On the Issues

Sunday, July 11, 2021

Flight Plans: The birth of space tourism

On July 11, 2021, billionaire Richard Branson, two pilots and three passenger rode a spacecraft from his New Mexico spaceport to 40,000 feet above Earth. After its release by a carrier aircraft, the VSS Unity then fired its rockets and accelerated to faster than the speed of sound in a climb to the edge of space. But others have had the same idea, in some cases for less altruistic reasons… 


An excerpt from Dons of Time
Available in paperback and eBook editions

In the 1930s the Department of Commerce established a network of small airfields for use in emergencies by commercial aircraft traveling between major cities. One of them, Gordonsville Airport, began operating around 1938 northwest of Richmond. Known as Intermediate Field #50, it was located about five miles southeast of town along the Nashville to Washington corridor.


At the time the airport featured a modest hangar, one rotating beacon and two sod runways arranged in a T-shape, but no services, fuel or amenities. It remained in service for about twenty years, longer than most emergency landing sites, but it was ultimately abandoned at the end of the fifties as commercial flights became more commonplace and reliable.


Once they were cruising at 500 miles per hour in Shelley’s Learjet it took less than half an hour to get there from Long Island. The plane was a midsize model with space for about seven. As they landed, Tonio noticed the construction underway along the two runways and around a wing-shaped structure sheathed in metal and covered on the runway side with huge panes of glass.  A hangar nearby looked empty but ready for occupancy.


“What is this place?” No answer from the peanut gallery, but from the smug expressions upon disembarking near the unfinished terminal he surmised that they weren’t totally unfamiliar with it.


“The boss is up in the control room, I think,” explained Pesci, pointing in the general direction of an immobile escalator that led to an observation level. “He said the elevator’s working.” They walked down a wide concourse, past a check-in section that looked like a hospital waiting room, an empty restaurant with vast kitchen at the rear, and a series of stalls for future concessions.


Once inside the elevator and rising he noticed the view; a wide runway headed out more than a mile, farmland surrounding it and a highway beyond. This isn’t your normal airport, he thought. What was his father up to now?


“Welcome to the Jefferson Spaceport.” The words echoed through the halls. Shelley was waiting for them in a control room that looked like the bridge of a movie space ship. It was a large oval, the near wall covered by screens with semi-enclosed workstations below, the front side covered with huge windows that looked out on the runways and hangar. Below the windows was a curving row of consoles, stationary chairs and a central podium with an elevated command post at the center.


“Well, beam me up,” he said.


The Don was ensconced on the oversized chair, holding a microphone as he gazed out at the view. “It’s a work in progress,” he said. “Sit.”


This was very different from their meeting on Long Island just a month earlier. Out of the house, away from Lisa Margaret and the family, Shelley was another man, in control, confident to the point of unnerving arrogance, more like the mercurial tyrant Tonio remembered from childhood. It made him wonder whether that other version had been an act.


“What is this? An airport for V.I.P.s?”


“I said sit.” He barked it this time and pointed to one of the chairs below his throne. “There. We’re going to have a conversation. I’m going to ask you questions and you are going to tell me the truth, for once. I understand your confusion. To you, I’m some old fart, out-of-touch, ancient news. You tell me anything, or nothing, what do I know?”


“Dad, I’m just asking…”


“Shut the fuck up. I’m talking. You asked me a question: what is this? Well, I’ll tell you what it is. The future. Do you know where we are?”


“Virginia?”


“Don’t be smart. That’s right. Near Richmond, and just two hours from Washington, DC. Two hours! And yes, we will cater to some of the most important people. But you weren’t listening. I called it a spaceport, not an airport. We’re not going to be shuttling people from here to Vegas or Miami for a few hundred bucks. We’re going to give them the ride of their lives — right into space, at least close. I’m talking about suborbital flights, to the boundary of the atmosphere at three thousand miles an hour.


“That’s four times the speed of sound,” he bragged. “And then the real fun begins. They become weightless for ten minutes. They’re fucking astronauts. I mean, if that isn’t worth $150,000 a pop I don’t know what is.”


Tonio was stunned. He hardly knew where to start. Was Shelley actually doing this? How long had it been in the works? What was it costing? Could it really happen?


“Close your damn mouth,” Shelley said. “It’s called space tourism and it will take off — pardon the expression — by the end of this decade. We’ll be ready in less than five years. The low estimates say more than two hundred thousand passenger per year, just to start. That’s a five hundred billion dollar market. Our piece could be up to 20 percent of that, one hundred billion a year. Up-front cost is around three hundred million — but the feds will underwrite 50 percent. I never got that deal with a casino, and we can add a hotel later.


“Virgin Galactic expects to charge two hundred K for a flight out of New Mexico. We can do it cheaper and we’ll be on the East Coast. Aside from California and Texas that’s where most of the market is. And talk about your V.I.P.s. We’ve got DC and New York. Those Wall Street assholes, old money, new money, senators, high society, they’ll all line up.”


“That’s why we’re in Virginia?”


“It helps. But the big reason is insurance. When Branson set up in New Mexico he missed something. They had passed a state law exempting his flights from liability for five years, but not his suppliers. We need to protect the suppliers from liability or the thing will never happen. You know, in case of mishaps, like a crash or something blows up. Virginia is one of four states with permanent exemptions for carriers and suppliers. It works like informed consent at a ski area. You waive your right to sue when you buy your ticket. We’ve got that locked up.


“I also call it Jefferson Spaceport because we’re in Virginia. There are about nine other companies with projects like this in various stages, but most of them are at existing airports. This one will be stand-alone, and the best — a total experience. We’ll have high-end flight training by former astronauts. We can also sell it to the general public, with or without the flight, at affordable prices. For passengers the training will be two days right before you go up. Got to be sure everyone is fit to fly.


“Then you board the Space Wolf. I like the sound of that. We’ll have Space Wolf One, Two, Three and so forth. Each one will take eight passengers and two pilots. Everyone gets a seat with a great view out the side and overhead. You climb fifty thousand feet to — they call it the Karman line — then the rocket engine goes off, whoosh, and there you are at zero gravity. We expect to take in at least $1.2 million per flight, three hundred million per plane per year.”


He rose from the oversized chair and circled his son. “But that’s not why you’re here. You’re here because you’ve been hiding shit, and because you disappeared in New Mexico, in the ass end of nowhere. And then you did it again in Vermont when you got back.”


“I’m sorry about that.” As Shelley spoke Tonio worked up an excuse. Before he could offer it, however, his father caught him off guard with a sharp slap across the face.”


“I’m not interested,” he said. Tonio resisted the urge to deck him.. “Now what are you and your little friends doing in Nutley? You thought I wouldn’t hear about that? This is what I mean, no respect. What am I, an idiot?”


“No, sir.”


“That’s right. But you, you think small. You’re wrapped up in your dramas. Ooh, I have no control over my life. Daddy didn’t love me, Mommy went away, I didn’t choose this, I didn’t choose that, poor me, wah, wah, wah.”


The old man is pushing it, he thought, as a fat finger poked at his forehead.


“And those little schemes, rattling around in there. Forget about it. And take a good look.” He extended his arms in a grand gesture meant to encompass the site. “This is the beginning of what’s possible. Think about it: Wolfe Space Adventures. We’ll dominate tourism and entertainment.” … 


From Dons of Time, Chapter 20, Fomite, 2013

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