Spaceship 2 And the Push

Spaceship 2 and the Push for Low Earth Orbit Vehicle Development

The Spaceship 2 project is the first privately funded space exploration project to achieve the goal of entering sub-orbital space. From a development perspective, this project was designed to encourage private interests to become involved in space exploration. More specifically, the project represents an attempt to explore all possible options relative to the future of space flight, both privately and publicly funded. Aiming to make spaceflight more accessible, Spaceship 2 carries a crew of two and up to six passengers. The spacecraft will be carried into space by a separate vehicle, dubbed "White Knight," which is in development stages currently (Virgin Galactic, 2011).

The Spaceship 2 project also represents a privately funded foray into the development of commercialized space flight, which is something that is just now on the horizon as a viable option. The project is a collaboration between many different people and funding sources, including Virgin's Richard Branson and Microsoft's Paul Allen (Virgin Galactic, 2011). Eventually an entire fleet of spaceships will be created that are centered on these original ideas and innovations. The project is a dry run so to speak of the future spaceflight programs in which certain design and implementation flaws are worked out and the project can be streamlined into a future commercial venture. As far as a timeline, the project was projected to produce results in 2008, when the aircraft was slated for rollout. However, the project was delayed and the first flight of Spaceship 2 did not occur until 2010. In early 2011, the program moved forward wit its initial flight of the spaceship in a specific configuration.

Looking at the program itself, from a critical perspective, it has followed many of the same lines as the X Prize creators have drawn out relative to commercial spaceflight vehicles (Virgin Galactic, 2011). This is to say that the X Prize has been much of the central motivation for the initial project, which includes the ship's predecessor, Spaceship 1. Since the Space Shuttle Program is no longer and now that NASA has really no other short or medium term direction relative to space flight, travel, and exploration by humans, the Spaceship 2 project is alone in scope and scale, and offers humans the ability to fly into space in the near future. Therefore, looking at the investors and the market involved with this project, there can really be no specific timeline for development, since there is no competition to the project.

However, as people begin to expect that spaceflight will be within reach for the general public over the next generation, the development of the Spaceship 1 program will be an important step toward the commercialization of space flight and sub-orbital experiences. Looking at the way NASA developed its spaceflight program, the Spaceship 2 project is leaps and bounds ahead. This is to say that design, implementation, and testing is far quicker within the private sector for this industry than it has historically been in the public sector with NASA and other government funded programs and organizations.

NASA's Puffin Program

This program is based on a similar idea of personalized flight experience, on the individual scale. The craft that NASA has designed would carry one person through the air at around 140 mph and be available for individual use (NASA, 2011). This would help to open up the possibilities of flight for everyone on a daily basis. The potential of incorporating Puffin in the Spaceship 2 project is rather slim, given that Puffin is electrically powered and uses propulsion systems that are only currently viable within the Earth's atmosphere (NASA, 2011). However, the concept, irrespective of the specific systems that would be used within it, is an interesting one, and one that is not far from the idea that Spaceship 2 is central to.

Individual flight, whether through space or the air on Earth has been a dream for NASA as well as privately funded engineers and scientists for decades. If both concepts were married into one, it could represent a departure from the passenger craft that Spaceship 2 embodies and would more closely represent a jetpack of sort which h could allow for individual space exploration. Perhaps the Puffin project could be incorporated into the Spaceship 2 project in the future by allowing the six passenger Spaceship 2 craft the unique ability to give individual passengers the option of individual exploration of space or the air.

Technology

Technologically speaking, the Spaceship 2 project represents a hybrid of humans' best technologies. Since the ship itself would be carried to high altitudes by the White Knight, it does not have to incorporate any fuel weight into the flight vehicle itself. Considerations like these allow for greater scope of development of the passenger vehicle itself, as well as a roomier, more comfortable experience. The Puffin vehicle, while environmentally friendly, would be difficult to use in space without large fuel sources or solar panels. The technologies that are being developed and tested by NASA and the Ames Research Center are more forward-looking.

These future technologies include ion engines, which would run much more efficiently in space than any other previously developed engine (Ames, 2011). These types of engines have been in development for quite some time, however the efficiencies and effectiveness's that re now being achieved are second to none. Perhaps in the future, the Spaceship 2 project will be able to yield results that will help future scientists and designers to implement the technologies that are just being discovered today, but which have not yet been implemented. The Low Earth Orbit technology that is currently on the table is the most efficient, sustainable possibility currently available to carry paying passengers into space for a short period of time (Commercial Spaceflight Federation, 2009).

Another interesting new technology that could likely be coupled with the Puffin Project as well as with Spaceship 2 is NASA's Solar Electric Propulsion System. This system is currently being developed to power vehicles and satellites as they move from orbit to outer space and requires only solar energy instead of large amounts of rocket or other fuels (NASA, 2011). However, there are also opportunities for vehicles like the Puffin and Spaceship 2 to use such technologies as they develop and grow beyond the exclusively LEO environment.