In the late-1990s film Gattaca, employment by the space agency named in the film’s title
is a highly-prized future profession. The film’s plot is based on obtaining a coveted
crew slot on a mission to Titan, one of the moons orbiting Saturn. The film’s
launch images convey the beauty of liftoff, but also a sense that here in the
future, the sight of rockets arcing into the skies above population centers is
a symbol of progress attained.
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| Off to a Saturn moon in Gattaca. |
For many years significant spaceflight missions originating
from United States soil began their climbs “uphill” from launch pads in either
Florida or California. But now, reflective of the Gattaca imagery, the launch site palette of 2013 is expanding.
Proof of this was easy to spot the night of September 6,
when the night skies of the 11 o’clock hour were brightened by a Minotaur V rocket
accelerating to a velocity approaching two thousand miles per hour, passing
through an area of maximum dynamic pressure 38 seconds after leaving the launch
pad.
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| The rocket’s red glare over Manhattan, September 6, 2013. |
The Minotaur – bearing the eight-foot-tall Lunar Atmosphere
and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) lunar studies vehicle – began its sojourn
over the Atlantic Ocean not from venerable Kennedy Space Center or Cape
Canaveral, but from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island in coastal
Virginia. Though Wallops has been the site of origin for several significant
launches in recent years, the tremendous visibility of LADEE’s journey to the
moon – easily seen by millions in the densely-populated Mid-Atlantic region – has
brought a new focus on Virginia’s spaceflight activities.
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| Virgin Galactic test flight over California’s Mojave Desert, September 4, 2013. |
Further to the west, operations are intensifying at
Spaceport America, located in a New Mexico desert basin. This will be the operational
inception point of Virgin Galactic’s suborbital passenger venture. Earlier last
week, Virgin Galactic took another big step toward launching six-passenger
crews into space with another successful test flight, this one taking place
over the Mojave Desert. Spaceport Abu Dhabi is in the planning stages, although
in truth the simplified launch methodology being employed by Richard Branson’s
firm could be supported by myriad sites.
With increasing launch frequency on the board – including
Orbital Science’s first attempt at an International Space Station resupply
mission scheduled for a Wallops liftoff on September 17 – perhaps the future depicted
in films like Gattaca is finally
dawning.
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