Launch Industry in California: ‘All Systems Maybe’

Scattered almost invisibly across 98,000 acres of central coastal scrubland, the gawky metal towers, massive cement platforms and other accouterments of the rocket-launching operations at this vast military outpost represent the military-industrial complex at its finest.

Thousands of engineers and technicians, working mostly for the Air Force and for Boeing and Lockheed Martin, put together the delicate mixture of electronics, sheet metal and explosive rocket fuel that makes it possible to lift nuclear warheads--or communications satellites--into the sky.

There is billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure: eight launch sites, for starters, and rocket assembly buildings and railroad tracks and a radar tracking system that can see much of the Eastern Pacific.

So the question I kept asking myself as I toured the base recently was: Is this any place for entrepreneurship?

The question is important, because the state of California is renewing its efforts to encourage the development of a commercial space industry on the central coast, partly in response to competition from other states and other countries. It’s an effort that seems like a good idea in theory, but carries lots of risks in practice.

The theory sounds right because a new generation of communications satellites is creating enormous demand for satellite-launching capabilities.

An international consortium, led by Motorola, is building a 66-satellite system called Iridium to provide wireless phone service anywhere on the planet. (Five of the satellites were launched by a Boeing Delta rocket here late last month.) About half a dozen other groups, including one backed by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and cellular telephone mogul Craig McCaw, have plans for massive satellite “constellations” for phone and data services.

Because Vandenberg sits at a bend in the coastline, a rocket fired south from the base flies over nothing but water until it reaches Antarctica--making it a very good spot for putting satellites into the polar orbit required by most of the new communications systems.

There is, however, a lot of competition for satellite launches of all kinds. Arianespace, a European consortium, is the world leader, and Russia and China--building on their military missile capabilities--are major players. Domestically, there’s Cape Canaveral in Florida, and Kodiak Island in Alaska and even sites in Virginia and New Mexico that hope to get in on the action. Boeing is modifying an oil-drilling platform to serve as a mobile, sea-based launch platform based in Long Beach.

California officials, and especially local politicians in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, are eager to assure that Vandenberg gets its share. They want to support development of cheaper launch vehicles and facilities, and help jump-start futuristic projects such as those aimed at space tourism.

To this end, a nonprofit group called the Western Commercial Space Center was formed in 1992 and designated as the California Spaceport Authority by the state Department of Trade and Commerce. The aim was to support commercial space initiatives at Vandenberg, and provide a vehicle by which the state might match Air Force and NASA space commercialization grants.

The group and its for-profit affiliate negotiated a lease on a multibillion-dollar Vandenberg launch complex that was built for the space shuttle but never used--the post-Challenger revamp of the shuttle program cut out Vandenberg, dealing a huge blow to the local economy--and began developing a private satellite preparation and launch facility.

But a dispute broke out over whether WCSC was unfairly favoring its affiliate in the competition for state and federal grants. Another nonprofit entity, the California Space Technology Alliance, emerged on the scene. Legislation passed last month in Sacramento was supposed to clarify the situation, but instead produced an illogical compromise: CSTA has authority over something called the California Space Flight Competitive Grant Program, and WCSC is given authority over the Highway to Space Competitive Grant Program. The descriptions of the two programs’ objectives are identical.

Fortunately, there isn’t much money involved at the moment. Each group will get $200,000 for operating expenses and $500,000 to disburse as grant funds--and the final decision on who gets that money will actually be made by the Trade and Commerce agency.

Now, consider all this in the context of an industry that by its very nature is dominated by big business and the military. The newest launch pad at Vandenberg, built by Lockheed Martin for the Air Force, cost a cool $240 million. The commercial launches at the base don’t contribute a penny to the enormous overhead costs: Under federal rules, they have to pay only the “direct costs” imposed on the launch site operators--the Air Force and NASA.

While private ventures--with help from government grants--have carved out a role in the business of preparing satellites for launch and developing small launch vehicles, it’s not clear that a commercially funded launch site that really paid its own way would be viable. The shuttle site project has financial backing from ITT--in addition to the grants that helped get it going--but work is stalled for the moment as the company awaits firm launch commitments.

The communications companies, the Air Force and NASA all support commercial initiatives that might reduce launch costs and expand capacity. Taxpayers would benefit if military payloads and scientific missions could be lofted more cheaply. But there is a clear danger of government-backed commercial space initiatives descending into boondoggles that benefit a few well-connected companies.

The final irony, of course, is that the big defense contractors that dominate the commercial space arena are just as happy to work with their erstwhile enemies--the Russians and the Ukrainians and the Chinese--as they are to support a strong industry in California.

There’s no doubt that Vandenberg, as well as Edwards Air Force Base and a few other facilities, is an important asset, and that the space business represents a big opportunity for California. But Andrea Seastrand, the former congresswoman who heads the California Space Technology Alliance, and other commercial space advocates have their work cut out for them in demonstrating that locally based public-private partnerships are effective vehicles for promoting this most unusual industry.

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Jonathan Weber (jonathan.weber@latimes.com) is editor of The Cutting Edge.