RZ: Well, there's a number of categories of laws. There are certain export laws that have to deal with international trade. And these certainly pose problems for certain kinds of private space development. Not that is necessarily to condemn them. They need to be looked at. If you're talking about space technology you are talking about strategic technology. You do need to examine to who you want to make this available.

I mean, Qaddafi wanted to develop a launch system and was willing to put money into doing so. I think the US and other western governments would crackdown on this activity and that would be appropriate. I'm not that interested in seeing Libya with an orbital launch capability, which also means intercontinental launch capability.

Exporting certain satellite technologies to China is something that also needs to be looked at. So there are strategic considerations. There are also protectionist considerations that have to do with protecting US launch providers from competition by various Russian or European launch systems for certain categories of launch.

The European launch system was heavily subsidized and is now as a result available cheaply. The debate between protectionists and those advocating a more laissez-faire approach is one in which both sides have their points. It would be a bit simplistic simply to say that free trade is the only way.

In certain instances, it may be the way. In other instances you need to look at what the consequences of it are.

Then there are additional problems such as those associated with certifications of launch systems that have to do with safety and range safety and so forth.

These are domestic in nature and there does need to be some reasonable and orderly certification process for private launch vehicles and right now there isn't. There are other aspects. For instance, a number of people have hoped to get started in the launch vehicle business at the low end by creating sounding rockets and marketing them commercially.

But the problem with these business plans is that NASA gives out sounding rides for free, and this has prevented business. Well, you say if NASA gives out sounding rides for free, what's wrong with that?

Well, they're not really free. Of course the taxpayer is really paying for them. So while this, of course, is beneficial to those who want to launch sounding payloads, provided they can pass a complex review process, and get selected for free launch, it has been detrimental to the growth of small launch companies.

Then there's the issue of insurance and liability. The United States government helped the base nuclear industry, for example, with the Price-Anderson Act, which limited liability in the case of an accident. I think that some form of liability limitation is needed in order to enable new launch companies to gain insurance.

JO: There's been discussion in some circles that wealthy individual need to step forward and kick-start private space exploration. But we've actually seen this happen. For instance, Beal Aerospace, run by Mr. Beal himself, stepped forward. And he spent 200 million dollars of his own money and really didn't do much of anything for space development. Is there any hope for an individual to make a large impact?

RZ: Yes certainly. The problem I think for Beal was that he latched onto a flawed concept, and the same could be said for Walt Anderson and his support of the Rotary Rocket Company.

I guess one of the pitfalls here is the following: you have these people with a certain amount of money and who are willing to spend money. And, they are operating on a rather individualistic basis because, frankly, this is not what few if any financial advisor would suggest their client does with their money.

These people have been willing to spend this money because they have been very individualistic and are willing to continue contrary to adverse advice. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing. Specifically with respect to technical advice, sometimes you have to go against the common wisdom if you're going to do something new.

But they have been resistant to technical advice as well. Anyone would have explained to Walt Anderson why Rotary Rocket would not have worked. The Beal thing possibly could have worked, but it wasn't the most efficient way to put together a launch vehicle by any means. He was proposing to redevelop the wheel at every level.

He was recreating rocket engines when he should have just bought them. Instead he spent his money testing out rocket engines, which were low performance rocket engines and therefore not a marketable product as such.

The whole point was that they were going to develop their own rocket engines so they would not have to buy other people's rocket engines. But, these were low performance rocket engines.

Rather he should have just bought Russian rocket engines and integrated them into vehicles. And, for the 200 million dollars, they could have gotten to the stage of test flights and they could have been taking orders. Instead they were just burning up money.

Also, he refused to play the game.

Okay, you have NASA giving out R & D money, and instead of competing for it, he whined about it, which is silly. If NASA is willing to subsidize people, to help develop their systems, by all means, you should compete for the money, rather than say, no, I don't believe in government money and, therefore, I am at a disadvantage because I can't compete with other people who are being subsidized this way.

The subsidy was open to him, and it would have helped him, had he competed and won some of that money. So, in that case, he was crippled by his own ideology.

Kistler has been somewhat damaged in the same way though they apparently have finally caught on and are now competing for-and they did win-some NASA space launch initiative money. If you can get part of your money from NASA, do it.

JO: Now, when we think of space exploration, we tend to think of the Goddards, the Gagarins, the Von Brauns. In reality, though, like you said, true progress is more likely to come from someone who can write a good grant proposal. How is the private space sector doing as far as tapping this basically free money from the government?

RZ: It's not completely free -- you spend a certain amount of your own money and time chasing them. But certainly it is money that you can get without acquiring debt or diluting your equity. I mean look, down in Northern Colorado there's the biggest aerospace company in the world. And it was all done by bidding on and winning government contracts and performing, in general, well on those contracts so as to be up to win further business.

JO: And you're referring to?

RZ: Lockheed Martin. Of course, they've also gotten private investment and so on. But, you know, that's basically how they have operated. And so it is a fact of life that every existing launch system in the world was developed primarily with government money. And that's okay. The aviation system in America was developed with huge amounts of government money.

These things, especially in their initial stages, are high-risk and involve massive amounts of overhead. I believe, first of all, that government expenditure on this is justified.

I'm glad that we have airports in the United States. And I'm glad that we have ports in the United States, and that there is an intrastate highway system. Government spending on these things has created societal capabilities that improve life and the possibilities for private commerce, enormously. And I think that these things are also required for space. I think that government support for private space development is warranted and necessary.

JO: If you can sell real estate on Mars, what's stopping you from selling real estate on Devon Island or in Utah or in the Sahara or any other inhospitable location on earth?

RZ: Well, first of all, it's unclear whether you can sell real estate on Mars right now. But the one major thing that is stopping you from selling real estate on earth is that, in general, someone else owns it.

JO: The technologies required to support human life on Mars can also be used to support human life, for instance, in desert regions in the United States or in desert regions in Africa.

RZ: Some of them, yes, for instance, water acquisition from dry lands.

JO: Do you anticipate that the technologies will be used first for that or for space exploration?

RZ: They will be used first for space exploration. In general the technology will be used first for that which it's developed. In other words, you take certain extreme applications first. Steam engines, real steam engines that were efficient, were developed first for steam boats, and it was only afterwards did they find widespread industrial application.

Nuclear reactors were developed first for submarines. We had the submarine Nautilus launched in 1954, the first commercial nuclear power plant was Shippingport in 1957.

In other words, you have an extreme application: propelling a boat underwater for six months without needing to surface, so someone says, well, the nuclear reactor can do that.

And then you put all of the effort required into developing a nuclear reactor that is compact, reliable, and so on. And then, lo and behold, somebody says, well, you know, you can also use this to develop - if you choose - to produce electric power. And so it is.

But you wouldn't, in general, have gone to the trouble of creating nuclear reactors to produce electric power because there's a dozen other ways to make electric power. So it has been characteristically the case that novel technologies are developed for extreme applications.

JO: One last question - and this is a bit of a personal question: A hundred years from now, how do you want your biography to read - two sentences or less?

RZ: "He helped open the way to Mars."

Back to Part One of this Interview

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SPACE SCIENCE

Taking The Medium Class Route To Deep Space
Los Angeles - Nov 29, 2001
The main purpose of the Nov. 14-16 meeting of the Steering Committee for NASA's Solar System Decadal Survey was to decide the best, most scientifically cost-effective sequence of planetary missions for the period 2003 to 2013. Unfortunately the press were kept out of the lengthy "closed sessions" during which it debated the comparative virtues of specific missions. In addition, there will be two more meetings of the Committee before it issues its official report to NASA in late spring.

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