PC players in hyped race to reach space

AS MEDIA hype builds up for Charles Simonyi's $20 million joyride on a Soyuz to the International Space Station (ISS), it is the right time to review the convergence and progress between dot.com and PC money and private spaceflight efforts. There's a lot of interesting activity going on.

Let's get Simonyi out of the way first. Aside from his self-promotional website, charlesinspace.com, it would appear he's done little for private spaceflight efforts. Looks like much more of his ill-gotten Microsoft money has been spent on endowing general University chairs and promoting the arts and literature in Seattle. His web site says one of his goals is to "involve young people in the science of space travel"; I'm betting he's looking a tax write-off for this being an educational activity for the kids. Let's face facts, by the time he gets up to ISS, he'll be tourist number 5, following in the footsteps of Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Greg Olsen, and Anousheh Ansari.

Interestingly, Shuttleworth founded the digital-certificates and Internet security company Thawte before selling it off to VeriSign, and has also been involved in funding the development of Debian and Ubuntu Linux, carrying the title of "Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life."

If there's a Queen for Private Spaceflight, the title would go to Anousheh Ansari, co-founder of Prodea Systems, a consumer home networking play that rolls everything from home network management to home automation into one solution. Anousheh Ansari reached orbit on September 18 of this year, becoming the first "woman" space tourist and Iranian to circle the earth. The Ansari family made its money from developing a telephony soft switch and then sold out to Sonus Networks for $750 million. It used its cash to underwrite the $10 million sub-orbital X-Prize competition won by SpaceShipOne - and SpaceShipOne was underwritten by Microsoft-alumni Paul Allen).

In contrast, co-founder of id Software John Carmack is bucking for the title of Court Jester. Armadillo Aerospace started out as a low-budget competitor for the sub-orbital X-Prize competition and then went to putter around as the only entry in the Vertical Rocket and Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenges. The "Pixel" demonstrator, underwritten by NVIDIA, was hacked together for around $200,000 in under six months. On its third flight, it tipped over and crashed, the apparent result of an earlier fix when the vehicle broke one of its landing legs in a previous demo flight.

The jury is still out on Paypal founder Elon Musk, but the U.S. government seems to like what he's selling. His SpaceX venture failed in its attempt to get its first Falcon 1 launch into orbit. A fuel leak ended up with the loss of the vehicle and its microsat payload. The failure hasn't scared off U.S. government customers, who have signed up for two more Falcon 1 flights scheduled to go up sometime in 2007. Musk has indicated the company has 11 contracts for flights on various Falcon vehicles, including a couple of the larger Falcon 9 vehicles. The Falcon 1 can put up to 570 kilos into low earth orbit while Falcon 9 family starts at putting 8700 kg into LEO. SpaceX has also done heavy flirting with NASA for commercial off the shelf re-supply flights to the ISS.

Rounding out our Rogue's Gallery of Tech-Spacers is Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin sub-orbital spaceflight program. Bezos has kept a tight lid on Blue Origin, but the company recently has conducted a test flight in Texas in mid-November. No explosions or fireballs were seen, so the test may have gone off as planned. The "New Shepard" sub-orbital vehicle is supposed carry three or more passengers and take off and land vertically, using hydrogen peroxide and kerosene as fuel.

Bottom line? Microsoft money keeps on showing up in space projects (Allen, Simonyi). If SpaceX can get a couple of launches successfully off the pad, Elon Musk will be on his way to making his first billion or two. And Blue Origin is worth keeping an eye on. µ