Disc Man

[October 8th, 2003] The X Prize space race is serious business.

Modeled after the famed 1927 competition that sent a young Charles Lindbergh on the first solo transatlantic flight in history, the contest challenges the world's leading private aerospace companies to launch a craft to the cusp of space and bring it home safely twice in a two-week period.

The incentive is a $10 million purse and a slot in the history books.

Scanning the 25 firms who have paid the $1,000 registration fee since the competition's inception in 1996 is like reading an index of big-name aeronautical firms from around the world.

And then there's some guy from Portland.

John H. Bloomer is president of Discraft Corp., the fifth company to enter the X Prize race. He's also Discraft's chief engineer, treasurer and receptionist--in fact, the sole employee of the company, which is based at his Southeast Portland home. But it's actually a part-time gig; Bloomer is a carpenter by day.

The 69-year-old has plenty of experience in the aeronautics industry, though. A graduate of Purdue University's mathematics program, Bloomer worked as an engineer on several aerospace projects in the '50s and '60s, including the Apollo program.

He's hoping the X Prize will launch the space-tourism industry--one that could be worth billions--and usher in a new era of aeronautical advances.

"I think the big question in America right now is this: Do people want to take the next step in aviation progress, or do they want to sit back and twiddle their thumbs?" he wonders.

Bloomer has been a patient dreamer. For the past 20 years, Discraft has lain fallow, waiting for America to get serious about space tourism. With the likes of actor Tom Hanks, U.S. Sen. John Glenn and corporate behemoth First USA contributing to the X Prize purse, that time may have finally arrived, and Bloomer has responded with an imaginative new concept for a spacecraft: the BL-FS-20, affectionately nicknamed the Space Tourist.

Propelled by twin "blast-wave pulse jets" (don't ask), the BL-FS-20 is a squat cone-shaped craft that would take off on a runway like a conventional plane, accelerate to Mach 10, ascend to a 75-mile altitude and land in less time than it takes to watch an episode of Star Trek.

"In order to make space tourism practical for the average guy who wants to go up there safely and get back alive, you need something that approximates a flying saucer," Bloomer says. "The other guys are all going for rockets."

He envisions a future in which fleets of BL-FS-20s will haul humans into space every day for the bargain price of $1,000 a ticket. But there's one problem with producing the 100-foot space Frisbee.

Nobody's interested.

The project's $100 million price tag, coupled with Bloomer's lack of precise plans, has resulted in a dearth of patrons. Bloomer isn't giving up, though: He recently sent out letters to more than 70 universities with aerospace programs, proposing a joint venture to produce a prototype.

If the Space Tourist doesn't pan out, Bloomer's got other ideas. He says he's designed an orbiting solar power plant--called the Beampower Satellite Multi-Orbit Stellar Macrolaser--that could easily supply the world's energy needs. Closer to Earth, he says he's also drawn up plans for the strongest building ever built--a concrete geodesic dome that "could withstand any kind of assault, grenade attack, bomb attack, mortar attack or howitzer attack."

The clock is ticking. Last week, the organizers of the X Prize announced that they expect the contest to be decided within 12 months. Bloomer is unfazed.

"Personally, I don't think the other craft approaches are going to win," Bloomer says. "But even if they win, then my craft is the craft they'll need to go into the space-tourism business. I just hope they don't kill too many people."