New players advance in outer-space game

Alan Boyle Science editor • Profile • E-mail

The year 2005 was supposed to mark NASA's return to reliable spaceflight and the center of the space spotlight.

But when historians look back, decades from now, they just might see it instead as the year the space agency made room for startups in the space race.

It's not clear how many of those startups will survive the next year, let alone the next decade. But NASA's new commercial initiatives — such as the Centennial Challenges and the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Demonstrations — add to other signs that a private-sector spaceship industry is taking root. Such small steps could lead to giant commercial leaps in the years to come.

On the final frontier, 2005 was a year for following through on unfinished business, or laying the groundwork for the future. NASA's ups and downs served to illustrate both trends: The shuttle Discovery's launch in July returned America to the human spaceflight game in a big way, more than two years after the Columbia tragedy. But the continuing problems with flyaway fuel-tank foam immediately led to the suspension of further shuttle flights — a situation that won't be resolved until 2006.

2006 should also reveal whether NASA is truly serious about its initiatives to encourage private-sector space. Rick Tumlinson, one of the founders of the Space Frontier Foundation and a frequent critic of the space agency, worries that the relatively small-scale commercial programs will lose out in a budget battle with the shuttle program as well as the multibillion-dollar effort to develop a shuttle replacement known as the Crew Exploration Vehicle.

"Let's be real," he told MSNBC.com. "There's really only one ball in the air, and then there are some scraps on the floor. The one ball in the air is the Crew Exploration Vehicle, and the scraps are what's left for those of us who are working to open the frontier."

Another skeptic, space consultant Charles Lurio, says space entrepreneurs will have to focus on private investment rather than public programs in the years ahead.

The year after SpaceShipOne won the $10 million X Prize for private spaceflight has been "a period of consolidation and modest expansion upon the base that was created in the previous year," Lurio said. The X Prize Cup got off the ground in New Mexico, showcasing rocket technologies that might bring paying passengers to space in future years. Virgin Galactic also picked New Mexico for a spaceport site that is to be built with $225 million in taxpayer funds.

Several other companies — including Rocketplane, Blue Origin, PlanetSpace, Interorbital Systems, SpaceDev and Aera Space (a.k.a. Sprague Astronautics) — laid plans to capitalize on the space tourism market and perhaps even beat Virgin Galactic to market.  But the savviest business move of the year, at least in Tumlinson's opinion, was XCOR Aerospace's linkup with the Rocket Racing League.

"The ability to capitalize on the opportunity and create a synergy, and the rapid in-the-field maneuvering, was a strategic exercise as brilliant as anything that [X Prize founder] Peter Diamandis has done," Tumlinson said.

For space entrepreneurs and their followers, one of the year's biggest disappointments was SpaceX's double postponement of the Falcon 1 rocket's maiden launch. That low-cost, high-hopes liftoff will have to wait until 2006 — but SpaceX's millionaire backer, Elon Musk, is unfazed. "Third time's the charm," he told his fans.

NASA's return to flight and the commercial space dreams were just two of the highlights in this year's news of the universe. Here are other offerings from the past year's outer-space smorgasbord. Cast your ballot for the top story using our Live Vote — and if you like, send a write-in vote to Cosmic Log.

Titan touchdown and Saturnian sights: After a cruise of more than seven years, the European-built Huygens probe plunged through the obscuring atmosphere of Titan in January and sent back stunning images that didn't quite fit scientists' expectations. Even today, the Cassini orbiter that gave the lander its ride to the Saturnian system is going strong, adding to our store of knowledge about Saturn, its rings and its moons.

Martian marathon: NASA's twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity finished their first Earth year on the job in January, passed their Martian-year milestone a few weeks ago and seem certain to survive past their second Earth-birthday. That's an amazing achievement for robots that came with a warranty of just 90 days. The debate over past and present life on Mars continued, focusing on methane as well as geological evidence.

Close cosmic encounters: In July, NASA's Deep Impact probe made a direct hit on Comet Tempel 1 — which provided fresh data about the composition of comet nuclei and their tails, as well as a heck of a fireworks show. The results from Japan's Hayabusa probe touching down on the asteroid Itokawa in November are less clear, and we may not know until 2010 how successful the mission turned out to be. On other fronts, the discovery of the so-called "10th planet" struck up a debate in July, as did the hand-wringing over the potential for a collision with the asteroid Apophis in a couple of decades.

Other contenders: In April, scientists analyzing a high-energy brew of subatomic particles known as "Big Bang soup" concluded that the primordial stuff of the universe actually had the properties of a liquid. A rare hybrid solar eclipse in April was followed by an annular "ring of fire" eclipse in October. Also in October, China sent up its second human space mission, putting two men into orbit for a five-day trip — and leaving behind an orbital module that is still circling Earth. Meanwhile, the first event in NASA's Centennial Challenges program tested technologies that could be used on a "space elevator," but nobody won the prize ... this time.

MORE FROM SPACE

Space Section Front

Cosmic Log: Asteroid buzzes past Earth 60-year-old solar mystery finally solved Efforts underway to extend satellites' lifespan Project shows kids butterflies growing in space Vatican looks to heavens for signs of alien life Wild solar system spotted around distant star  Cosmic Log: Triple delight in the Milky Way Ex-astronaut pleads guilty in attack Russia sends research module to space station   Month in space: What a blast! Space Section Front   Add Space headlines to your news reader: