Clark Lindsey has a powerful rejoinder to a recent pessimistic article about our future in space in the Wall Street Journal, which they printed.

Lindsey writes:
"There are at least a half-dozen serious companies developing vehicles for suborbital spaceflight. Within two to three years they will be flying payloads and passengers routinely up to and back down from 100 km in altitude."

I will bet him a dinner (Italian or Japanese) that by August 22, 2008 (three years) there will not be one company routinely doing this, let alone six.

Overly pessimistic, maybe. But even Virgin Galactic, which is out front, has said that they won't go operational until 2008 or 2009. And Lindsey appears to believe that all those companies that are currently behind VG will be flying routinely in three years, or even two. So unless the companies behind VG now leap ahead, this prediction is not going to come true.

Hi Mr. Day,
I love Italian. Let's go for it.

I'll let you decide the criteria but I notice that you put in the word "operational". I did not actually even say "paying" passengers. I was including Armadillo, for example, which has a good chance to be routinely (~weekly) flying a vehicle, or vehicles, up and down with passengers and payloads by 2008. However, I don't think Carmack has plans to be charging anyone for a ride, at least that's not a priority. Same for Blue Origin, though they have a longer timeframe.

I was also thinking of TGV, which could be taking payloads to 100km by then but they have no intention of flying passengers at all (not counting the pilot) in the early years of operations.

Rocketplane and Canadian Arrow/PlanetSpace have money, are bending metal, and claim they will fly within two years. Even if they are flying by the end of 2007, it might take a year of "routine" test flights before they get a license to carry passengers for pay.

Additional candidates currently showing serious hardware development include ARCA, StarChaser and C&Space. (The latter has already developed an impressive engine and getting an engine seems to be the most common stumbling block for these projects.)

Some other firms such as XCOR could develop a vehicle by 2008 if they get sufficient funding soon.

So if you want the wager to be purely on the basis of at least one company running an operational commercial suborbital space tourist business by Aug.22.08 then that's fine. If there is not but there are 5 or 6 companies test flying routinely by then, I will happily consider the dinner a celebration on me and invite Rand and a few other space cadet friends to join us in the feast.

If nobody is flying nothing, then I'll just try to enjoy the Chianti...

Thanks,
- Clark

You might want to add some of the larger companies... I doubt Lockmart or the Big B will sit still while the Rutan Brothers glut themselves with this new market. I'm sure every big name aerospace company is working on some small sub/orbital ship. They just aren't showing off what they are doing. They probably will not even think of taking passengers but they will be flying something for someone within a few years even if they have to land it on a lake bed in Navada.

I doubt Lockmart or the Big B will sit still while the Rutan Brothers glut themselves with this new market.

They will. They don't see it as the real market. The real market, to them, is big government cost-plus contracts. If those aren't on offer, they're not interested.

I agree with Rand and don't see the major aerospace firms getting involved until a market of significant size is proven. Probably not even then.

Big companies in general are not very good at building whole new markets from scratch. The most famous example being the computer industry and PCs.

There is a lot of risk involved. Even if customers show up, the profits for many years will be lost in the loose change at a multi-billion dollar corporation.

On the other hand, for a small company, anything at all in the black is wonderful since it keeps the firm alive. So obviously the people there will work a lot harder at developing and expanding their one life-sustaining market.

- Clark