In today’s Wall Street Journal (2/13/10) Peter Diamandis says ‘yes’ and Taylor Dinerman says ‘not yet.’ Their views highlight the challenges and potential for both private and public space activities in a multi-polar space world as we approach the anticipated 2015 Maslow Window — a 1960s-style golden age of prosperity, exploration, and technology.

Is this our near-term portal to space colonization? A Dream Chaser approaches the International Space Station. Click .

To understand their differing perspectives on space commercialization, it helps to know something about each. Diamandis is a Harvard-trained physician who founded and runs the X Prize Foundation and other private space-related firms including Singularity University, the brainchild of tech guru Ray Kurzweil, author of the widely challenged notion (the Singularity) that in “a future period when the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed.” Taylor Dinerman is an author and journalist based in New York City who writes a regular column for TheSpaceReview.com and is on the board of advisors of Space Energy, a company working on space-solar-power concepts.

Basically we have a clash of the relatively simple requirements of the personal spaceflight industry with space power satellites that will require more complex operations in space and probably larger, government-built launch vehicles. In a sense it’s entertainment versus utilities.

It’s revealing that Diamandis’ focus is almost entirely on the profit potential of space while Dinerman highlights private sector failures in space access.

For example, Diamandis suggests that “American capitalism and entrepreneurship” will lay the foundation for “the future Google, Cisco and Apple of space to be born, drive job creation, and open the cosmos for the rest of us.” He compares some people’s myopic view of space with “Seward’s Folly” (the widely criticized purchase of Alaska in 1867) in light of the unlimited “metals, minerals, energy, and real estate” in space. And he links Moore’s Law with not only “exponential growth in computing technology” but with future “breakthroughs in rocket propulsion.”

Diamandis is clearly excited about private enterprise in space: “Privately financed research outposts will be a common sight in the night sky. The first one-way missions to Mars will be launched. Mining operations will spring up on the Moon … One thing is certain: The next 50 years will be the period when we stablish ourselves as a space-faring civilization.”

Two things here: 1) The “first one-way missions to Mars” occurred in the 1960s (e.g., Mariner 4 in 1964), so I assume he means the first private one-way Mars mission and NOT the first one-way manned mission!, and 2) the history of the last 200 years shows that major pulses of human exploration and large-scale engineering projects tend to be focused in relatively brief intervals called Maslow Windows; and although Diamandis imagines privately funded space projects, they are still likely to be confined to the rhythmic. twice-per-century, decade-long Maslow Windows because the laws of economics (e.g., the long wave) and public interest (e.g., ebullience) will still drive them.

On the other hand, Dinerman believes that “The public sector simply is not up up for the job.” He cites the need for ‘man-rating’ each private spacecraft by NASA “that will take years,” and the difficulty of getting insurance. Although Dinerman doesn’t mention it, imagine the effects of a Titanic-style failure on the personal spaceflight industry. (The unsinkable Titanic was a secondary MEP of the Peary/Panama Maslow Window of the early 2oth century that has parallels with the space tourism industry (also a secondary MEP) of today.)

According to Dinerman, “Over the past 30 years over a dozen start-ups have tried to break into the launch business.” The only one to survive is Orbital Sciences of Dulles, VA. Aspiring space entrepreneurs seeking government subsidies will remember Lockheed-Martin’s private-public partnership “fiasco” with the X-33 design that was chosen to replace the Shuttle in 1996. Canceled in 2001, it cost NASA nearly $ 1 B and Lockheed Martin $ 357 M.

Dinerman concludes that,

The space entrepreneurs may claim that they can send people into space for a fraction of the previous cost, but they have not yet proved it. NASA’s policy is neither bold nor new; it is yet another exercise in budget-driven program cancellation.

Dinerman’s budgetary point is supported by the NASA administrator’s declarations that NASA “Cannot do big things very much anymore,” (Space News, 1/11/10) especially in a time of trillion-dollar+ stimulus/bailout packages. It is also consistent with the severe economic and geopolitical — and now the political — challenges President Obama now finds himself immersed in; see “State of the Wave — 10 Space Trends for 2010.” Ironically, his lack of focus on space may have led to this golden opportunity for the private space industry.

Neither Diamandis nor Dinerman mention specific grants already made to space companies including $ 20 M to to Sierra Nevada Corp. for development of its Dream Chaser crew module (launched on an Atlas V); See “For 2010 — A Dream Chaser Come True?” And $ 6.7 M to United Launch Alliance for an emergency sensing system for Atlas V and Delta IV rockets. Unlike other start-ups of the last 30 years, these have a reasonable chance of success and may play an important role in the 2015 Maslow Window.

One final question: Are there useful parallels between Lewis and Clark and the ebullient 19th century exploration and development of the United States, and the 1960s Apollo Moon program and exploration and development of space? I think there are. As I pointed out previously in “The Way Space Really Works,” 19th century analogs suggest that market-driven private space activities of today will play a central role in near-term human expansion into the cosmos.

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