Space riders

TECHNOBEAT

According to urban legend, there have been a total of two, possibly three, sexual encounters in space in the nearly 50 years humanity has explored off-planet. In both the former USSR and the USA, space programmes have been funded by government bean-counters and executed by overwhelmingly single-sex crews operating under military discipline in spartan environments.

Nevertheless it's absurd that sexual activity has never been part of the scientific agenda in space. As with any other natural function, humanity needs to learn about possible hurdles to reproduction in low or zero gravity environments, no matter how squeamish this makes government auditors.

By 2020, space could be just another exotic locale for honeymooners. By 2010, it's odds-on that the "hundred-mile club" will have quite a few members. The success of the Paul Allen-funded, Burt Rutan-designed SpaceShip One in June 2004 opened the floodgates for commercial exploitation. For example, Oracle is motivating its pool of global developers by offering sub-orbital spaceflights as prizes to the best and brightest.

Circa 2008, Virgin Galactica will launch orbital flights. More than 3,500 tourists are said to have already booked tickets at $200,000 a pop with a $20,000 advance. Each three-hour flight will take passengers 100 kms above the Earth and include five weightless minutes. Passengers will travel on padded couches in pressurised cabins with all mod-cons.

Jeff Bezos of Amazon owns a Seattle-based company, Blue Origin, which is building space stations. Blue Origin's launchpad is being built in Van Horn, Texas. Apart from revenues from contracted experiments, the planned space station will host tourists.

Blue Origin's goal is to "enable an enduring human presence in space" and eventually, colonisation. Bezos believes "the first space mine owner will make Bill Gates look like a pauper".

This sounds like a sound-byte out of a revised edition of Robert Heinlein's 1950s Science Fiction classic "The Man who sold the Moon". Indeed, a lot of the key technology is just about at "proof of concept" stage. But lots of smart money is flowing into space research and some of it will pay off.

In aviation history, private enterprise has always been a major contributor. Entrepreneurs have also been involved in designing habitats for hostile environments. But most current habitats are designed for undersea use, where pressure-gravity gradients and temperature differentials are very different from the hard vacuum which prevails 400 kms above the Earth.

Space stations were first established in the 1970s. The Soviet Union was already crumbling by the time Mir was launched in 1986 but Mir outlasted the USSR, being decommissioned only in 2001. Ironically, NASA paid for the launch and integration of several later Mir modules.

The Soviet SSs were jury-rigged efforts, inhabited only at continuous risk to the people abroad. Everybody was learning on the job and there were collisions, fires onboard, insulation problems, air leaks and so on.

The Soviet space station was replaced circa 1998 by the International Space Station (ISS). That collaborative effort created the most expensive structure ever.

The Russians put the structure in space, the Americans offered logistic support with shuttle flights carrying supplies, the EU nations designed many modules and the Canadians, Brazilians and Japanese contributed to the labs, solar panels and robotic equipment.

The ISS has undoubtedly been a success and life on the ISS has, by and large, proceeded without problems. Logistics hassles were caused by the Columbia tragedy in 2003, which led to a cessation of shuttle flights for over 2 years.

But lives on the ISS have rarely been at risk. Despite Dennis Tito's escapade, it isn't really designed to offer a comfortable vacation environment however. The crew of 7 specialists lives in an area the size of a bus and face strict food and water rationing.

The stuttering space shuttle programme will undergo its biggest test since Columbia late tonight as BS goes to press. Astronaut Stephen Robinson will swing out on the robotic arm of the ISS in order to try and clean up damage to Discovery's belly. In a recurrence of the Columbia accident, tiling fell off during blast-off.

The filler material in-between missing tiles must be removed before re-entry "" or else, it could cause a fire due to friction. The Space Shuttle Programme has now been operating for 30 years with 30-year-old ships, with patched repair jobs. Although it's supposed to be remain in service until 2010, the programme seems long past its sell-by date. Obviously the bugs that caused the Columbia disaster haven't been licked and perhaps, a radical redesign is required.

Assuming the current Discovery mission with its running repairs ends safely, that could be the end. The European Space Agency has announced that it is considering contingency measures for alternative ways of deploying the ? One billion Columbus Lab and an unmanned transfer vehicle for delivering supplies (and removing garbage).

While the space shuttle programme may be on its last legs, private enterprise could soon take over. Each shuttle cost around $2 billion to build, carries a crew of upto 8 and attains escape velocity (approx 28,000 kmph) with a payload of 3 tonnes plus. Rutan's SpaceShip One cost about $20 million, carried a crew of three and a payload of less than a tonne.

The SUV-sized module was launched from a re-usable mothership. The design could be scaled to deliver orbital capability and carry much larger payloads by incorporating all the new technologies developed since the 1970s.

There are other orbital and sub-orbital designs on the drawing board and several of them try radically approaches. One or more will undoubtedly work. It must not be forgotten that NASA tendered and contracted out for every widget and sub-system designed for each of its programmes.

Thus, there is a lot of know-how about building spacecraft and space habitats in the public domain. If alternative funding taps into that knowledge and, it appears private sector funding will, human presence in space will expand regardless of the fate of the shuttle programme.