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on August 3,The test, conducted by a com-pany called, Transformational Space Corporation, or t/Space, could signal a whole new direction for NASA, one with the potential有充分可能性的to put the agency's manned space program back on track more quickly and affordably than its primary plan can do alone .NASA grounded搁浅its space-shuttle fleet航天器in July following Discovery's near miss只差一点点with foam insulation泡沫绝缘材料flying off its external外部的fuel tank. Discovery's launch this year was to be NASA's triumphant成功的return to flight after the Columbia disaster. Instead it seemed to highlight强调突出, yet again, the shuttle's numerous design flaws缺陷and NASA's chronic慢性的inability to fix them.It is unclear when the shuttles will launch again, but ultimately最终NASA plans to replace the system with a multibillion-dollar craft called the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), which will travel to the moon as well as to the low-Earth-orbit domain范围of the shuttle. But what many think NASA needs is something it has never had: a no-frills没有机翼, backup支援spaceship it could field quickly to keep U.S. astronauts flying to the International Space Station (ISS) or on other low-Earth-orbit missions if a primary system encountered遭遇trouble in development or operation.Enter t/Space, which has been pushing exactly that strategy战略and which-in light of the trouble with Discovery's mission this summer and a sudden shift转变in NASA's previous all-eggs-in-one-basket approach to manned spaceflight-is now emerging as a dark horsenear-term短期的candidate候选to replace the shuttle.In the spring of 2004, the Space was little more than two guys with a vision of economical spaceflight. But founders David Gump and Gary Hudson proposed a radical基本的idea to NASA: Use contracts合同that NASA was offering for mere仅仅paper studies on next-generation spaceships to instead build actual, working hardware. In Gump's plan, incremental progress toward a fully functional vehicle would be rewarded with additional funding, allowing the project to move forward. "You're crazy," Hudson had told Gump when the latter first broached提议the idea.Nevertheless, Gump had sensed that change was in the air at the beleaguered困扰space agency. The traditional NASA system of awarding expensive "cost-plus"成本加利润contracts to a few big aerospace firms for its development work-contracts that stick the space agency with the bill even when the technologies prove unsuccessful-was showing cracks裂痕, and Gump saw an opening for himself and Hudson.Both men were veterans老练的of space start-ups: They knew how to put together a good proposal提案, but Hudson still didn't think much of their chances at NASA. In fact, he just sent in the proposal and assumed that would be the end of it.He didn't count注意on Michael Lembeck, head of the Requirements Division of NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. The directorate was tasked with developing systems both for sustaining支持the ISS and returning to the moon, and Lembeck and his colleagues had been looking for ways to start working with entrepreneurs企业with fresh ideas as well as the usual big aerospace contractors承包者. T/Space fit the bill perfectly.He and Exploration Systems chief engineer Garry Lyles sent Hudson and Gump's proposal straight to Craig Steidle, head of the Directorate, and talked him into signing off 签订on an initial起先$3-million study, with an option选择for another $3 million that was later also approved. "Within Exploration Systems, we have been pushing for new, innovative创新的ideas," Lembeck says, "and we cut t/Space loose to get out of the realm 领域of theory理论and into the practical."Some of what t/Space built with its $6 million in initial funding dominated an exhibit hall in Washington, D.C., at this past spring's International Space Development Conference. A full-scale mock-up全尺寸实物模型of the company's proposed Crew Transfer Vehicle, or CXV, filled the room, crowding the booksellers, space artists and other exhibitors to the edges. Attendees climbed through a rear hatch后面的舱门for tours guided by former NASA astronaut Jim Voss.The CXV comprises由。

组成three systems: the crew capsule乘员舱; a two-stage booster rocket助推火箭powered by propane丙烷and liquid oxygen; and a carrier plane the size of a Boeing 747, called, in typically understated含蓄的陈述t/Space fashion, the Very Large Aircraft (VLA), which will haul用力拉the capsule and the attached rocket to a launch altitude of up to 50,000 feet. The capsule's structural components组成and the VLA are to be built by entrepreneur and designer Burt Rutan's company Scaled Composites. The booster, QuickReach, will be a larger version of those under development for the Department of Defense国防部by Hudson's AirLaunch. Neither of the rocket's stages is reusable, but after parachuting依靠降落伞降落to a nose-first头向下landing in any convenient large body of water, the capsule will be refitted重新装备and flown again.The CXV has controls for a single pilot and seating for up to three additional crew members. It has compartments小隔间for supplies and equipment, and a zero-G commode马桶. Innovative fabric织物seats, can take loads of up to eight Gs, are as comfortable as hammocks吊床, and can be easily stowed收起to create more space after the craft reaches orbit. The seats have one other unique design feature: They swivel 旋转180 degrees. That's because the capsule will leave the atmosphere and reenter it nose-first, using a modernized ceramic/silicone-tile陶器的/硅酮heat-shielding隔热的system. The swiveling seats will allow the crew to take the G-forces of both launch and reentry in the most comfortable way-through their chests.Gump was also on hand at the conference to show off the technology and explain his unconventional development strategy计划. "What we're proposing to NASA," Gump said, "is a type of incremental增加的side bet" to the big aerospace effort to build America's next spaceship-that is, a scaled-down backup and supplement补充to the CEV. T/Space will just quietly build a backup machine more quickly and at a fraction小部分of the cost. "We are trying hard not to claim to be a space-shuttle replacement; we are a Soyuz联合replacement," Gump said, "a simple craft to ferry people up and back rather than a self-propelled自助推进space station like the shuttle."A series of three test flights put key elements of the CXV launch process through their paces. Scaled Composites pilot Chuck Coleman took a Rutan-designed research jet called Proteus up to altitude with a 23-percent-scale mock-up of the capsule and booster hooked悬挂to its belly腹部. When released, the mock-up deployed展开a drogueparachute小降落伞and tipped its tail toward the ground as it dropped. The drogue slowed the mock-up's rotation旋转to the vertical and stabilized稳定it until it fell, tail-first, perfectly straight. The actual CXV would have fired its first-stage motor at this point, powering through the upper atmosphere behind the carrier craft and into space.The mock-up simply plummeted急速跌落, as planned, until it slammed into the desert floor with a puff of dust. But it proved the viability可行性of a new method for air-launching spacecraft that was developed under the direction of t/Space engineer Marti Sarigul-Klijn, a former Navy test pilot.In a conventional传统的air launch, the rocket separates from the mother ship and fires while still horizontal, pitching up拉高under full power. But the launch loads are more severe, requiring heavier structures, and the wings add weight. Sarigul-Klijn's Trapeze-Lanyard Air Drop悬吊吊架发射法, or t/LAD, rotates the ship to the vertical by keeping its nose attached to the carrier plane with a tether系绳and a trapeze吊杠-like mechanism机械for a second after the drop.Raymond Sedwick, a consultant to NASA on spacecraft design, thinks t/Space has the right stuff because their capsule approach,is based on heritage传统and simplicity简易,Sedwick also likes t/Space's air-launch scenario设想because it allows NASA to move the launch point above or around bad weather or to pursue追求a more ideal launch trajectory轨道, and it gives astronauts a fighting chance to survive a rocket misfire失败or other launch emergency---they'll just separate the capsule from the booster and land with their parachutes as they would for reentry.Getting things to pan out成功may be less dependent on overcoming the technical challenges, which t/Space seems to have well in hand, than on a far more capricious多变的endeavor努力: winning continued support from NASA. But the company's prospects 前景brightened considerably相当的this summer, when, without fanfare预兆or formal announcement, NASA created a set of programs within Exploration Systems called Innovative Procurements. Program executive执行Brant Sponberg explains that the direction has come directly from NASA chief Michael Griffin to "try to bring new actors合作伙伴into what we do," to open NASA's manned space program to entrepreneurs, who will be paid fixed fees for building working hardware. Whereas companies like t/Space were once pursuing contracts to design and build NASA-owned-and-operated vehicles, they now have the option of being the owners and operators themselves. "The idea," Sponberg says, "is we can enter into a contract where we pay for milestones重要阶段, so someone has to do such-and-such诸如此类demonstration证明or such-and-such test. They have to do it on their own nickel, but if they're successful, then we'll pay for the milestone. Ultimately, the last milestone is getting to orbit or doing the final demonstration."Gump estimates估计that t/Space needs $500 million to complete its CXV by 2009 in a cost-conscious注重节约成本的program. That's about what a single space-shuttle launch costs, and it's a bargain. The company has already accomplished a lot on just its first $6 million.To take the next step, t/Space will have to win more money from NASA-a good bet, given考虑到the space agency's new direction-and also attract it from private investors. One investor in particular has a pressing need for a commercial orbital spaceship: Robert Bigelow, Bigelow says he's prepared to buy an orbital spaceship and that he's started talks with several companies, although he won't yet say whether he favors t/Space.Gump says t/Space will always be "commercial to our core核心" and that it will pursue private space-tourism flights as aggressively as it does governmental work. But as NASA struggles under a mandate命令from President Bush to keep the space shuttles on life support until 2010, complete the half-built International Space Station, and somehow send people back to the moon and then on to Mars at the same time-all without significant additional funding from Congress-it faces a hard road. T/Space just might provide a solution to some of its problems.。