The Growing Space Tourism Industry

Three recent announcements highlight the growing capabilities of the still young, but increasingly vibrant, and fast growing space tourism industry.

Space Adventures modified Soyuz TMA capsule.

They also serve as an introduction to the next Canadian Space Commerce Association (CSCA) meeting on Thursday, May 12th, when Stephanie Anevich, the executive vice-president of Vision 2000 Travel and part of the accredited sales associate (ASA) team for the Virgin Galactic (VG) Space Ship Two suborbital space plane, will talk about some of the more "out of this world" services her firm provides. For more information or to attend the presentation, I'd encourage people to check out the CSCA website.

As for those other three recent announcements, the first was last week, when Virginia based Space Adventures Ltd. issued a statement that it intends to offer trips around the Moon using "modified Russian Soyuz capsules" beginning as early as 2015, at least according to the May 8th, 2011 eWeek.com article "Space Adventures Plans Modified Soyuz Spacecraft for Commercial Flights."

A May 7th, 2011 follow-on story posted on the PC World Geektech blog titled "Take a Trip Around the Moon for Only 150 Million Dollars" stated that the first ticket for the trip had already been sold and more were available.

The Almaz capsule, based on a Russian TKS.

Space Adventures has already launched seven astronaut/ space tourists (including Canadian Guy Laliberté) into orbit for periods of between nine and fifteen days.

That's only two less astronauts than the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) although some of the official Canadian astronauts have gone up more than once and for longer periods.

Of the space tourists, only Charles Simonyi has gone into orbit twice, at least so far. 

The second announcement was of the recent acquisition of four Russian TKS space capsules (intended to be reusable) and two complete, surplus Russian Almaz space stations by Isle of Man based company Excalibur Almaz. According to the May 4th, 2011 article "A look at the Isle of Man's space stations" on the Isle of Man.com website, the equipment will be refurbished and eventually launched into orbit as part of the company's long-term business plan to "become the world leader in providing reliable, affordable and routine access to space for exploration and tourism."

The third announcement is of the latest flight test of the New Mexico based Virgin Galactic Space Ship Two suborbital space plane. As posted on the Wired website on May 4th, 2011 under the title "SpaceShipTwo Completes First Feathered Flight" the article stated that:

The team at Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic passed a milestone today with the first feathered flight of Space Ship Two. The flight is the first test of the re-entry configuration for the spaceship and comes as Scaled is in the middle of a busy month of flight testing for the spacecraft.

The re-entry test, undertaken with the wings tilted at a 65% angle upwards towards the fuselage (a configuration called "feathered") is designed to be simpler and less difficult than flying the spaceship straight back into the atmosphere as was done by the X-15 back in the 1960s. This latest test indicates that the craft is nearing the end of testing and will soon be ready to perform suborbital commercial flights.

Virgin Galactic Space Ship Two mission profile including "feathered" flight.

Taken together, these three announcements cannot be easily dismissed or ignored by national space agencies like the CSA who have, until recently, possessed an exclusive monopoly on manned space travel. Unfortunately for them, each of these announcements originate from strong, well funded companies with multi-million dollar war chests, existing hardware and exceptional business track records.

According to Stephanie Anevich, thirteen Canadians have already paid deposits on trips into space through Vision 2000 aboard Space Ship Two and there are also inquiries from scientists looking for appropriate platforms for suborbital microgravity research.

Sounding rocket launch in 2005. Obsolete?

That's quite a bit more upcoming flights than the CSA can boast about and the inquiries relating to microgravity research also provides strong evidence that Space Ship Two will likely soon dominate the market presently controlled by suborbital sounding rockets.

This is something I first suggested in my January 11th, 2011 post "The Shrinking Market for Sounding Rockets."

But of course, the official Canadian astronauts are still going into orbit, spending time on the International Space Station (ISS), performing experiments and expected to undergo serious training as a preliminary to each flight so they can't really be compared to simple, paying "passengers" expected to endure only a few minutes of weightlessness before safely returning to Earth.

However, there is only one CSA astronaut presently scheduled for an orbital mission over the next few years and Space Adventures plans to send more than one person just to the Moon in the same period and far more to the ISS.

So while the professional astronaut corps is dwindling, the number of astronaut "tourists" is set to explode over the next few years.

We live in interesting times and anyone who'd like to learn a little more about those times should come to the CSCA meeting on May 12th. 

Posters for Hadfield, NASA for Rent, Academia Launches Rockets and Other Space News

Guy Laliberté at work

Here's a quick summary of recent Canadian and commercial space focused activities, stories, gossip, rumour and innuendo:

• Unlike most of the rest of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), astronaut Chris Hadfield is at least on twitter (under the name Cmdr_Hadfield) and now he's also using social media tools to find a Canadian artist to design the poster for his upcoming mission to the International Space Station (ISS), according to the January 23rd, 2011 CTV Toronto article "Astronaut wants Canadians to help design NASA poster." The article cites the poster for Expedition 21 (showing the crew in Star Trek uniforms) and the poster for Expedition 26 (a re-creation of the Beatles' famous "Abbey Road" album cover) as potential inspirations for the newest poster. My personal favorite astronaut images are the original and effortless juxtapositions of personality, space mission and day job that Cirque du Soleil owner Guy Laliberté created simply by wearing a red clown nose during his ISS trip in 2009.

For rent. The Kennedy Space Center.

• Meanwhile, back in the bankrupt American space bureaucracy, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) could soon be hanging "for rent" signs on Kennedy Space Center launch pads, firing rooms, the Vehicle Assembly Building and other facilities now supporting shuttle missions, according to the January 25th, 2011 article "For rent: Kennedy Space Center facilities, launch pads." However, nothing is set in stone yet since the "center has (only) requested space industry input on how those facilities could best be used to support government and commercial launches after the shuttle program's final flight." Thank goodness for the new commercial space providers and their expertise at telling the government what to do which is undoubtedly based on hard won expertise developed by actually doing stuff.

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CaNoRock III launches from Andoya.

• But academia, at least Canadian academia, does seem to also have a sense of what needs to be done. For example, the University of Alberta has just signed a 10-year program with the University of Oslo to send forty students yearly for training at the Andoya Rock Range in Norway under the Canadian Norwegian Student Exchange and Sounding Rocket (CaNoRock) program, according to the January 31st, 2011 Edmonton Journal article "Uof A, Norway partner in outer space project." The article quotes Professor Ian Mann, research chair in space physics at the University of Alberta as stating that the exchange students will be launching rockets to an altitude of 10 kilometres, measuring the earth’s gravitational pull and performing other tasks similar to those done when launching a commercial satellite. Mann claims the program will prepare students for lucrative careers in space technology.

ESA ATV cutaway.

• Meanwhile, back in that lucrative commercial world, "Singapore could become launch pad to space" according to the January 31st, 2011 article in the Singapore Straits Times. The article quotes sources in the aerospace firm European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS), as stating that the firm is preparing "to launch the world's first commercial space flight this year." Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until Monday, February 7th for the full story from the Strait Times (which printed only a teaser) although it is expected to be related to the planned launch of the latest European Space Agency (ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) to resupply the ISS on February 15th. EADS, which acts as prime contractor for the ATV, has made no secret of its plans for further development of the ATV into both a cargo return and human launch versions. It is also likely that the article will focus on the further development of an EADS suborbital space plane using Singapore subcontractors as described in the January 27th, 2011 Aviation Week article titled "EADS Astrium to Develop Spaceplane."

Artists impression of the Clyde Space 3U cubesat.

• Glasgow based Clyde Space, a leading provider of miniature spacecraft (and the direct competitor of Canadian based companies such as Com Dev International and Microsat Systems Canada Inc.), has just secured a funding package worth £1m, according to the January 31st, 2011 Rocketeers UK article "Clyde Space secures £1M funding." According to the article, the investment package was led by private equity firm Nevis Capital and includes funding from Coralinn LLP, Scottish Enterprise, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the Technology Strategy Board and the Regional Selective Assistance program. 

• And finally, the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) and Bigelow Aerospace have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) according to the January 31st, 2011 press release "EIAST and Bigelow Aerospace sign agreement to create next-generation commercial human spaceflight programme." The agreement will focus on joint efforts "to establish a next-generation commercial human spaceflight programme" for Dubai and the UAE, plus work to create a world-class microgravity research capability. 

Talulah Riley in Esquire

Mars Needs Women!!!

Talulah Riley, the new bride of billionaire Space-X owner Elon Musk has gone out of her way to remind us that our next great space race will likely have more than its fair share of sex.

According to the November 26th, 2010 London Evening Standard article "Talulah Riley: how to marry a billionaire" she's even made him a promise:

"I've told him I'll retire with him to Mars, if he has colonized it by then."

Musk (who's mother is Canadian) and his new wife are representative of the current generation of rich, ruthless and ever so slightly crazy space entrepreneurs who are building the next generation of space access using personal fortunes, technical expertise, grit, guts and a great deal of marketing savvy.

The Space-X Dragon capsule has just recently been cleared for commercial re-entry from Earth orbit by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) according to the November 23, 2010 MSNBC article "Space-X's spaceship cleared for commercial re-entry."

Guy Laliberte and Claudia Barilla

Another recent Canadian example of a true space entrepreneur is Quebec philanthropist, poker player and corporate CEO Guy Laliberté who used his 2009 trip to the International Space Station (ISS) not just to drum up interest in his One Drop Foundation (which fights poverty worldwide by ensuring access to water) but also used the resultant publicity to promote Eastern European events for his traveling Cirque du Soleil.

Laliberté also has two children with Montreal fashion model Claudia Barilla.

Other crazy space investors include Paul Allen (the billionaire Microsoft co-founder who funded Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne project), Robert Bigelow (who owns Budget Suites of America and has promised to spend up to $500 million over the next decade to develop a space based hotel/tourist business), Jeff Bezos (who founded Amazon.com and is said to be developing suborbital rockets), Joe Firmage (the founder of USWeb who has given funds to the Planetary Society, Carl Sagan Productions, and the Cosmos 1 solar sail project), Richard Garriott (vice-chariman of Space Adventures and an early investor and trustee of the X-Prize Foundation), Chirinjeev Kathuria (a telecom entrepreneur and MirCorp investor who joined with the Canadian Arrow X-Prize team to form PlanetSpace, a suborbital space tourism company, in 2005) and quite a few others.



According to the Wikipedia list of Canadian's by Net Worth, there are fifty five Canadian billionaires and many of them (including Frank Stronach, Seymour Schulich and Jim Balsillie) are already well known for philanthropy, funding science, supporting education and contributing research money for alternative "breakthrough" or "green" technologies.

It's also useful to note that, while Musk (who lived in Saskatchewan from 1989 to 1992) now lives in California,  Laliberté still lives in Canada and is only 35th on the list of billionaires so there are plenty more rich Canadian still available to run ideas past.

Someone should. There is plenty of Canadians with serious space expertise just waiting for the proper funding and opportunities for commercialization.

Of course, we wouldn't want to scare off any of the cautious billionaires so we shouldn't encourage anything too bizarre, strange, sleazy or just obviously too sexy in the marketing or the R&D mix.

After all, Mars doesn't really need women... Probably...

Cosmonauts, Street Performers and the Kwartzlab Society

As shown in the video below, Canadian billionaire and Cirque du Soleil entrepreneur Guy Laliberté, retired US Army Colonel Jeffrey Williams and Russian Army Colonel Maxim Surayev blasted off today from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Russia Today's Gayane Chichakyan was right there, perhaps even a little too close to the action that looks to be only a few dozen meters behind as she provides launch coverage and background material while being blown about by the blast of the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft's engines.

Back in the early 1980's, Laliberté was just an enterprising street performer in Quebec, hanging with other street performers in much the same way as he is now hanging with cosmonauts and astronauts.

But how does any of the above relate to the Kwartzlab Society you may ask? In fact, does anyone even know what the Kwartzlab Society is?

For those who don't, this Kitchener, Ontario based organization is defined on the about page of their website as focused around something called a "hackerspace," which is a:

physical location where like-minded people get together in a cooperative environment to pool their knowledge, experience, and physical resources with a goal to bringing into reality the projects about which they’ve been dreaming.

The sky is the limit, almost literally: projects range from building hardware to building art, from restoring antique equipment to putting electronic blinking eyes in a crocheted doll.

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the Cirque du Soleil was formed in Quebec in the early 1980's by a group of enterprising street performers:

At that time, the province of Québec did not have a circus tradition, so this group of stilt-walkers, jugglers, fire-eaters and buskers banded together to create a performance platform for themselves. They called themselves "Club des Talons Hauts" or "High-Heels Club," since most of them were stilt-walkers.

The group organized a festival "Fête Foraine de Baie St-Paul" (The Baie Saint-Paul Fair), in which the street performers could exchange ideas and techniques and this led to the birth of Cirque du Soleil.

So in the 1980's a group of performers banded together to exchange ideas and techniques and this led to the creation of the Cirque du Soleil and in 2009, another group banded together to pool their knowledge and expertise in much the same way.

I'm not sure yet what the Kwartzlab Society wants to create or build or accomplish over the next few years but at least one of their members has been active in the Canadian Space Commerce Association (CSCA) and worked with the DaVinci Project when it competed for the Ansari X-Prize several years back.

Perhaps in twenty or so years, members of the Kwartzlab Society, using the same techniques as led to the Cirque du Soleil and Guy Laliberté's current adventure will themselves get to hobnob with astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (or whatever ends up replacing it).

As for Laliberté, the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft is scheduled to dock at the International Space Station on Oct. 2, where Laliberté, Surayev and Williams will join Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk and five others.

The Montreal Gazette has indicated that the "CBC Might Air Show From Space" when Laliberté hosts his unprecedented program from the International Space Station, titled "Moving Stars and Earth for Water" on October 9th. The production is part of his plan to raise awareness of water-related issues and is organized through the ONE DROP Foundation.

Let's hope CBC ends up running the program. 

Canadian billionaire and circus entrepreneur Guy Laliberte has blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome with the 21st mission to the International Space Station.
RT's Gayane Chichakyan was there for the lift-off.

Category:  News & Politics

Tags: 

Space  Baikonur  blast off  cosmodrome  Kazakhstan  stars  ISS  launch  Soyuz  rocket  Cirque du Soleil  Guy Laliberte  Canada  Russia  US  United States  countdown  mission  atronaut  cosmonaut  space tourist  TMA-16  Космос  Союз  МКС  миссия  запуск  Ги Лалиберте  Максим Сураев 

Focused Today on the Boring Business of Making a Living

With all the interesting space focused stories coming out of NASA, the CSA and the private sector over the last little while (including the recent release of the Augustine Committee Summary Report with it's description of the US human spaceflight program as being on "an unsustainable trajectory," the Wednesday announcement of a signed agreement between NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and CSA President Steve Maclean providing for a framework for cooperative civil space activities which formalizes the exiting "ad-hoc" mechanisms between the organizations and Guy Laliberte's upcoming trip to the International Space Station) its useful to sit back and note that most of the people who are engaged in space focused activities are doing it, at least in part, to make a living.



This includes the Augustine Committee, the NASA administrator, the CSA president and most of the other people commented upon or noted in this blog. Of course these people probably like their jobs and perhaps perceive of their positions as being somewhat of a higher calling than most of the rest of the potential jobs available but they certainly still need to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head.

With that in mind, here are a couple of recent reports illustrating the success that Canadian space focused firms have been having lately as they struggle to be fiscally responsible and provide a sustainable return on investment for their stakeholders:

• Canadian space subsystem manufacturer COM DEV just announced "Q3 Revenue Soars 19% to 61.5M. Profits up almost 1M" according to this Canadian Press article dated September 3rd.
• The space systems subsidiary of McDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) has had a run of good luck over the last 18 months since the Canadian government torpedoed a planned sale to Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK). Successes include recently announced contracts with Boeing to refurbish communications systems on the ISS, the Canadian government to design the successors to the Radarsat-2, and with  EADS Astrium for the Alphasat I-XL mission. According to this article in Satellite PR News, MDA has nearly doubled it's earnings over last years figures.
  
• Canadian satellite provider Telesat "reports $187 million profit in second quarter" according to an article published in Network World Industry Watch. This contrasts well when compared with last years $822 million loss during the same period.
  

These revenue increases seem to be a general trend across the industry and perhaps bode well for those of us who are merely looking to make a decent living, much like most of the people profiled in this blog.

Guy Laliberté, New Media and the 119th Carnival of Space 

The 119th Carnival of Space has just been posted on the Planetary Society website and it's interesting to note that their choice for the top space focused story this week is an article from the MS-NBC Cosmic Log on Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté and his plans to host a global extravaganza starring Al Gore, U2, Dr. David Suzuki, Peter Gabriel, space station astronauts Frank De Winne and Julie Payette plus Laliberte's own Cirque du Soleil performers along with quite a few others from the International Space Station on October 9th. 



The article has even been picked up by the regular media including this article in the Montreal Gazette which states:

Adding a wondrous twist to the halting issues of climate change and water conservation, Guy Laliberté will host an unprecedented live show from Earth’s orbit on Oct. 9.

The Cirque du Soleil founder and former fire breather announced yesterday the 120-minute live show will involve shows broadcast from 14 cities, starting in Montreal, and he’ll conduct it all from the International Space Station.

The show will promote the ONEDROP Foundation,  which is using this "poetic social mission in space" as described on their website, to raise awareness of the need for accessible water supplies to fight poverty and disease. It will reportedly be carried live on the Internet through the onedrop.org website and in partnership with AOL.com.

It's interesting to note that most of  the links provided to reference this story (with the exception of the links to the Montreal Gazette and perhaps the MS-NBC Log sites) come from internet based new media sites. It's essentially a platitude to even mention this but these new media sites are the future of news no matter what large media owners such as Rupert Murdoch might think.

It's also interesting to note that Mr. Laliberté (no matter what else he may be) is turning into a newspace entrepreneur without peer as he builds profitable, far reaching and useful connections between his day job at the Cirque du Soleil and the various businesses and national organizations involved in government and civilian space access, the political and social activists concerned over climate change, access to fresh water, the commercialization of the worlds water supplies and even simple recording artists looking to sell a few extra records.

It's a far better performance than expected in June when his trip was first announced and I suggested "Let's Not Embrace our First Canadian Fire Breathing Space Tourist Too Tightly." 

At this point, it's a performance worthy of Delos D. Harriman, the Robert Heinlein character in the novel "The Man Who Sold the Moon" and I look forward to seeing the big show on October 9th and learning more about future business opportunities that may follow from this adventure.

Let's Not Embrace our First Canadian Fire Breathing Space Tourist Too Tightly

I just finished reading an article on Canada’s first space tourist at http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/06/canada-embraces-its-fire-breat.html and really, really need to ask the obvious question.

Why didn’t Guy Laliberté contribute some of that estimated 20 million USD’s spent to get his slot aboard the Soyuz capsule on some of the other potential competitors to the Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA)? The Russian agency is the only group selling this service at present, but that isn’t to say that the space tourism market will always remain a monopoly.

Our Canadian equivalents to Bob Bigelow, Elon Musk and all those other American newspace people should be lining up outside the doors of the Cirque du Soleil offices to offer Mr. Laliberté a lower cost alternative for the next time he wants to go into space.

Space tourism is a serious moneymaker for the RKA (which seems sort of ironic, now that I think about it). There should be more than one supplier for this service, especially given that the existing supplier is using 50 year old technology and infrastructure.