Word: launching
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Much smaller U.S. operators are also reaching for the skies. Robert Truax, a former Navy engineer, built a rocket in his Saratoga, Calif., backyard four years ago, and hopes to be the first private businessman to launch commercial cargo into space, possibly from Cape Canaveral. Entrepreneur George Koopman's Menlo Park, Calif., firm, American Rocket, is conducting flight tests at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. Like Truax, Koopman says the hardest part about starting a space-transport firm is raising enough money. Says he: "I'm still out there beating the bushes for funds...
Next year Great Wall plans to launch its first commercial payload, a Westar 6-S communications satellite for New York-based Terasat. It will transmit television programming and business data for Western Union and other users. The Chinese have also signed an agreement to launch a Swedish satellite, and are holding talks with 17 other nations. For customers who are concerned that China may copy the technology in satellites, Great Wall suggests that they package the payload in a sealed container and send along representatives to escort the cargo to the launch site...
Japan is off to a slow start as a result of the American ingredients in its rockets. Licensing agreements allow the Japanese to launch their own satellites, but not to go into the business of launching payloads for other countries. That situation will soon change. Japan hopes to replace all American-made parts in its rockets with homemade hardware by 1992, clearing the way for its entry into the commercial launch business...
...that time the field could be overcrowded. Although the number of Western commercial satellite launches -- about 25 a year before the shuttle accident -- is expected to return to that level by 1992, the number of competitors who are eager to launch them is growing rapidly. Observes Morton Langer, who follows aerospace companies for the investment firm Bear, Sterns: "The fundamental question facing the commercial launchers is whether there will be enough satellite launches to support all the companies that have entered the business. Right now there is more romance than answers...
...size of the business, American space companies may need some kind of federal assistance to stay in the race. Space programs are matters of national prestige, and all foreign space operators enjoy generous government subsidies. Help from Washington might take the form of giving American firms preference on Government launch business and space-support services...