New Vistas of Commercial Flight Open with Dawn of Space Age

By Bob Granath

This is the second of a two-part series on the history of commercial flight. For years, aerospace corporations took the world to the skies. Now these companies and more are supporting efforts well beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Space Age began on Oct. 4, 1957, with the launch of the Sputnik satellite by the Soviet Union. An American satellite, Explorer 1, soon followed, with plans for sending humans into space in the near future.

Individuals working privately dominated early developments in aviation. Governments and industry followed this later. However, in the first eras of space exploration, costs and risks were borne solely by government agencies, both military and civilian.

In the midst of these advances, President Dwight Eisenhower directed the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA, to be reorganized on Oct. 1, 1958, forming NASA — the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

“(There are) many aspects of space and space technology,” he said, “which can be helpful to all people as the United States proceeds with its peaceful program in space science and exploration.”

As was the case with early aviation, the U.S. government entered into contracts with the America’s aerospace industry to advance spaceflight technology. Many of the same corporations that took the nation to the skies began supporting the new space agency’s efforts to explore space.

Contractors developed the launch vehicles and satellites to study the Earth, probes to explore beyond and spacecraft to take the first humans into the new frontier.

Airlines Double Down

During 1969, the year astronauts first walked on the Moon, America’s aerospace industry debuted wide-body passenger airliners such as the Boeing 747.

Pan American Airways was the first to purchase and fly the 747 jumbo jet. It had two aisles and an upper deck over the front section of the fuselage. With a capacity of 450 passengers, it doubled the size of other Boeing jets and was 80 percent larger than any other jetliner up to that time.

McDonnell Douglas soon answered with their DC-10 in 1970, and Lockheed entered the wide-body market with the L-1011. Both had three engines, one under each wing and one on the tail, and each had a seating capacity of about 250.

In addition to flying more passengers in enhanced comfort, in the late 1960s airlines began to focus on increased speed. In 1947, the NACA played a key role proving that it was possible to fly faster than the speed of sound, but there still were obstacles for a commercial supersonic transport.

The Soviet Union successfully developed and tested the supersonic Tupolev 144 in late 1968. A consortium of West European aerospace firms flew the Concorde in early 1969 and eventually produced a number of those fast airliners for commercial use. American efforts to produce supersonic transports stalled in 1971. The primary concern was the sonic boom produced by these aircraft.

A sonic boom occurs when an object travels through the atmosphere faster than the speed of sound, about 768 mph. It creates shock waves generating enormous energy sounding like an explosion.

Reducing Sonic Booms

NASA is teaming with industry and academia in developing future aircraft that conserve fuel, lower emissions and reduce noise.

Since the sound barrier first was broken in 1947, aviation experts have sought ways to limit the jarring effects of the sonic booms. One of NASA’s primary aeronautical goals is to work with the aerospace industry to develop aircraft that achieve a low or quiet enough boom that a current federal ruling prohibiting supersonic flight over land might be lifted.

In partnership with NASA, a Lockheed Martin team is developing solutions for the persistent challenge of the sonic boom. Data from the X-59 QueSST (Quiet Supersonic Technology) aircraft could reduce the annoying sonic booms to a sound similar to the closing of a car door. This breakthrough would open the door to an entirely new global market for aircraft manufacturers, enabling passengers to travel anywhere in the world in half the time it takes today.

Over the past century, pioneering inventors and entrepreneurs in aerospace have been driven by inspiration and supported by those who backed their efforts to go faster, higher and farther.

Developments of commercial aviation have had a world-wide financial impact. According to the website of the travel publication”Jet Set Times,” the global aviation industry annually supports 57 million jobs and $2.2 trillion in economic activity. In a 12-month period, 50 million tons of cargo are flown by air transport aircraft, accounting for $6 trillion in goods equating to 35 percent of all products traded internationally.

Rise of Commercial Spaceflight

After years of U.S. government agencies, such as NASA and the Department of Defense purchasing rockets to launch its payloads, they along with companies and other nations sought out industry partners to provide rides into space.

One such provider is United Launch Alliance (ULA) a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing formed in December 2006. The company manufactures and operates a number of rockets that are capable of launching spacecraft into orbit around Earth and to destinations in the solar system.

ULA uses expendable launch vehicles including the Delta IV Heavy and Atlas V that have launched payloads including weather, telecommunications, national security satellites and scientific probes, as well as commercial satellites.

Now that NASA and other agencies have greased the skids, opportunities for space tourism are on the verge of becoming a reality for recreational or business purposes.

A Ticket to Ride

In the late 1990s, MirCorp was responsible for operation of the Russian space station Mir, and began seeking tourists willing to pay for a trip into space. American businessman Dennis Tito, a former scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, entered into an agreement with MirCorp and U.S.-based Space Adventures Ltd. Tito become the first “fee-paying” space tourist visiting the International Space Station in April 2001, staying for seven days.

Established in May 1996, the Ansari X Prize was a competition offering $10 million to the first non-government organization to launch a reusable, piloted vehicle into space twice within two weeks. Designed to encourage development of low-cost spaceflight, the concept was modeled after early 20th-century aviation prizes.

On June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne made the first privately funded human spaceflight. The spacecraft was developed by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, a joint enterprise between Scaled Composites, an aviation company founded by test pilot Burt Rutan and Microsoft founder Paul Allen. The second flight was Sept. 29, 2004. Five days later, SpaceShipOne’s developers won the X Prize by reaching 62 miles in altitude twice in a two-week period. The 62-mile mark is recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (International Aeronautical Federation) as the threshold of space.

The success of SpaceShipOne led to Virgin Galactic forming a company designed to provide suborbital spaceflights aboard SpaceShipTwo to launch space tourists, suborbital flights for space science missions and orbital launches of small satellites.

In recent years, NASA’s commercial space program has fostered a successful partnership between the agency and two American companies to resupply the International Space Station. Following the end of the Space Shuttle Program, SpaceX and Northrop Grumman began providing resupply spacecraft launching cargo and equipment to the space station through the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) Program.

Beginning earlier this year, commercial spaceflight not only includes launching supplies, but also humans.

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program

In September 2014, the agency announced the selection of Boeing and SpaceX to transport U.S. crews to and from the International Space Station using their CST-100 Starliner and Crew Dragon spacecraft, respectively. The goal was for U.S. missions to the station to end the nation’s sole reliance on Russia, and allow the station’s crew of six to grow, enabling more research aboard the unique microgravity laboratory.

By allowing industry to provide “taxi” services to the space station, NASA now can concentrate on exploration to distant destinations such as the Moon and Mars.

On May 30, 2020, NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken began a flight aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon lifting off atop one of the company’s Falcon 9 rockets. The flight began from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for Demonstration Mission-2, or Demo-2.

After the launch, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine congratulated Hurley and Behnken, along with the SpaceX and NASA teams for the significant achievement for the United States.

“The launch of this commercial space system designed for humans is a phenomenal demonstration of American excellence and is an important step on our path to expand human exploration to the Moon and Mars,” he said.

Boeing’s uncrewed Orbital Flight Test (OFT) of a Starliner was launched on Dec. 20, 2019. A second OFT is planned for November to iron out software problems and other issues that effected the first flight test. If all goes well on OFT-2, Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson, a former NASA astronaut, along with agency crew members Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann will fly aboard the first crewed Starliner planned for April 2021.

The first operational mission of a SpaceX Crew Dragon will be Crew-1. Aboard will be NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, with Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Liftoff is targeted for no earlier than Oct. 23, 2020.

Returning to the Moon

Looking a few years into the future, NASA is planning to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon. The agency’s Artemis lunar exploration program is designed as a collaboration with both contractors as well as commercial and international partners to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. What is learned on and around the Moon will be used to send astronauts to Mars.

The goal of continually going faster, higher and farther continues efforts dating back to the earliest days of aviation.

“We were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests,” said Orville Wright. “We investigated whatever aroused curiosity.”

Today, NASA is trying to instill these same values with the vision to reach new vistas, revealing the unknown, while benefiting all humankind.

No copyright is claimed for this feature that appeared in its original form on NASA.gov on Dec. 1, 2015 at:

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/commercial-flight-opens-unlimited-opportunities