Up, Up and Away!

Rather than the doom and gloom of politics and Iraq, I want to write just a bit about the incredible achievement of Burt Rutan's and Paul Allen's team today.

As you have probably heard, SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan, financed by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, and flown by test pilot Mike Melvill rocketed out of Earth's atmosphere today (June 21, 2004), reaching just over 100 kilometers (62 miles) high, before coming down to a successful runway landing. It was the first privately-funded, manned vehicle to reach outer space.

Although I'm sure no one involved will actually read this, I must give my congratulations to everyone that played a part in the financing, planning, design, construction, preparation and piloting of this amazing spacecraft, and its carrier craft, the White Knight. Hoorah!

I am excited about this accomplishment for a couple of reasons.

First of all, I am a space nut. I've loved everything to do with space, rockets, flying and astronomy since I was a little kid. I still love it. Is there a better, more challenging and fulfilling way for humanity to push the boundaries of science and engineering? I don't think so. Yes, some military technology is way cool, but when it's designed to kill and destroy, it kind of dampens my enthusiasm for it. Don't get me wrong: it's necessary, and I want our military to have the best possible equipment, but it's just a little harder for me to get excited about. The space program, on the other hand, is about stretching humanity's boundaries. It's "to boldly go where no one has gone before."

There are lots of people that criticize human space flight, whether publicly or privately funded, for a variety of reasons, most of them some variation on "the money could be better spent on [charity or cause of choice]" or "the science can be done just as well by robots." Well, those are both valid points - ones that can be debated. In that debate, the key point that always swings my opinion in favor of working towards cheap, reliable and safe means for getting people into space is the "human spirit" factor.

I believe that humanity needs goals beyond this world - both spiritual/personal goals and secular/scientific goals. We need to grow, personally and as a species. We need to constantly pursue improving ourselves. Life for us, individually and collectively, is like rowing a boat upstream. If we don't continue to row, expending effort to get better and move ahead, we will be swept inexorably downstream. We can't just stay in one place, satisfied with where we are. I believe this to be true for each of us individually and for all of us together, as the human race.

I see human space flight as one of the most important ways in which we can pursue challenging goals, stretching our knowledge of God's universe, understanding how creation is made, and expanding humanity's place in it. I suppose if I lived in the mid-1800's, I would have been one of the believers in "Manifest Destiny." It's in our nature to think up new ideas, build new things, explore new places, accomplish new feats. If we don't, our imaginations and our human spirit suffer.

Which brings me to my second reason for being excited about this important milestone: almost exactly six months ago, on January 17, 2004, I wrote an article in which I lamented a seeming lack of imagination and supporting policy in the U.S. for taking on big challenges in science and engineering. In the article, I said:

I don't see a lessening in our scientific or engineering capability. I think we've become stunted in our policy and in our imagination. What has happened to our can-do spirit? The spirit of inventiveness and of pushing the envelope has always been one of the hallmarks of the American character, and I see it perhaps slipping away.

I hope I am wrong about that.

Later in my article, I talked about a new type of rocket engine that had been invented called a "hybrid rocket engine." I pointed out that the people experimenting with these new engines seemed to have the can-do attitude lacking these days in NASA and the government "big science" bureaucracy:

...the fact that engineering students and hobbyists are advancing technology in this challenging field, developing and flying new types of rocket engines, points out exactly what I was writing about previously. These people are having fun, and they have the spirit of inventiveness. I lamented its apparent waning above, but these hobbyists, inventors and students prove that it isn't dead yet. Will George W. Bush's re-focus of NASA take hold and re-energize it with that same spirit - the spirit it had in the days of "the right stuff" and the moon landings? I certainly hope so. NASA will need it to succeed, and success on that scale will give me hope for the future of our country.

Well, I generally don't like to pat myself on the back, but it turns out that I was right - more right than I thought possible. Because, as it so happens, SpaceShipOne uses a hybrid rocket engine! Yes, I'd have to say that today, hybrid rocket engines were unequivocally shown to be more than hobby toys. In fact, they may be key to opening space travel to everyday people.

The team at Scaled Composites, with Paul Allen's financing, has shown that it is possible for a talented (and well-funded) group of people to get into space without government oversight or funding. There are many other teams competing for the X Prize. Each of the teams is demonstrating that the can-do spirit I worried about six months ago is still alive and well. It remains to be seen if NASA will fully regain the spirit it had in the days of "the right stuff" and the Apollo moon landings (and there's some evidence that it, indeed will), but today's success gives me hope right now for the future of the United States and of humanity. We can still do great things!

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