Big Think released an interview with Burt Rutan today, in which he talks about why sending rich tourists into space for a few minutes at a time could be immensely important to the future of space travel.

Virgin Galactic, the company founded by Richard Branson to commercialize Rutan's spacecraft designs, is sometimes dinged by critics as technically irrelevant. They say that suborbital hops above the atmosphere are a sideshow distraction compared to the real challange of getting humans into orbit. But Rutan argues that, from a technical point of view, flying tens of thousands of passengers over 10-to-12 years will do two things: mature safety systems, making spaceflight much cheaper; and reduce costs dramatically.

Rutan (who looks healthy these days, as compared to his shockingly gaunt apperance at Virgin Galactic's unveiling of the SpaceShipTwo design in January 2008--a month before he had open heart surgery) also believes that space tourism will produce innovations that cannot be predicted in advance, just as the personal computer industry was unexpectedly spawned when engineers started playing around with microprocessors in the 1970s.

Rutan also postulates an absolute lower limit for the cost of sending humans aloft via rocket power. Noting that propellants are responsible for about a third of the total cost of mature forms of travel, such as commercial airflight or automobile transportation, he estimates that a sub-orbital ticket could one day cost as little as $475 per passenger, while a ticket to orbit could cost $12,000.

While such orbital travel would be dramatically cheaper than the tens of millions charged today for private trips to the International Space Station, this would still dash romantic dreams of mass colonization of space by rocket.

Last week, the White House Committee on Science and Technology held two hearings to discuss NASA's proposed fiscal year 2011 budget. More details on the proposed spending were also released earlier in the week.

Some congressional members are questioning NASA's new direction, which calls for the Constellation program and the development of the Ares I rocket to be canceled, and for the agency to rely instead on commercial rockets to ferry astronauts into orbit. These members argue that such drastic changes could threaten America's leadership, and the very existence of the U.S. human spaceflight program.

NASA administrator, Charles Bolden Jr., has said that Mars remains the ultimate goal of human space exploration, and that the new program is designed to make it possible to send astronauts there sooner. But even with an "infinite pot of money", he said, humans could not reach Mars within ten years.

The concerns discussed during the congressional meetings focused on the plans' lack of a clear objective, and the assumption that a commercial rocket is better than a government built system, according to Aviation Week.

Bart Gordon, the democrat representative from Tennessee and chairman of the House science panel, said he fears that the companies that take over U.S. crew transport operations will become "too important to fail," and could require government bailouts, according to the Aviation Week report.

Antonio Elias, executive vice president and general manager for Advanced Programs at Orbital Sciences, one of two private companies that currently has an agreement with NASA to develop a capsule to carry cargo to the space station, says there is misinformation about the commercial industry. "We have the technical capability because [private industry] has been building spaceflight systems for NASA since the agency's existence," he says.

Elias's company has been working on the launch-abort system for the Orion capsule, the crew capsule being developed under the Constellation program. But Elias adds that neither the government nor the commercial space sector can do their job by themselves. "The government has the crucial and key expertise for spaceflight, and the building of these systems is done by the commercial sector."

Some congressional members are frustrated with the administration for not making a plan sooner and for not consulting more outside experts. According to FloridaToday.com the committee's top Republican, Representative Ralph Hall of Texas, called the budget "ill-conceived" and said it provoked reactions of surprise, frustration, and anger among NASA supporters.

Ares I-X booster on its descent into the Atlantic Ocean. Credit: NASA

In late October NASA conducted the first test flight of its next-generation rocket, Ares. In a press conference at Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston this afternoon, project managers and engineers reported their preliminary findings.

The flight was successful in many ways, said Bob Ess, project manager of Ares I-X. For instance, it demonstrated the viability of the guidance, navigation and control systems. "The algorithms were perfect and performed flawlessly; a key result for validating our [predictive] models."

Marshall Smith, manager of systems engineering and integration for the rocket, added that Ares I-X, the tallest rocket ever to be flown, shows that "[NASA] can push forward with the design of Ares I."

The rocket's flight lasted--from liftoff to splash down--approximately six minutes, enough time for engineers to gather data on the performance of the rocket's avionic systems, accelerations and vibrations experienced, roll torque and thrust oscillation, as well as the separation of its stages.

One key problem during the flight was the malfunction of the parachutes designed to carry the rockets solid rocket booster back to earth. At an altitude of 45 kilometers the rocket's two stages separated. The first stage, composed of four solid rocket boosters and a dummy fifth segment, were dropped into the Atlantic Ocean via three large parachutes. (The mock second stage broke apart and was not recovered.) But the main parachute failed and a second parachute partially failed causing the booster to splash down hard into the ocean, leaving a nice dent in its side.

The main parachute failed at inflation, said Smith. The parachutes are supposed to open in three stages, and at each stage there is a cable that keeps the chutes from opening too far. The engineers believe that one of the cables opened too far putting too much force on the lines causing them to shear. The engineers are still investigating the partial failure of the second chute. They plan to give two more Ares I-X performance reports--one in January and the other late February 2010.

The engineers now want to do additional tests flights in 2012 or 2013. "Each time we can make it more like Ares I, so the next [test rocket] will have a full five segment solid rocket booster," said Jon Cowart, deputy project manager. But any future test flights will be contingent on the Obama administration's decision on the future of human spaceflight.

A camera on the rocket captures the second stage after separation from the first stage. Credit: NASA

The separation connectors that failed during descent. Credit: NASA

A view looking up at the three parachutes--the main chute failed, and a second partially failed--during descent. Credit: NASA