Rocket man: James Maser and Sea Launch Co. have captured a share of the satellite launch business blasting off from a remote Pacific Ocean platform.

JAMES Maser has the kind of job that any Apollo-era kid could only dream about: managing the operations of Sea Launch Co. LLC, the Long Beach-based company that blasts commercial satellites into space from a sea-based platform on the equator. The 24,000-ton converted North Sea oil rig is docked at the Port of Long Beach and propels itself for every launch to a spot in the Pacific 1,400 miles south of Hawaii. Maser joined Sea Launch in 1998 after 13 years at McDonnell Douglas Corp. and Boeing Co., where he rose to be chief engineer of the Delta III rocket program. The company was formed by Boeing and its Russian, Ukrainian and Norwegian partners looking to grab a piece of the commercial satellite launch market through its unique equatorial sea launches. Today, Sea Launch has about a third of the market for commercial satellite launches. The company's customers include XM Satellite Radio and EchoStar Satellite LLC, which operates the Dish Network. And just last month it launched the heaviest commercial payload ever, a 13,376-pound Boeing 702 satellite for DirecTV Group Inc. designed to support high-definition television transmissions.

Question: What's the advantage of launching from the equator?

Answer: We launch geo-synchronous satellites, which means the satellite stays stationary over a point on the earth. The only place you can keep a satellite stationary over the earth is if it is orbiting the earth on the equatorial plane. The most efficient place to launch a satellite into that plane is from the equator. Otherwise, if you launch off the equator, the satellite ends up orbiting the earth at an angle to the equator. Then you have to use a bunch of (propellant) to straighten that out. The more propellant they have on board, the longer the life of a satellite.

Q: Did you ever make the trip down to the equator?

A: Twice when I was the chief engineer.

Q: What is that like?

A: Everybody goes out on the ships and comes back on the ships. It takes the platform, which is the slower of the two, about 10 days to get down there. The command ship takes about a week.

Q: So you take everything you need on the platform and one command ship?

A: We take everything with us. We never touch a foreign port. We bring everything the rocket uses so we bring our own liquid oxygen, our own kerosene--that's the fuel that the rocket uses. We bring a spare rocket along in case we need to change a part on the flight rocket.

Q: What happens if there are choppy seas?

A: We've had some fairly high seas--four- to six-meter waves--on the way to or from the equator. But these ships and the flight hardware on board are designed for those kinds of conditions. But as we get into the equator, it's an area that is called "the doldrums." Our launch site has some of the best weather conditions in the world.

Q: What happens when you get down there?

A: We spent four days on the equator. You're there with customers and partners. You conduct launch rehearsal on the way down. You want to make sure you're working well as a team so we do simulated launches.

Q: Sounds pretty neat.

A: Inside the command ship, we have a launch control center. It's where all the lead technical people are sitting. It's just like when you see NASA shuttle launches; they show guys sitting in front of computers in a couple of rows. We're set up much the same way, with a U.S. side and a Russian-Ukrainian side. The command ship is positioned three miles away from the launch platform (which is) unmanned at the time of launch. We watch it on video.

Q: You are in the middle of nowhere. How does that feel?

A: It's kind of ironic but we're not in the middle of nowhere. Because there are commercial communications satellites that are already up there, we are able to stay connected to the world. We have telephones, e-mail and the Internet. We e-mail photos back and forth. It feels more like being on a business trip where you can't leave the hotel.

Q: There was a lot of skepticism when the company started. Why was that?

A: The skepticism was how a purely commercial start-up could compete against these established providers with strong governmental support. Titan and Atlas were part of what is now Lockheed Martin and Delta was part of McDonnell Douglas. There is Arianespace, which is the European launcher. There was Long March by the Chinese. (Then) there is doing it on a platform in the middle of the equator in the middle of nowhere, with the complexity of integrating an international launch team and an international launch vehicle.

Q: So who does what?

A: The Russians build our third stage of the rocket, which puts the spacecraft into its final orbit pattern. The Norwegians are responsible for management of the running of our ships, being the Vikings they are. The Ukrainians build the first two stages, which boost the upper stage and our satellite out of the atmosphere. We primarily handle the business aspect and procure all the hardware and services necessary to put the satellite in orbit.

Q: It sounds as if there are language barriers.

A: We have full-time translators working for us who are very familiar with our lexicon. It's all Russian-English translation. The Norwegians all speak English. The Americans have some working level of the Russian language and the Russians and Ukrainians have what I would say is a much stronger working level of English.

Q: What do customers pay for a launch?

A: A launch is running anywhere from $60 million to $70 million, which is very cheap. Five years ago, a launch of that size would have cost $100 million to $120 million. A good portion is the actual cost to build the rocket. The cost to just going out to the equator and launching is a relative small percentage.

Q: Hasn't the commercial satellite market been through some ups and downs?

A: In the mid-'90s, when the telecom boom was going, there were a lot of people looking at putting up (satellites) for many uses but mostly they were going to be mobile phone uses. That's where you could go anywhere in the world and through a satellite talk to anyone else in the world, no matter how remote you were. With the telecom bust and the ubiquity of mobile phones through terrestrial (systems), the whole market collapsed.

Q: Has it come back?

A: We see the market as relatively flat through the end of the decade. There is a combination of replacing aging satellites with new ones that tend to be larger with higher content. Maybe they are offering digital content or more capacity to a region that has grown larger than the current satellite can supply. The other area we see is offering new products and services. Two examples of that are satellite radio, such as XM Satellite Radio, and high-definition television, which is beginning to be offered by DirecTV and Dish Network. If they need a higher technology satellite, they would have one built to their requirements and then they would launch it.

Q: Why would XM or DirecTV or anyone else come to you when they could have their satellites launched by more established companies such as Lockheed Martin?

A: Our third launch failed. But we've had 13 successes since then, so we clearly learned what the issue is, fixed it and demonstrated we are actually a very reliable system.

Q: What is your current launch schedule?

A: We're launching five times this year. We're going to continue to sign up commercial launches with a goal of five to six every year. We have two year's worth (locked up.) Nobody contracts for a launch more than 24 months before they want a launch. They want to contract as late as possible to preserve their cash. As soon as they contract, they have to start paying us.

Q: Your company is loaded with scientists and technicians, yet I understand you're not immune from some superstition.

A: We used to have a lot of superstitions but they've gone away over time. Everyone has their (own) ritual. They might wear the same shirt every launch day. I wear my wife's grandmother's St. Christopher medal. I carry it with me in my glass case for safe travel. And I always wear a suit on launch day. We never wear black on launch day because black is considered bad luck.

INTERVIEW James Maser

Title: President and General Manager

Company: Sea Launch Co. LLC

Born: Akron, Ohio, 1960

Education: B.S. and master's in engineering, University of Akron; MBA, UCLA 

Career Turning Point: Taking job as chief engineer at Sea Launch

Most Admired Person: Skip Keesal, managing partner of the law firm Keesal Young & Logan

Personal: Married, two children

Hobbies: Renovating his house, jogging, rollerblading, weight lifting