The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

The Heinlein Prize honors the memory of Robert A. Heinlein, a renowned American author. Through his body of work in fiction spanning nearly fifty years during the commencement of man’s entry into space, Mr Heinlein advocated human advancement into space through commercial endeavors. After Mr Heinlein’s death in 1988, his widow, Virginia Gerstenfeld Heinlein, established the Trust in order to further her husband’s vision of humanity’s future in space. Funding for the Heinlein Prize came from Mrs Heinlein’s estate after her death earlier this year.

Alt.Space

On 8 December 2003 the Space Frontier Foundation in Los Angeles hailed the rollout of a new SpaceX rocket.

The new “Falcon” launch system by SpaceX Inc. was seen as a symbol of major change in the commercial space arena. The group sees the new entrant in the space launch field as the first of several new orbital and sub-orbital systems that will help drive the cost of access to space downward, and open the frontier of space.

Unveiled in front of the Smithsonian’s famous Air and Space Museum, the Foundation believes the rollout of the new rocket can help to alert Congress and the White House that there is a new space industry arising in America, just at the moment when the old space establishment is faltering.

Foundation co-founder Rick Tumlinson said:

“It is time for those who direct national space efforts and policy to wake up and realize that there is a new game in town when it comes to the private space sector. Many leaders have been wringing their hands in despair over the slow decay of our traditional old school space firms and institutions, but today, right there in front of them, is proof that a new order is rising in space.”

The group, while not endorsing any particular firm or company, has been calling for a revolution in space access, and supports the efforts of Alternative Space firms (Alt.Space). The Foundation sees SpaceX as just one example of positive change in the space industry.

It contrasts the 18-month, low cost (less than $100 million) development time of the privately financed Falcon, with the multiyear, billion-dollar plus government-subsidized cost of rocket projects by traditional firms and agencies.

“SpaceX and the other Alt.Space efforts out there, such as Xcor, Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites, Constellation Services, Armadillo and others, are demonstrating that it isn’t the space industry that is sick, it is the systems that we use to finance, develop, build and regulate them that is the problem,” stated Tumlinson. “There is a true genetic split occurring between the old aerospace industrial complex and the new Alt.Space movement, and projects like Falcon are only the beginning.”