One small step.

Byline: The Register-Guard

The man who organized the X Prize called Burt Rutan, the man who won it, "a furry mammal among the dinosaurs of the aerospace industry." The idea is that Rutan's SpaceShipOne has opened a new era of space travel - one in which private spacecraft will leave NASA and other government-run space agencies far behind. It is just as likely, however, that entrepreneurs will encounter the same problems that have stalled NASA's manned spaceflight program.

SpaceShipOne flew higher than 100 kilometers twice in a two-week period to win the X Prize. The prize was established to encourage the development of a private, reusable vehicle capable of reaching the threshold of outer space.

But Monday's success was not particularly encouraging as the first step toward a commercially viable manned space industry. The X Prize is worth $10 million; Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen provided Rutan with twice that much to finance SpaceShipOne.

Another billionaire, Richard Branson, has ordered five larger versions of SpaceShipOne for his new company, Virgin Galactic, and hopes to begin offering tourist flights to space in 2007. Rides would cost $190,000. Monday's flight detached from its launch plane at 45,000 feet, rocketed skyward for 90 seconds, reached a peak altitude of nearly 70 miles, then glided to a landing. The total elapsed time between separation and landing was 24 minutes, which would work out to nearly $8,000 a minute.

The flights, though brief, would undoubtedly be exciting. Passengers would experience intense G-forces on the way up and a period of weightlessness at the top. They'd see a curved horizon, with the blackness of space above. There may well be enough rich adventurers to keep Branson's fleet busy. But if the primary purpose of the new commercial space industry is to provide a few minutes of entertainment for thrill-seekers, its future will be limited.

To become more than a novelty, private spacefaring companies will have to follow the path of the aviation industry and provide a useful service. Such a service would probably require orbital flights, which are an order of magnitude beyond what SpaceShipOne achieved. NASA - which Rutan called "the other space agency" - hasn't found a way to solve the economic problems of manned orbital flight. Commercial launches of unmanned satellites into orbit, meanwhile, have become routine, and NASA has scored spectacular and cost-effective successes with robot spacecraft throughout the solar system.

Perhaps SpaceShipOne will spawn an industry that will shoulder aside NASA and other government-supported space programs. Or it may be that entrepreneurs will encounter the same obstacles that explain why NASA's greatest triumphs in manned spaceflight are in the past: Putting people into space is expensive, and the most useful jobs in space can be done by machines. Winning the X Prize may prove to be a small step indeed.