Tragedy Doesn’t Alter Plans for Space Travel

Mark Johnson had turned on his car radio and was listening to the coverage of the shuttle take-off when, like many, he was shaken by announcements of the explosion that killed seven space travelers, including schoolteacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe.

But unlike most, Johnson, 39, had reason to feel an extra shock. In October, the Anaheim entrepreneur had paid $5,000 (of the total $52,000 fare) to reserve a seat on the first private space flight scheduled six years from now.

Tuesday’s tragedy, he said, left him stunned but undaunted.

“I still fully intend to go on it,” Johnson said. “It’s a tragedy of the first magnitude, but it doesn’t change the validity of the space program.

“In early morning rush-hour traffic, the statistics aren’t too good,” said Johnson, speaking Tuesday from a car phone while en route to a morning meeting. “It’s 100 times safer to fly in any form of aircraft than to drive up this (the Santa Ana) freeway.”

The commercial space shuttle is a joint effort of the Seattle-based Society Expeditions and Pacific American Launch Systems in Redwood City. In the project--called Project Space Voyage--a new 20-passenger spacecraft developed by Pacific American Launch Systems will carry citizens into space for 8- to 12-hour trips.

So far, 200 people worldwide have paid the required $5,000 deposit for the inaugural and subsequent flights, said Colette Bevis, project director for Society Expeditions. (The balance is due one year before departure.) Stanford University has chartered a complete flight for its alumni group, she said.

Two Space Ships

Society Expeditions has contracted for two space ships, which will be tested by the Department of Transportation before launching at Vandenberg Air Force Base with support from the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, she said.

Qualifications for space tourists, according to Johnson, are “moderately good health, a week of training and signing releases to absolve agencies of liability.” The launch date, he said, is Oct. 12, 1992--the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America.

Bevis said officials of the Seattle chartering company, which schedules group excursions to such exotic locales as Antarctica and the North Pole, do not expect the explosion to have an adverse effect on their project. The company received no cancellations Tuesday. Rather, 14 people--including Johnson--called in to reconfirm their reservations, Bevis said.

‘A Terrible Disaster’

Society Expeditions President T. C. Schwartz said in a telephone interview Tuesday: “It’s a terrible disaster to lose seven people in a violent way. . . . We have to look at this in a sober way but a realistic way.

“Space is not a dangerous place to go. What is dangerous is traveling in any man-made machine,” Schwartz said. Fifty thousand people die each year in car accidents and several thousand in airplane accidents, he added.

“Our objective with Project Space Voyage is to make things as safe as traveling on an airplane or safer.”

The loss of the space shuttle Challenger, he said, does not affect the private project directly because the project is not using space shuttle technology but is developing a new technology, he said. Unlike the shuttle, Pacific American Launch Systems’ spaceship, called Phoenix E, is a wingless, single-stage craft that lands vertically, he said.

‘Simpler Is Safer’

It also uses an all-liquid propulsion system rather than the shuttle’s mixed solid booster and liquid system. It will be significant if investigations determine that the solid booster system was at fault in the explosion, Schwartz said. “The space shuttle is a wonderful prototype,” Schwartz said. “We need something that is simple and easier to operate. Simpler is safer.”

The new spaceships will be required to pass as-yet unwritten “strict standards” by the Department of Transportation in cooperation with insurance companies and the designers, Schwartz said.

Johnson, who owns a hospital pharmacy specialty product firm as well as his own construction company, said only the cancellation of the 1992 flight will stop him from going.

A self-described “relatively successful, eccentric entrepreneur,” Johnson said the space trip was the natural outgrowth of his adventures and travels alone and with his two sons: Wayne, 18, and Mark, 16.

Since the boys were 8 and 6, Johnson said, he has been taking them--one at a time--on adventure trips. They have been to the outback of Australia, to the rapids of the Colorado River, jet skiing in Hawaii and snow skiing in Switzerland. Three years ago, he went with Mark to the North Pole through Society Expeditions. This spring, he said, he plans to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with one of his sons.

The Last Frontier

Johnson himself has traveled to China three times. He said he flies a jet helicopter and drives three cars: a Ferrari, a Cadillac and a Blazer.

“There are not too many things I want to do that I haven’t done,” he said. “I don’t need more money, I don’t need a yacht or a Lear jet, so it comes out in adventure travel.” Space, he said, was his own personal last frontier.

“At this point in our history, it seems to be the ultimate challenge.”

Johnson said he did not sign his sons up for the flight because of the expense.

Johnson never thought that the prospect of traveling in space was without risk. But, he said, “the track record of NASA has been so outstanding for so long, to expect 100% perfection is unreasonable. From a technical standpoint, (the program) had perfection longer than any human endeavor could expect.

“If everyone throughout history who had done things of a unique or precedent-setting nature had been so cautious, probably not much would have been accomplished or discovered.”

Society Expeditions has placed all deposit money in an escrow account, Bevis said. Those who signed up may get their money back up until a year before the launch, she said.

“I’m planning on the date,” Johnson said. “Assuming I make it up the freeway. . . .”