Who needs NASA?

I was happy to see Sacramento inventor John Powell and friends at JP Aerospace get the spotlight last week with another of their DIY space shots.

You can probably still see the segment over at News10’s website. The Rancho Cordova-based company partnered with Samsung to send a Galaxy phone up to the edge of space—by balloon—and take video of the screen as folks around the world sent text messages to the phone.

It’s not repairing the Hubble Space Telescope or anything, but it’s good publicity, and I love the idea of “the other space program,” as JP bills itself, in our backyard. The more space programs the better, I say, especially as our national space effort shrinks back.

SN&R profiled JP Aerospace years ago (see “Never mind NASA”; SN&R Feature; February 26, 2004) in the days before the Obama administration and the decision to abandon development of a new manned space vehicle after the shuttle fleet was mothballed, after 30 years dicking around in low-Earth orbit. Democrats.

Powell’s ultimate goal is giant inflatable airships that float at the edge of space and use electric ion engines to reach orbit—and beyond. The company’s other tag line is “Cheap, bulk, safe access to space.”

I have no idea whether it’ll get there, but JP Aerospace is hardly the only space explorer/entrepreneur outfit looking to commercialize space flight. There’s Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X Prize in 2004 for being the first privately manned vehicle to reach space (about 62 miles up), and Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic planes—all at the other end of the spectrum from Powell’s scrappy do-it-yourself balloon craft.

The alt-space movement is also getting a boost from Google, which is offering $30 million to the first private group to put a robot on the moon. Meanwhile, India and Pakistan are developing their own manned programs. And China says it’s shooting for an unmanned moon landing in 2013, and a taikonaut on the moon by 2025.

I’ll believe it when I see it. But our own moon program once showed that a lot can happen in a decade. Or, as NASA’s manned space program has shown in more recent decades, a lot can not happen.

Compiled from Snog.