Space Florida hosts conf. at Cape

A year after its creation, Space Florida stepped up a coordinated effort to attract the commercial space industry to Brevard County by hosting a commercial space conference focusing on bringing new spacecraft and jobs to Brevard County.

The conference introduced four leading space industry pioneers to about 50 state officials and space industry insiders.

These entrepreneurs have attracted millions in investment, said Frank A. DiBello, chairman and CEO of ITV Group Inc.

"These guys are all very real because money's following them."

With the shuttle program ending in 2010, and a huge budget deficit promising to prevent NASA's budget from growing, private industry could step in to save some 3,000 to 5,000 jobs that could be lost when the shuttle stops flying.

Patti Grace Smith, associate administrator for commercial space transportation with the Federal Aviation Administration, said Florida should hurry its efforts to help space entrepreneurs.

"Step it up," Smith said. "The competition is getting stiffer. Get some granting going."

THE ENTREPRENEURS:

Elon Musk, Internet tycoon, has launched two rockets with limited success. Nevertheless, he has 370 employees and expects to have a Falcon 9 rocket on Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral by the end of next year.

His third rocket will launch early next year, and he said expects to launch five Falcon 1 and seven Falcon 9 rockets within the next 2.5 years.

He plans to charge $35 million to launch a satellite on his Falcon 9 rocket, about half what the Russians charge.

"We're a true commercial company," he said.

An innovator, he has shortcutted old methods of rocket launching.

"It's worth considering whether the rules makes sense," he said.

Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE foundation, is overseeing the Google Lunar X PRIZE. Some $30 million is offered to any private group that lands a mechanized rover on the moon and returns photos to Earth.

More than 260 groups have registered to compete for the prize.

Diamandis' company also operates Zero-G, which offers its clients some 25 seconds of weightlessness at a time aboard two 727 aircraft.

"You fly like in your dreams," he said.

Diamandis is also creating the "Rocket Racing League," which he called NASCAR for the 22nd "Century."

Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace, a contractor and hotel owner, has funded the launch of two flexible space habitats on Russian rockets.

The company this week signed a letter of intent to work with with Space Florida to help attract commercial rockets to Cape Canaveral. Bigelow is willing to invest $100 million in the effort.

Robert Bigelow believes that the biotechnical space industry is the source of future profits, said company attorney Michael Gold, who spoke at the conference.

"That's where this industry will be sustained," said Gold.

Jeff Greason, president of XCOR Aerospace, leads a California company designing a rocket from the engine up. It has developed several new rocket engines that might be used by other companies.

"It's not enough to create a company, we need to create an industry," said Greason, who leads the 35 employees of XCOR.

The company plans to build a suborbital space plane that can carry a pilot and passenger, take off horizontally and glide back to earth.

The runway at the KSC's shuttle landing facility could be a likely spot from which to launch this venture.

"All the preliminaries are being done so we can build our vehicles, said Greason.