Rocketeers
How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers and Pilots is Boldly Privatizing Space
by Michael Belfiore
The foundations of what is today the multi-billion-dollar commercial aviation industry were never laid by government funding or by a tightly coordinated research and development program. Instead, a group of tinkerers, garage inventors and part-timers responded to a series of cash prizes which were offered by some of the premier insitutions and individuals of that era. Some of these prizes were:
When entrepreneur Peter Diamandis read Charles Lindbergh’s biography, he realized that Lindbergh’s main motivation in making the non-stop flight between New York and Paris had simply been to win the prize on offer rather than to be a heroic trailblazer. As Diamandis read that, he thought that since offering prizes had stimulated the establishment of the commercial aviation industry, perhaps the same thing could happen to bring affordable space travel to the masses. Diamandis reasoned this would be the ideal way to challenge the perception space exploration was so expensive it required the resources of government funding to be achieved.
Diamandis therefore got the ball rolling on what would later become known as “The X-Prize.” He decided the rpize on offer for the first commercial space flight had to be large enough to attract attention but at the same time it had to be for something which was within reach technically. After discussing this for a while with all kinds of different people, Diamandis decided the first X-Prize should be $10 million offered to whoever could achieve a suborbital flight — putting a space capsule into space and bringing it back again safely without actually completing an orbit of the earth. This had been the goal of NASA’s early Mercury program and Diamandis thought it would be an ideal first step for a private space industry.
With this in mind, the rules for the $10 million X-Prize were drafted. To win the X-Prize, you had to:
To reach 100 kilometers, the winning ship would have to travel Mach 3 — three times the speed of sound. Even though that required only 1/25 the amount of energy needed to reach orbit, it was still faster than any private aircraft ever built. Although the craft could climb through lower altitudes by conventional means — jet engines or a balloon — it would need a rocket engine to make the final run to space. It would need a life support system to keep the pilot and passengers alive long enough to reenter the atmosphere, and some kind of maneuvering thrusters to orient it correctly for reentry. It would have to be sturdy enough to survive the heat and buffeting created by Mach 3, and it had to land in good enough shape to make the trip again within two weeks. The entire spacecraft and all of its engines and tanks had to be reusable.
–Michael Belfiore
There were a few minor details still to be worked out — such as where the $10 million required for the prize was going to come from — but Diamandis got to work. He enlisted the help of a partner Byron Lichtenberg and established the X-Prize Foundation. Diamandis also approached Erik Lindbergh, the grandson of Charles Lindbergh, and invited him to sign on as an X-Prize spokesman and trustee. The X-Prize Foundation established offices in the St. Louis Science Center and on May 18, 1996 held a formal launch event. Diamandis was joined on stage for the launch not only by Eric Lindbergh but also by Apollo 11 moon walker Buzz Aldrin and by NASA chief Dan Goldin who described the X-Prize as a “noble venture”.