Predicting the Rocket Future

Its 6:30 in the morning, when words flow like buttter….sort of.

Its been a busy week for the private space travel movement. Virgin Galactic unveils the White Knight two carrier plane , the first part of two part system for sending tourists into space. Then at the Oshkosh air show, XCOR Aerospace flew the Rocket Racing League’s first rocket powered aircraft. Finally SpaceX launched the Falcon 1 rocket. Unfortunately they had a second stage separation problem.

I am now convinced that the old multi-stage rocket method of getting into space is a royal pain in the ass and should be replaced. We know airplanes. We know how to fly really large and heavy things with them. We know how to drop something out of them. It just works. Even rocket powered airplanes are viable.

I was saddened to witness the anticipation and the failure of the Falcon 1. Friends and family were there at the SpaceX rocket factory, all ready for a good show. But delays kept postponing the launch. THe sadness in their eyes after the rocket’s failure, especially in Elon Musk’s, was heart-wrenching.

So let’s put my futurist hat on. I predict that Scaled Composites/Virgin Galactic will have a near monopoly in human space transportation for a few years. XCOR will be second, as they get more funding to build bigger, more reliable rocket powered aircraft. I would not be surprised that Scaled hired XCOR for a future generation Space Ship X vehicle to fly under a White Knight X. NASA, desperate to keep the space station going after the shuttle retires (they have already destroyed the repair facility in Palmdale, and are breaking down other infrastructure in other places), will at first waste another few billion taxpayer dollars on a human launch system, and fail. They will then consider Scaled/XCOR as a viable Plan B, since outside of the Russians, they are the only American game in town. This happens in less than 15 years.

Virgin Galactic will lease a habitat from Bigelow Aerospace to create the first true space hotel, albeit it will be more of a log cabin or a hostel in its first iteration.

It may take twenty years before a competitor appears to go up against Virgin/Scaled. Burt Rutan has 30 years aircraft experience to support him, and it will be hard to beat that fact.