert Jonathan McDowell, of Jonathan’s Space Report fame, appeared as one of the outside experts interviewed.

Apollo 13: Survival and Wild Wild Space are on different topics, but share some similarities in approach, like the use of news clips to provide background and connective tissue, stitching together scenes and themes. Another similarity is how they will be distributed, via streaming platforms. Apollo 13: Survival is scheduled to be released on Netflix in September, while Wild Wild Space will appear on HBO Max next month. That makes their screenings Saturday in theaters something of an anomaly.

It was for Wild Wild Space in particular a fortunate anomaly. The screening attracted a crowd of space industry insiders and enthusiasts, who laughed and cheered with greater enthusiasm than a typical audience. Some of the loudest cheers during the film, for example, came when spaceflight expert Jonathan McDowell, of Jonathan’s Space Report fame, appeared as one of the outside experts interviewed.

Among those in the audience were Planet’s Marshall and Schingler and even Astra’s Kemp. At the end of the post-screening interview, Kemp sounded as confident as ever about the future of Astra despite its serious struggles, mentioning how he had raised “a ton of money” as part of a deal to take the company private. “The team is super excited to, as a private company, just put our heads down, get focused on putting Rocket 4 back on the pad.” Rocket 4 is the company’s new, larger launch vehicle whose development had stalled during Astra’s financial problems. “Hopefully that will be much more successful.”

It may, at the very least, be fodder for any sequel to Wild Wild Space.

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Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.