Welcome to amateur2space, the home of a serious private attempt to build and fly a manned amateur homebuilt rocket ship into suborbital space.
For much of the last forty years spending associated with developing space travel has come almost exclusively from government sources. Huge sums have been spent overcoming the challenges of achieving orbital flight creating the perception that space travel is a difficult, dangerous and enormously costly endeavour. Strangely, suborbital flight, with its substantially reduced challenges and costs has largely been ignored. However things have recently begun to change. There is a growing realisation that suborbital flight is the way ahead. It promises the real deal at an affordable cost.
Studies have shown that a small percentage of the population of a developed nation are prepared to spend up to a year’s salary for the opportunity to travel into space. This research strongly indicates that many individuals are prepared to pay large sums of money for the thrill of going into space, the well known space tourism startup industry is evidence of this.
My personal opinion is that although there will eventually be a market for tourism, it wont substantially alter the cost of going into space, at least initially. It will be the entrepreneurs and pioneers who build their own craft that will really lead the way, showing people that it can actually be done for a reasonable cost and that it is not just a world for starry eyed dreamers, or those selected for government space launches. After all, it wasn’t passenger flights that initially grew the aviation industry, but many years of government sponsored mail and cargo networks that opened the way alongside the barnstormers and pioneers. Although passenger routes existed early on, it was more than thirty years after the Wright brothers first flight when air travel finally became a profitable enterprise. So to put spaceflight into perspective, relatively speaking we are probably around the 1920’s era where although there is talk of profitable passenger flights, it has not yet been demonstrated, and the various space flights that do take place are still heavily sponsored by governments, wealthy individuals, or companies. We have not yet reached the tipping point where the industry is self sustaining.
The interesting thing about the aviation analogy is that the key factor in making the industry profitable was not good management or planning, but a cost effective technological design; the DC-3 aircraft. Although aircraft were expensive to obtain and run, (similar to railways one hundred years prior), it would still be worth it as even more money could be made in the end - if you could afford to sell the flights at a sensible cost that the masses could afford. In the same manner, once a successful cost effective spacecraft design is demonstrated, the spaceflight industry will grow rapidly as people realise there is money to be made. So one could conclude that the economics of aviation and spaceflight (and indeed many industries), are very closely linked to design. A few good designs could quickly open the door to rapid growth birthing a new industry altogether promoting much growth and prosperity. Sadly, those with money (investors) and those who can spend it productively (design engineers), often do not agree! Add in a healthy dose of modern risk management and everything tends to stagnate with only a small chance of any real progress. Sound like the economies of first world nations today?
It is clear that spaceflight has not become much cheaper despite governments spending huge amounts of money over the last few decades. The cost of getting there is still prohibitively high. However suborbital spaceflight offers the prize for a lot less cost and performance potentially putting it into the realm of the amateur and homebuilt aircraft category. The motive is different, the design is easier, but the market is the same. There is a brilliant article by Dr Andrew Case who speaks about homebuilt spacecraft with much more eloquence than I can muster.
The design has taken about ten years or so to research and finalise during my spare time. I say finalise because like an artist’s masterpiece, it is never quite “completed.” There is always some tweaking or optimising to be done or some idea to analyse and evaluate. (Throughout my career I have discovered that in spite of the general perception that aviation engineering is heavily regulated, procedurally directed, and provides “best solutions” along with cut and dry arguments, the reality is that the field is a lot more subjective than many people realise). I don’t have any serious funding, and I don’t have a timeline or a launch date yet, (probably because I don’t have any funding). Although I understand there have been many people who have put forward their various ideas and designs for low cost spacecraft, my genuine intention is to complete this as resources and priorities allow.
Once completed and flown, I plan to make the design available in both plans built and kitset form for prospective amateur astronauts. If the kitplane industry is anything to go by, there should be a good market for a proven design that can be built for a price that the average person can afford. Certainly a whole lot cheaper than the ticket prices now on offer by the commercial companies promoting space tourism.
