State,-capital-and-spaceships-A-terrestrial-geography-of-space-tourism.pdf

state capital and spaceships a terrestrial geography of space tourism jason beery geography school of environment and development arthur lewis building university of manchester manchester m13 9pl uk a r t i c l ei n f o article history received 25 february 2010 received in revised form 27 july 2011 available online 27 august 2011 keywords outer space space tourism political economy privatization regional geography a b s t r a c t over the past decade there has been a signifi cant structural and geographical change in space travel fol lowing policy budgetary and regulatory changes in the united states space travel may now be conducted by private companies this privatization has also led to some geographical competition and shifts between states within the us in this paper i respond to macdonald s 2007 call for more critical geog raphies of outer space activity building from his suggestion that we look more closely at the ways in which outer space activity is constituted by numerous familiar operations with respect to the practices of international relations and war and to the basic infrastructural maintenance of the state and the lives of its citizenry this paper explores why the us government has allowed for private space travel and why this privatization drove some states in the us to invest heavily in such a nascent industry sector it argues that federal and state governments both saw private space travel as a means to fulfi ll their basic infra structural maintenance with regard to economic expansion development and competitiveness the paper analyses these processes through the development of space tourism in doing so it provides more detail and geographical context to dickens and ormrod s 2007 overview of the connections between outer space and the circuits of capital it also demonstrates the many familiar political economic pro cesses involved in the privatization of space travel and as such the possibilities for further critical geog raphies of space activity 2011 elsevier ltd all rights reserved 1 introduction in his paper anti astropolitik outer space and the orbit of geography macdonald discusses classical geopolitical imagina tions of outer space forms of satellite surveillance and connections between outer space and geography expanding from his critique of the realpolitik discourses he writes that as critical geographers we need to think about the contest for outer space as being consti tutive of numerous familiar operations not only in respect of inter national relations and the conduct of war but also to the basic infrastructural maintenance of the state and to the lives of its cit izenry 2007 pp 610 611 while he appears to write this in the context of foucaultian biopower he nonetheless goes on to suggest that economic geographies of outer space could also be a rich avenue of inquiry 2007 p 611 this paper draws these two suggestions together by examining the development of space tourism in the context of the growing commercial space fl ight industry in the united states rather than focusing on biopower surveillance and realpolitik this paper deals with the political economic dimensions of private space activity in particular it uses sub orbital space tourism as a way to get at the political economic and geographical changes already taking place even though these sub orbital tours have yet to occur during the middle of the past decade sub orbital space tourism was seen as the most quickly achievable form of private space travel activity as such it came to be an activity at the heart of competition over regional development in what follows i argue that space tourism is both part of the larger process of the commercialization of space conducted for the basic infrastructural maintenance of the federal state and central to the drive of several states to maintain their basic infra structures through the construction of spaceports and the creation of new aerospace industry clusters by basic infrastructural main tenance here i mean those roles and tasks that states at all scales take on in order to promote economic growth and stability and ensure the reproduction of the political economic system in argu ing this i follow macdonald s suggestion that we begin to think systematically about some of the concrete expressions of outer space in the making of earthly geographies 2007 p 610 as i explain some of these expressions come through federal budget ary and regulatory changes changes in technology and through the construction of spaceports to serve the commercial space tour ism industry initially and the wider private aerospace industry as it develops while i focus on these processes largely in terms of space tour ism other private space travel activities are not entirely separate although there are signifi cant differences such as that space tourism activities do not yet involve competition with estab lished aerospace companies over government contracts space 0016 7185 see front matter 2011 elsevier ltd all rights reserved doi 10 1016 j geoforum 2011 07 013 tel 1 412 478 9152 e mail address jason beery postgrad manchester ac uk geoforum 43 2012 25 34 contents lists available at sciencedirect geoforum journal homepage tourism entrepreneurs and other commercial space entrepreneurs argued along the same lines in favor of privatization the similari ties will become clear in later sections this emphasis on space tourism however is not to lessen in any way the signifi cance of these other companies which stand to substantially alter the way the usgovernment organizes andconducts its space activities the empirical information in this paper derives from close readings of public statements of private companies and public institutions and from the analysis of us government documents and transcripts of congressional hearings all of the quotations used here are those that have been quoted or that have appeared in the case of the transcripts in these documents and in other news and internet journal pieces in what follows this paper fi rst provides a brief and current history of space tourism and private space activity it then discusses space tourism within the context of dickens and ormrod s 2007 overview of connections between space and political economics and other literature on tourism geography economic geography and political economy the rest of the article is divided into two main parts the fi rst explains the drive towards private space travel over the past decade it discusses both the shifts in policy and regulation in the federal government and the perspectives of some of the aerospace entre preneurs on the existing public private organization of space activities the second main part analyzes how the rise of private space travel and the technological changes that accompanied it led to competition in the middle of this past decade between states within the us over becoming future centers of the commer cial space industry the fi nal section refl ects on the implications and importance of these changes for understanding the terrestrial political economy of space activities it also suggests some further possible avenues of geographical political economic research into space activities 2 a brief history in autumn 2004 an aerospace company named scaled compos ites won the ansari x prize a privately funded competition to stimulate technological innovation through monetary awards to win this competition scaled composites owned by engineer burt rutan and fi nanced by microsoft co founder paul allen success fully designed and fl ew an occupied vehicle into space twice within 2 weeks without any government fi nancial support in so doing it demonstrated that a privately owned company using only private funding could construct a vehicle capable of traveling to space it also challenged the existing role of the state and large aerospace companies in access to space this event was so important for the development of the private space travel industry that the vehi cle that made the journey spaceshipone now hangs prominently in the foyer to the united states national aeronautics and space museum while the x prize victory garnered only limited public attention at the time it did not go unnoticed by those companies interested in the potential of private space travel activities shortly after win ning the competition scaled composites owner burt rutan signed an agreement with richard branson to develop vehicles based on spaceshipone for branson s new space tourism company virgin galactic this company was just one of several companies during the middle of the past decade vying to lead the development of a new space tourism industry other companies included space adventures rocketplane ownedbyamericanbusinessman george french blue origin owned by amazon founder jeff bezos and planetspace though there were several different companies involved the tours the companies envisioned and planned were all similar to each other but extremely different from the space tours that had gone before in those tours undertaken by only a handful of indi viduals so far the tourist paid approximately 20 million for a 10 day trip aboard the international space station and travel to and from on russian state owned soyuz rockets in these envi sioned tours after paying between 100 000 and 200 000 each tourist would travel to a spaceport to spend up to 1 week training for their trip following their training they would travel to space in a newly and privately designed vehicle for up to 3 hours during their journey they would ascend to an altitude over 100 km above earth experience several minutes of weightlessness and be able to view earth from space their vehicles would then return to the spaceport from which they launched rocketplane global 2007 space adventures 2010 virgin galactic 2009a b in the middle of the decade promoting new spaceports seemed to be all the rage foreseeing great economic potential private space companies and government legislators saw an opportunity to materially reconfi gure the aerospace landscape by either reha bilitating old air fi elds see dickens and ormrod 2010 or by con structing entirely new facilities distinct from existing space launch facilities these spaceports were designed to be used by space tourism and by other smaller companies and not directly by the government the state of new mexico agreed to construct a 200 million spaceport with virgin galactic as the main tenant virgin galactic also looked into the possibility of also using a spaceport in sweden spaceport sweden 2008 space adventures sought funding to construct spaceports in the united arab emirates and singapore msnbc 2006 david 2006d blueorigin applied for a license to fl y out of a to be constructed west texas spaceport foust 2006 rocketplane planned to fl y out of a spaceport in oklahoma that was once a military airfi eld rocketplane global 2007 additionally other private space ventures are underway two stand out first the aerospace company spacex owned by elon musk the developer of paypal is developing new space transporta tion vehicles in 2008 spacex won one of two nasa contracts worth potentially 3 1 billion for the construction of rockets and capsules and a minimum of 12 fl ights space exploration technol ogies corp 2010 over the older established aerospace companies that have been contracting with nasa for decades many in the space community saw this as a huge achievement this paper pro vides a bit more context for spacex s success despite the paper s emphasis on space tourism at the time of writing spacex has yet to conduct any services for nasa however test fl ights of their falcon rocket and dragon capsule have been successful sec ond robert bigelow founder and owner of the budget suites hotel chain is developing an orbital space capsule that he hopes to have in orbit within the next few years in july 2007 his company bige low aerospace launched and deployed in orbit with success a second replica space capsule the fi rst generation capsule is still in orbit bigelow foresees countries that are interested in develop ing their space programs and corporations interested in micrograv ity research as the main market for these capsules while the technology of the space capsule is progressing no new commercial technology yet exists that allows individuals to reach an orbiting research facility to try to solve this problem bigelow had been sponsoring a 50 million prize competition but later dropped this competition to offer instead a 760 million contract for such a vehicle and eight successful fl ights to the capsule bigelow aerospace 2010a bigelow aerospace 2010b reuters 2004 shiga 2007 since the middle of the decade though the development of the private space travel industry has unsurprisingly not lived up to earlier expectations several space tourism companies either no longer exist such as rocketplane or have shifted their focus and partner with the established fi rms like planetspace has also it 26j beery geoforum 43 2012 25 34 appears that little or no progress has been made on the develop mentof proposed spaceportsinoklahoma wisconsin texas singa pore or the uae nonetheless some signifi cant development has occurred virgin galactic now plans to start its tours beginning in the next few years and the construction of spaceport america in new mexico is due to be completed in 2011 spacex bigelow aero space and several other small companies continue to develop their technology additionally through funding and specifi c programs and goals recent nasa budgets have sought to increase the amount of contracting with private companies in activities the us govern ment has historically conducted exclusively these activities indicate that a political economic and spatial transformation of human engagement with outer space is cur rently underway private space travel is not something far fetched it is very real and quite signifi cant 3 space tourism and geographical political economy the connections between tourism geography economic geogra phy and political economy have been well articulated as britton 1991 explains understanding the production of tourism requires understanding the dynamics of capitalist production as an eco nomic activity tourism involves the production of products both tangible and intangible the marketing and selling of those prod ucts the quest for and accumulation of profi t the reinvestment of profi t into the production of new products and the commodifi cation of a social activity tourism consists of and is shaped by the same actors in any other economic activity fi rms investors entrepreneurs markets states and consumers here large entre preneurial monetary investment has supported entrepreneurial aerospace design and manufacturing and many of the entrepre neurs themselves strongly promoted both technological and regu latory changes to advance their investments furthermore the state as with other economic activities greatly affects the growth of tourism both spatially and tempo rally and thus brings about certain political social economic and environmental outcomes it does so through any number of roles including as regulator as coordinator of economic tourist activ ity amongst suppliers as marketer of place as provider of incentives for investment and as supporter of some fi nancially necessary inputs such as infrastructure particularly important in what follows as regulator the state determines the limits of activ ity conducted by other economic actors it remains outside of the circuits of capital but provides for a certain environment in which capitalist production may proceed as economic developer states intervene in the production process by assisting fi rms in their abil ity to complete the circuits of capital while regulation can be a part of this role by relaxing or passing laws that might stimulate a business friendly environment states also act by providing monetary assistance or tangible assets to fi rms britton 1991 ioannides and debbage 1998 shaw and williams 2002 1994 recognizing the potential of tourism to generate and promote economic development states may use tourism as a means to im prove economic competitiveness and to support projects with high capital costs and involving new technology among other goals hall and jenkins 2004 pp 527 528 hall 1998 p 217 sees tourism as most appropriately used as a part of a larger more diverse development strategy furthermore these development strategies that incorporate tourism are increasingly becoming related to broader government strategies with respect to trade and promotion at both national and regional levels hall and jenkins 2004 p 526 indeed space tourism only forms part of both the federal government and states broader development strategies though those strategies differ between the scales for the federal government the strategy recognizes the importance of private space travel to its domestic and international political and economic agendas while the state governments see their development as central to local economic development and to positioning domestically and globally as the centers of the new aerospace industry in these ways as i explain below the privatiza tion of space travel is rooted in broad attempts by states at various scales to achieve the economic development that forms part of the basic infrastructural maintenance of states in their book on the sociology of outer space dickens and ormrod 2007 address some of the connections between space the state and economics they provide an overview of multiple space activities and suggest a relationship between investment in space tourism among other areas harvey s circuits of capital 2006 1982 and spatial fi xes in outer space after summarizing the circuits of capital generally dickens and ormrod explain how each of those circuits applies to space activity they rightly identify how some entrepreneurs mentioned in the previous section have invested capital generated