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Internet Entrepreneur Sets His Sights on the
Satellite Launch Market COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Ask anybody. The rocket-for-hire business has bottomed out. But in the eyes of Internet entrepreneur, Elon Musk, there's money to be made in cheaply hurling microsatellites into low Earth orbit. Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is a new entry in the cash-and-carry booster business. Formed in June 2002, the firm is on a fast track to build their first launch vehicle, eyeing a possible liftoff later this year. The 31-year-old Musk admits that the highway to space is already littered
with road kill -- well-meaning rocketeers that flamed out before flames
hit their launch pad.
Still, Musk as SpaceX Chairman and Chief Executive Officer wants to reach an escape velocity where no other entrepreneur has gone before. Booming business? The opening shot for SpaceX is Falcon -- financed solely through private investment. This two-stage, liquid oxygen and kerosene powered rocket would be able to hurl half-a-ton into low Earth orbit, and at a bargain-basement price of $6 million per flight. That's less than one-third the cost of currently available options, Musk points out. SpaceX's core goal is reliable, low-cost access to space, Musk said. Once up and running, three to four Falcon flights a year "is not an unreasonable assumption," he said. But is there a booming business in blasting a thousand-pound (455-kilogram) microsatellite into low Earth orbit? "I do think that there's a clear market," Musk told SPACE.com during the Space Foundation's symposium held here. "You can do a lot with that size satellite, be it science experiments, space observation, or communications. In fact, I don't know what you couldn't do with a 1,000-pound satellite," he said. Right now microsatellites are getting second-class seating on boosters. Those piggyback payloads of today can move to the front of the bus courtesy of Falcon, Musk said. "We'll put a customer in the driver's seat. That is a far superior situation." Run-amuck rockets There is already a long list of casualties in the privately financed launcher world. NASA too has chalked up a string of run-amuck rockets and space planes, spending huge gobs of taxpayer dollars in the process. "There's a graveyard of prior attempts…a big graveyard. There's probably some freshly dug graves just waiting to be filled. Our aspiration is to avoid that destination," Musk said. Prior launch vehicle attempts, Musk added, have suffered from at least one of three issues. First is not having a critical mass of technical talent. Secondly, there was insufficient funding to ensure getting to the finishing line, even if that finishing line recedes. Lastly, past attempts failed because there was a technical strategy where success was not one of the possible outcomes…or the effort was reliant upon a series of miracles, and if one of those miracles didn't come true - game over, Musk suggested. "I think we are at least avoiding the mistakes that have been made in the past." Sage advice Based in El Segundo, California, SpaceX is the third company founded by Musk. Earlier he co-founded PayPal, a leading electronic payment system, serving as the company's chairman and CEO, in which he was the largest shareholder until the company was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in October 2002. Before PayPal, Musk co-founded Zip2 Corporation in 1995 - a leading provider of enterprise software and services to the media industry. It was sold to Compaq for $307 million in an all cash transaction. However, in taking his business savvy and applying it to making rockets, Musk was repeatedly offered sage advice by those already well-scarred: "If you want to make a small fortune in the launch vehicle business, start with a large one." Trough aloft There's a certain amount of risk associated with any business. No business is easy, Musk responded. "I think the rocket business is quite cyclic. There are a great many peaks and troughs. We're obviously in a nasty trough right now. When thinking about starting a business, I think it's actually better to start in a trough and come to market in a peak, than the other way around," Musk said. "Frankly, if anything does, and it's almost cliché, space has a long-term future." Already, SpaceX has received verbal commitment to buy a ride on the Falcon rocket from a U.S. Department of Defense customer. Also, the firm has a written commitment from a foreign government wanting to plop a payload atop the company's booster. "And this is before we have built the vehicle," Musk said. Numbers of other prospective customers have voiced interest in Falcon too, he said. High-powered group Musk's great space adventure began with a passion to bankroll sending a low-cost payload to Mars. "We could figure out ways with small aerospace companies to do a low-cost spacecraft and lander. But we could not find a way to do a low-cost launcher, unless we went to the Russians," he said. Working with Russia is fraught with complications, Musk recounted, and at the end of the day, the risks of dealing with them were too high. That realization spurred Musk to create a feasibility study group. Involving a high-powered group of rocket experts, the key question wrestled to the ground last year was whether or not a low-cost American launch vehicle can be built without sacrificing reliability. "The answer was we thought it could be done," Musk explained. Smooth sailing Among the 20-person SpaceX team, company engineers have rapidly moved forward over the months, including the first test firing of Falcon's main engine, the Merlin, in mid-March. "So far it has gone quite smoothly…much better than I thought," Musk reported. "So far I can't really complain. It has been smooth sailing." Falcon's reusable first stage is nearly built. The rocket's second stage is in fabrication. The nose fairing is nearly complete. Propulsion system goals are being met. "I think we've got the risks pretty well characterized," Musk said, although the rocketeer admitted he might feel differently three months from now. If all goes as planned, Falcon is to fly in the fourth quarter of this year, subject to Air Force, NASA, and Federal Aviation Administration approvals. The rocket can be launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, according to company fact sheets. Big picture agenda SpaceX plans to develop a large three-stage rocket using the first and second stages of the Falcon vehicle as its second and third stages. That vehicle would compete in the heavy lift payload class occupied by Europe's Arianespace, Boeing, Lockheed, China Aerospace and Russia’s Krunichev. For Musk, there's a big picture space agenda on his plate. That is, lofting payloads to the Moon, Mars, and other destinations. "I'm disappointed that we have not made more progress since Apollo. I don't even see a plan that says we're going to do better than Apollo…to exceed that goal," he said. "It has been freak'n decades ago that we got to the Moon. That is very disappointing. And the number one issue is the cost of access to space. If you can nail that one, then I think that's the key to the log jam," Musk suggests. "Falcon is not the end game. It is the opening move," Musk
concluded. |
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