It’s amusing for me to think of a crew of stone-faced Chinese intelligence agents descending on a Beijing bookstore on release day. I picture a couple of them standing guard while another couple speed-read display copies, hunting for clues on how America’s innovation engine has popped out one technological surprise after another over the last half-century. But I’m sure some low-level analyst has already read the English version.

A Russian-language version is also in the works….

I first met team leader Red Whittaker while I was covering the DARPA Urban Challenge autonomous vehicle race in 2007. Even before his team took the first prize, I was impressed by Whittaker’s supreme focus, determination, technical expertise, and leadership skills. Reporting for my Scientific American article, I was further impressed by Whittaker’s dedication to fostering the next generation of innovators as he prompted, pushed, and encouraged students in his robotics class at Carnegie Mellon University to realize their fullest potential.

My association with David Gump, Whittaker’s cohort at Astrobotic, the company they formed to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE, goes back even further, to 2005. At the time, Gump was heading up Transformational Space Corporation, the subject of my cover story for the October 2005 issue of Popular Science, and which arguably launched NASA’s current commercial crew and cargo program. That program is set to achieve the first commercial docking with the International Space Station at the end of April. The two men, one focused on the technical challenge, the other on building a sustainable business in space, make a formidable leadership team.

Private moon landers should open the door to faster and cheaper development of planetary science missions as well a commercial market for imagery (updated photos of the Apollo landing sites, anyone?), entertainment (want to drive a moonbot yourself?), and more. Just as the Ansari X PRIZE launched the commercial suborbital space flight industry, the Google Lunar X PRIZE—the largest incentive prize in history—seeks to jumpstart a new way of doing business (actually doing business at all) in deep space.

Look for my story “Bound for the Moon,” in the April issue of Scientific American, on magazine racks now, or link to the full text from Astrobotic’s Facebook page.

You can also catch me on New Hampshire Public Radio (http://www.nhpr.org/) talking about the article today at 12:20 Eastern.

Eric Anderson pioneered the commercial space flight industry, before anyone knew it could be a real business. His company, Space Adventures, brokered the deal that launched the first citizen to pay his own way into space. Before Dennis Tito headed for the International Space Station in 2001, the whole idea of commercial space flight seemed absurd to most of the presumed experts. Human space flight was for major governments only.

Eric Anderson and Space Adventures changed the way we think about space and opened the door to today’s burgeoning commercial space flight industry. Never mind whether the technology exists or can be developed, there is no business without a market. Anderson and company established that market, allowing capital to flow into the commercial space ventures that followed.

For the first time, you can read the full story here; how Anderson came up from ordinary means in Colorado to bootstrap what most people thought was an impossible enterprise. How he convinced the Russian space agency to sell seats on the Soyuz spacecraft. How a potential investor turned into customer number one.

I’ve admired Anderson since I met him in the early 2000s. His tenacity, his quiet faith in his ideas, in the steady push that can send a boulder rolling down a slope, inspired me from the beginning.

After sending seven customers to the International Space Station, including a repeat, Anderson’s pushing out beyond low Earth orbit. Space Adventures’ next conquest is nothing short of the moon. If all goes well, a flyby mission duplicating the feat of Apollo 8 will send two paying customers and a professional cosmonaut around the back side of the moon for a view only 27 human beings have ever seen.

Anderson says he’s got the first customer signed up and his company is just waiting for the second to sign on the dotted line for a $150+ million commitment before announcing that the mission is a “Go.” Until then he’s not telling who even that first customer is, though some have pointed out that blockbuster film director and space enthusiast James Cameron has the means and the interest.

Anderson himself isn’t content to be Earthbound much longer. He’s teamed with that repeat orbital customer, Charles Simonyi, to head up Intentional Software, with the goal of making the fortune he needs to buy his own ticket to orbit and beyond.

Sometimes the most powerful innovations are not new technologies, but a way to change a mindset. Humans went to the moon with 1960s technology. They’ll do it again with machines that have changed little since then. But in proving the business case for human space flight beyond low Earth orbit, they’ll open the door to a whole new wave of innovation.

Diamandis and Kotler lay out four factors converging toward a future of abundance rather than scarcity. A future in which most of the world’s population will have its basic needs (water, food, medicine, etc.) met, resulting in the only wealth that truly matters: the time and luxury to dream and do rather than just scratch about for survival. The four driving factors are:

1. Exponentially improving technologies;
2. The increasing power of the do-it-yourself innovator;
3. The technophilanthropist; and
4. The Rising Billion

That last is a particularly intriguing concept; as more and more people throughout the developing world get online with increasingly affordable cell phone and other devices, we’ll see a rising tide of innovation from voices we’ve never heard from before.

Yes, we’re energy challenged now, but that’s not for lack of energy, not with 5,000 times the energy we need to power the world hitting the Earth’s surface over the course of every year. Sure, fresh water’s in short supply right now, but that’s only because we can’t desalinate sea water cheaply enough. And so on. The book’s cover image of an aluminum foil wrapper illustrates the point that aluminum was once scarcer than gold, and hence more expensive, and that other commodities are sure to follow the demonetizing curve as they are liberated by new technologies and ideas.

The book is told in Diamandis’s voice, but it’s clear that Kotler’s involvement was crucial to getting this project done. I know from interacting with Diamandis for my own book and article projects that he’s a tough guy to keep up with. I can only imagine the on-the-fly conversations that must have taken place as the two jetted from conference to energy startup to board meeting. Bravo to both for pulling this off.

Judging from the response since its release just last month (it’s currently number 2 on the New York Times best seller list, for example), I’m not the only one who feels that this is the right book at the right time with the right message to start a movement.

Pick up Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. It’s the real deal.

I was on an unplugged vacation with the family in the Caribbean (our first-ever there) when the announcement came. I’d gotten wind that something was up between these two mavericks of innovation before I left the country, but not exactly what. That I found out while waiting for my luggage at JFK airport. I thought I’d missed all the action, that it was too late for me to write up this plum of a story in depth. I needn’t have worried.

I was back in the air just a couple of weeks later, heading to Mojave for interviews with engineers and managers at Scaled Composites, where the airplane is being built, and to Los Angeles to meet with the folks at SpaceX, building the rocket it will launch.

The result is my April 2012 cover story for Popular Mechanics, on sale now.

If successful, Stratolaunch will bring a new capability to the field of human space flight: the potential to reach any orbital destination any time from just about anywhere. It’s not clear whether there will be a need for this capability when the system is due to be completed, by 2020. But true visionaries often find themselves aiming well ahead of the innovation curve, where great reward as well as great risk awaits.

Boeing CST-100. Image courtesy of Boeing.

As Director of Program Integration for Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program, Schindler is one of the managers in charge of Boeing’s spaceship-in-development, the CST-100.

The ship is one of those competing to replace the retired Space Shuttle for getting crew and cargo to the International Space Station. Schindler characterized the ship as a no-frills, get-up-and-get-down vehicle using proven technologies.

“When we looked at the requirement set from our customer [NASA], and they said ‘Well, we want something that’s safe and affordable, cost-effective, reliable,’ we knew these technologies already existed. We already knew the blunt capsule that we saw on Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, that the Russians use, are proven technologies. So we went with that to provide them what they want. They didn’t want a Cadillac, they really just wanted a minivan to get back and forth.”

This is in contrast to the Boeing competitor that is farthest along in its development, SpaceX. SpaceX is operating on its own set of requirements, for which the NASA requirement for Space Station access is just a subset. SpaceX wants to get all the way to Mars. Boeing is focused on the one mission, and says Schindler, drawing on Boeing’s 50-year heritage in space to get there.

“We’ve designed a space capsule that looks very similar to what the old capsules looked like. It actually can carry seven people. It kind of looks like a minivan—you got three [astronauts] on top and four on bottom. We have a pilot and a copilot, but it will fly autonomously. It will have an autonomous docking to the space station. We’ll put it on top of a rocket. Right now for our test program we’ve chosen a very reliable rocket. It’s never launched humans into space, but it’s flown over 100 times successfully, and that’s an Atlas V.”

The company certainly has the wherewithal to build and launch this system, but it is utterly dependent on NASA to make progress, and there’s the rub. “We’re in a design phase right now,” Schindler admitted. SpaceX, on the other hand, is now in flight test, with its first docking with the Space Station planned for April.

“Think of yourselves, in the YPO,” Schindler explained. “If you were trying to make a business case, and you were saying, ‘Well, if I’m going to go invest this money, I’ve got to have a market at the end that I’m going to be able to sell [to] and reclaim that [investment]. And there isn’t a market right now except for NASA. The Boeing company sees there’s a potential market, but it isn’t enough to close the business case on our own.” As a consequence, said Schindler, “We’re kind of hitched a little bit to NASA and Congress, and those things are big unknowns, depending on how much money’s available.”

What this boils down to is that Boeing, the big, established aerospace company with a lot to lose and shareholders to keep happy, isn’t going to lead in the way in creating America’s first commercial orbital spaceships. That’s left to younger, hungrier companies like SpaceX—whose CEO, Elon Musk, is prepared to take the big financial risks required to really move the ball in the field of commercial space flight.

Imagine you’re standing on the moon, watching the daily cargo rocket arrive. It might look like this. Actually, it will probably look more like Masten’s planned XEUS vehicle, an image of which Masten Space Systems director of business operations Nathan O’Konek has shared with me.

Masten Space Systems proposed multi-thrust-axis lander. Image: Masten Space Systems.

Masten is putting together a demonstration system built around a United Launch Alliance Centaur upper stage rocket and its single RL-10 engine.

Four Masten 3,500 pound thrust propulsion modules will bring the ship in for a horizontal touchdown without the high velocity dust plumes kicked up by the big guy.

Dust will be a major concern to people living and working on the moon. Even without blowing around, it can be damaging to spacesuits, machinery, and other equipment. Another advantage of this design is that cargo can be unloaded near the ground, without relying on tall ladders or a crane.

Update: O’Konek points out that “The dispersed engines will help mitigate the plume problem, but they won’t be able to eliminate plume effects completely.”

XCOR CEO Jeff Greason with Lynx rocket engine. Photo: Michael Belfiore.

On a recent visit to Mojave Air & Spaceport, I stopped in on XCOR Aerospace for an update on the development of their new suborbital spaceship, called the Lynx.

The Lynx builds on XCOR’s successful experience with reusable, restartable rocket engines and rocket propelled airplanes. The plan calls for the two-seat Lynx, powered by a quartet of XCOR-developed 2850-pound-thrust liquid fueled rocket engines, to take off from a runway at Mojave and clear the atmosphere at 62+ miles altitude for sight-seeing and scientific missions.

XCOR is already under contract with NASA and others for suborbital research flights. You have until February 10 to register to win a flight sponsored by the Southwest Research Institute at http://nsrc.swri.org/.

So far XCOR has designed, built, and test-fired the spaceship’s rocket engine design, mostly finished designing the vehicle itself, and has also built components such as valves and pumps. “It is my goal, not the same thing as a promise,” XCOR CEO Jeff Greason told me, “to see air under the gear by the end of the year.”

See also my report from my Mojave visit for Popular Mechanics at http://bit.ly/wNJJx5.

Image courtesy Stratolaunch Systems

With him at the press conference was SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan, fueling press coverage that the dream team of Allen and Rutan had once again teamed up for an innovative space launch project. That’s only partly true; Rutan is retired now, and while he’s serving on the Stratolaunch board as an advisor, it will be engineers at his former company, Scaled Composites, who design the launch aircraft. SpaceX will design and build the rocket to be launched by the aircraft. Huntsville-based Dynetics will build a connecting system to mate the two vehicles.

I spoke with Stratolaunch CEO Gary Wentz, a former NASA engineer and manager, to get further details on the company’s plans and where it is now in development. According to Wentz:

-Scaled, SpaceX, and Dynetics are acting as contractors to Stratolaunch, not partners. The effort is funded entirely by Stratolaunch, through Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc.

-Through Scaled, Stratolaunch has purchased two used Boeing 747s from United Airlines. The airplanes will be flown into Mojave Air and Space Port early next month for Scaled to take them apart and use their components in building the world’s largest aircraft, the 385-foot-wingspan Stratolaunch mothership.

-The mothership is currently known only by its Scaled model number: M351.

-The Stratolaunch plan calls for the mothership to carry a to-be-built SpaceX Falcon 4 rocket to high altitude from which to launch a payload to orbit. The Falcon 4 will be powered by 4 SpaceX Merlin IB engines (contrary to the now-out-of-date Stratolaunch video, which shows 5 engines).

-Design on the mothership is planned for completion by late summer of next year.

-The mothership is to begin flight testing in late 2015 in Mojave, with rocket test launches from the airplane to begin at Cape Canaveral in late 2016.

-First revenue flights will be unmanned payloads; manned flights, Allen’s ultimate goal, could begin around 2020.

-Stratolaunch has begun clearing dirt at the Mojave Air/Space Port for a 20-acre site to house the aircraft and assembly facilities in two buildings, which are to be completed in the next 18 months.

-The retired Space Shuttle processing buildings and runway at Cape Canaveral are envisioned as Stratolaunch’s base of operations.

-Stratolaunch is not actively seeking customers yet, just focusing on development right now.

Of his motivation for leaving NASA after 18 years to work on Stratoaunch, says Wentz:

“My whole history with NASA was flying flight hardware, and I just saw this as the next opportunity to do that knowing that with the cancellation of the Constellation program it would be 5 to 8 years before they’re in a mode to be able to fly more hardware at the level at which I had become accustomed. It was a good opportunity for me to come out and build something different and actually fly some hardware.”

By Michael Belfiore.

CNN.com, August 15, 2011.

The HTV-2′s hypersonic glide flight test was but one of many high-risk, potentially high-payoff projects funded by DARPA. DARPA is America’s hidden innovation engine. Not so many know the name, but nearly everyone is familiar with the agency’s work: GPS receivers that slip into our pockets, interactive computer displays and the Internet itself.

DARPA only undertakes projects that have a good chance of failing — projects that few others dare to take on. Projects like hypersonic flight. The failure is not surprising; permission to fail is what has enabled the agency’s spectacular success over its 53-year history.

With the HTV-2, DARPA and its partners, including the Air Force and Lockheed Martin, were attempting to advance a technology that has captured the imagination of aerospace engineers since the 1960s. Hypersonic flight, that is flight powered by air-breathing engines at greater than five times the speed of sound, could enable airplanes to cross the United States in minutes rather than hours, to jet from one side of the globe to the other and back on the same day.

Read the full article on CNN.com.