Magnificent Desolation (38 page)

The futurist Alvin Toffler, whose once-controversial book
Future Shock
now reads like history, spoke at the conference and encouraged us to look forward to even more astounding developments in flight over the next hundred years. That set the tone, and by the end of the day, our hopes were soaring. The symposium might not have changed the world overnight to get our space program back on track for the next 100 years, but it was a productive exchange of forward-thinking ideas. Best of all, a few weeks later, on January 14, 2004, President George W. Bush announced a renewed “Vision for Space Exploration,” a fresh agenda for NASA and others related to America’s space program, with a goal of returning to the moon to set up permanent lunar bases, and then to initiate human exploration of Mars and beyond. It appeared at the time that the “moon, Mars, and beyond” statement would marshal the nation in a new concerted effort. I’d like to think our symposium lent some extra impetus to that decision.

I smiled as I read about the President’s initiatives. I had much I wanted to accomplish, and the announcement by the President of the United States gave me hope that my dreams could yet come true within my lifetime.

   21

I
N
2004,
ZERO-GRAVITY FLIGHTS BECAME AVAILABLE COM
mercially in the United States for the first time. Prior to that, the only place the average American citizen could experience a zero-gravity flight was by flying with the Russians. Occasionally NASA extended zero-gravity flight privileges for educational purposes, or for unusual requests by Hollywood filmmakers for scenes in space, such as the scenes inside the capsule for the movie
Apollo 13.
Now anyone who is healthy, and a bit wealthy, can enjoy a zero-gravity experience at a cost of about $3,500 per person. Of course, if you are really wealthy, you can rent the entire plane for your family reunion or company retreat.

During my astronaut training in preparation for my first mission on
Gemini 12
, we affectionately referred to the plane in which we performed our weightless training as the “vomit comet.” Actually it was a hollowed-out, fully padded Air Force KC-135, the military version of a Boeing 707 jet, that pulled about two g’s each time it flew up in a steep angle into the atmosphere, where it would linger for about forty seconds before pulling another two g’s when we came down. At the top of these parabolic maneuvers, I floated free in a weightless world. Impervious to the Earth’s gravitational force, I traversed the mockup of
Gemini
with its open hatch in a simulation of my upcoming spacewalk. In one of my last zero-gravity training flights, we flew eighty parabolas at
once. On rare occasions, a few members of the astronaut corps lost their breakfast. But my inner ear never seemed to fail me or sense the conflict between the g forces and the weightlessness. You might say I have a steady orientation when it comes to up and down.

When Zero Gravity Corporation commenced a nationwide tour in key cities across the United States to fly its “G Force One” plane and promote this new adventure, the National Space Society (NSS) offered a special deal on discounted tickets to its members for the first of two flights to be launched out of Burbank, California. The NSS is a great grassroots organization for space advocates and enthusiasts, of which I was privileged to serve as chairman for several years in the 1990s. The organization has grown and expanded under the excellent guidance of its young and knowledgeable director, George Whitesides. They asked me to join the flight to publicize the event. I hadn’t been weightless in thirty-five years, so I thought it would be a good chance to brush up on my technique. Lois wasn’t quite up for this adventure, so Lisa came along in hopes that there might be an extra seat available. I also invited along former Los Angeles Mayor Dick Riordan, though ultimately he couldn’t stay through the delayed takeoff schedule.

I was asked to offer some words of encouragement to the participants, and share a few thoughts with an ABC newscaster covering the event. As the twenty-five NSS novices went through their brief training session, I could see this was a good first step toward exposing the public at large to the adventure of space travel. Their eyes lit up with excitement and a sense of anticipation as I shared with them a bit of my ShareSpace philosophy:

It was time for the flight. All the participants and I donned our blue flight suits, provided by Zero Gravity, and accented with sponsor Diet Rite space patches on the pockets. Buckled into a few seats in the back of the specially modified and padded Boeing 727 plane during takeoff, we soon unstrapped as the plane rose to a sufficient elevation to begin its parabolas. The pilot would fly about ten of these maneuvers—a far cry from the eighty I once endured in my training—but probably more than enough for newcomers. The participants would experience parabolas that produced a Mars gravity (one-third Earth gravity) environment, then a lunar gravity (one-sixth Earth gravity) environment, and then complete zero-gravity weightlessness. On the mark, the zero-g guides gave us a countdown as we approached each twenty-five-second period of weightlessness, and issued a warning as we were about to come out and hit the g forces.

“Three. Two. One. Get ready for lunar gravity!”

In pure delight, the participants, guides, and I suddenly found ourselves lighter than air. For me it was like riding a bicycle, but this time it was purely for fun rather than training on equipment in bulky space-suits. For the NSS participants, it was a brand-new sensation as they pushed off from the floor, glided and wafted in a freer movement than they had ever felt before. It was less than a minute, but felt like forever, until the warning for pull-out came and we all assumed our stationary positions lying on the floor on our backs to evenly distribute the g’s, making each of us feel twice as heavy as our real weight.

By the time we got to zero-gravity, I was having the time of my life,
somersaulting with ease, propelling through the air like Superman, and giving the ABC newscaster some great sound bites. But the interview questions didn’t last long, since the brave female reporter found herself succumbing to the effects of nausea. Of course each flight suit came equipped with a little plastic bag for that purpose.

About one hour and ten parabolas later, we landed on the tarmac. All the participants, even the reporter, were now officially initiated zero-g flyers, and each was presented with a certificate of weightless flight. The next group for the second flight was in training, being prepped for their first experience.

“Hey, Buzz!”

I heard my name being called out by one of the Zero G marketing guys. He took me aside to say, “We’ve got a bit of a problem. All the footage ABC shot of you on the flight didn’t turn out because the camera wasn’t working properly. Would you be willing to go up again on the second flight?”

“Why not?” I said. “But this time I want Lisa to join me.”

Lisa had a blast, doing all kinds of cheerleader gymnastics from her youth, and learning pretty quickly some of the acrobatic movements I was showing her. We somersaulted together, cartwheeled in pairs, and even pulled off a human windmill with each of our hands stretched upward and out, spinning as we held on to each other’s ankles. She had no side effects, though she may have overdone it for her first time, admitting that if the pilot had performed an eleventh parabola, she might have lost it. As for me, the second flight was even more fun than the first. My seventy-four-year-old body felt thirty-nine again!

Since those two flights venturing into weightlessness, I have participated in several others—most recently at seventy-eight years of age— to help promote the experience to the public, and as the featured Apollo astronaut on the “Platinum Zero G Experience” for Zero Gravity Corporation in flights out of the Kennedy Space Center and Las Vegas. It has been a real thrill to see the enthusiasm with which the participants have embraced the experience, and I recommend it highly. Just make sure you eat a light meal before you go!

I
WAS HOME
in Los Angeles when Burt Rutan, founder of the aerospace development company Scaled Composites, called and invited me out to the Mojave Desert. He was about to have another of his test flights of a new suborbital spacecraft he was developing. I had been out a few times earlier during the development phase, and had enjoyed seeing the progress he was making with the unique winglet design. His approach to liftoff was also unique. The suborbital craft would not be launched vertically or horizontally on its own, but would be carried under the belly of a larger, broad-winged, jet-powered carrier airplane called the
White Knight.
At an altitude of about ten miles, the suborbital craft, christened
SpaceShipOne
, would separate from the
White Knight
and fire its rockets to continue another fifty-two miles upward and reach the sixty-two-mile mark where the blackness of space begins and the curvature of the Earth is clearly visible, and the pilot would experience weightlessness for about five minutes before reentry.

On the day that I joined Burt to watch the test, a large crowd was expected, including media, since
SpaceShipOne
was a key contender for the $10-million award being offered by the X PRIZE Foundation for the first privately developed craft to be piloted on two consecutive suborbital flights within a two-week period. In creating the prize, the foundation took a cue from the Orteig Prize, a $25,000 award created in 1919 by the New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig, to the first aviator to fly nonstop between New York City and Paris. For nearly eight years nobody claimed Orteig’s prize, but then, in 1927, Charles Lindbergh won it in the
Spirit of St. Louis.
To stimulate competition, ingenuity, and innovation in the fledgling space tourism industry, the $10-million X PRIZE offered a huge incentive. More than a dozen companies worldwide took the challenge seriously.

Backed by financier and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, Burt’s efforts were looking very promising for winning the prize. But on this occasion they still had a few kinks to work out. As a crowd of hundreds gathered in the area surrounding the hot desert landing strip, we all
gazed up as the graceful
White Knight
took flight with
SpaceShipOne
fastened securely to its fuselage. After separation, Mike Melvill, the sixty-three-year-old test pilot, continued speeding upward, followed by a thick white contrail that made it easier to be tracked by the naked eye. Suddenly the spacecraft went out of control into a roll, as the contrail now turned into a series of curlicues. With a great deal of skill, and a bit of luck, Mike was able to keep the roll symmetrical until the rocket burned out, and then fully regained control to make it back for a successful and safe landing. Averting a potential disaster, both he and the craft escaped injury.

We all congratulated the pilot for the great recovery, even though he had failed to achieve suborbital distance. In the crowd I ran into my friend, Richard Branson, flamboyant founder and CEO of Virgin Galactic, who was on hand for the flight. Richard is an English billionaire with more than 300 companies under his Virgin logo. He has a knack for building businesses, so I was glad when he expressed interest in suborbital space tourism. He was considering an association between Virgin and
SpaceShipOne
to adapt the technology for a fleet of suborbital craft. By the time
SpaceShipOne
won the X PRIZE, it bore a Virgin logo. Richard was never one to miss a good opportunity to market and promote his companies.

On September 29, 2004, Mike Melvill became the first civilian pilot to fly into suborbital space, successfully qualifying
SpaceShipOne
for the first round of the two requisite X PRIZE flights. To celebrate en route in his brief moments of weightlessness, he released a bag of
M
&
M
s that floated around the cabin in a colorful display. I wasn’t able to be there in person for this first, but was thrilled with the outcome. Days later, on October 4, 2004,
SpaceShipOne
made its second qualifying flight to win the $10-million Ansari X PRIZE, as it was now called, since the prize was primarily funded by the Ansaris, a wealthy entrepreneurial Iranian family from Texas. Anousheh Ansari became so enamored with space that she eventually flew as the first female space tourist, traveling to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz rocket in September 2006.