By Mary Alice Murphy

On Tuesday, the 113 teams from worldwide destinations competing in the 2019 Spaceport America Cup gathered in the Las Cruces Convention Center. A news conference took place at 10 a.m., two exhibit halls became one large hall to house the booths and tables for the rocketeers to show off and discuss their projects, and meeting rooms housed presentations from many of the teams.

Dan Hicks, Spaceport America chief executive officer, opened the press conference, talking about the "exciting 7 a.m. opening ceremony, which featured the students from all over the world."

Students taking part in the competition come from 14 different countries.

Hicks said the Spaceport is a secure campus of 18,000 acres set in high-elevation desert, with 6,000 square miles of protected airspace. "There are very few places where one has restricted airspace. Our Spaceport is a safe environment."

For the 2018 Spaceport America Cup, the facility hosted more than 1,500 faculty and students from more than 70 institutions from around the world. This year, 113 teams, some with as few as five or six to as many as 25 members began their launches on Wednesday, June 19, 2019.

The launches are open to the public Wednesday; Thursday, June 20; Friday, June 21; and up to noon on Saturday, June 22.

He described the competition as aerospace engineering teams coming together with an innovative spirit, but with a practical side to build a rocket and compete. "What excites us is that we are growing a new space force. The companies that sponsor our event realize they are seeing their future work force."

Matthew Ellengold of the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association, ESRA, a non-profit organization founded in 2003 for the purpose of fostering and promoting engineering knowledge and experience in the field of rocketry spoke next.

ESRA organizes the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC), each year. The IREC began in 2006 in Green River, Utah. By 2014, it was the world's largest rocket competition at the college and university level. Because of the size of the 2016 event, they had to move to a larger venue for 2017, to Spaceport America.

"The companies that come to this event tells us they get their interns from here," Ellengold said. He and his partner in ESRA, Dustin Koehler, started the competition in Utah with a number of teams. "We got way more involved in the competition, because watching the students and what they were doing made a huge impact on our careers. We want to make sure we offer opportunities for more students to participate. When we outgrew Green River, Utah, Spaceport America reached out. It is perfect. It is remote, but it is built close to the resources we need. The event also attracted more volunteers to ESRA to make it sustainable. "

Hicks agreed that Spaceport America is a world-class venue. "Australia and India have sent teams this year."

Ellengold said the Australians have a great story. "They had a payload challenge. IREC looks at the rockets that are being proposed. The Australians had only built payloads, but this competition caused them to try building their own rockets."

Hicks echoed that in order to continue to grow the competition, "We can't do it without volunteers and sponsors."

He introduced, from Virgin Galactic, the chief pilot David Mackay, and Beth Moses, one of the first commercial astronauts in the world.

Hicks said 580 humans have entered space. "These two represent some of the first commercial astronauts."

Mackay said, growing up in Scotland, he always had a passion to become an astronaut. "We didn't have a space program in the U.K. So, I joined the military as a test pilot. I also was a commercial pilot. Later in my career, I had the experience and qualifications that Virgin Galactic was looking for. My friends asked me why I was giving up my seniority as a commercial pilot with its perks of being able to choose routes and when I wanted to fly. I told them it was an opportunity of a lifetime. I believed in what Virgin Galactic was going to do, and I wanted to be part of it, even if I didn't fly. But I do get to fly."

Moses said she had an exciting announcement to make. "We're all moving into town from our test site in California, and we just had our offer on a house accepted. I am the chief astronaut instructor. I will teach everyone that will ride in the cabin. I rode on the first spaceship in December, and I will train the customers. I've always loved space. I am a child of the space shuttle era and was a payload creator. I salute events like this because it grows the interest in space. These students are the hard workers. Engineering classes are a full-time up to 24-hour job and these students are taking hours outside the classroom and their homework time to work on these rocket projects."

Ellengold said because of the interest in these competitions, engineering schools that did not have aerospace courses have added them to the curriculum for their students. "They are solving the problems of mass and volume."

Mackay said these students represent the most smart and gifted young people to make their projects work. "They are the best people for a space work force."

Ellengold said the process of building the competition takes a lot of sweat and tears "to make such an event happen. We always need sponsors."

Hicks said it took more than five years for NASA to get someone to the moon, and then they took a spaceship to Mars. "These experiments are just as important as the commercial potential of space flight. Students have to step outside their comfort zone and make sure their skills are marketable. This competition lets the students take this risk in a safe place. We at Spaceport America are excited about hosting this event. It's an exciting time to be in the space industry."

He said the first launches would take place Wednesday, starting at 1 p.m. and closing at 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday launches would begin at 7 a.m. and close at 6 p.m. On Saturday, launches would run from 7 a.m. and close at noon to give judges time to make their decisions.

"This is an open event," Hicks said. "The public is invited to come watch the launches."

A man in the audience, before he asked his question, said to everyone there: "The launches are really cool." He asked about the flight safety inspections.

Hicks said the rockets, before they go to the launch pad, will be inspected for safety. "We will ground some, but we have our own fire department and emergency medical services on site. In the inspection process, we want to keep the competitors accountable. We eliminate all service level things and make sure they are prepared."

A woman asked about the setbacks that had occurred at Spaceport America and how they have been dealt with.

"It takes courage for the state leadership," Hicks said. "They realize the risk, but they have kept the funding in place. There will be tragedies and setbacks. We are taking a calculated risk. We know that sometimes, we will fail, but we also continue to learn. Sir Richard Branson knows it's the right thing to do. It takes courage and bravery. We have natural capabilities here and the restricted air space, altitude and a place to build. We have to stay the course."

The representative from the Las Cruces Sun-News asked how this competition compared to last year's event.

Ellengold said they had put a soft cap on numbers to 1,200 students plus faculty. "The interest in the competition is growing. We had to turn teams away and allowed only one team per college. We have 113 separate colleges and universities represented here. Some schools are just starting the program and didn't have the experience for this year. We connected them with other organizations to learn the basics of rocketry. We encourage them to seek out mentors and will welcome them in the future."

A woman asked if the students pay their own expenses and Ellengold confirmed that they do. "We're doing the filtering. It takes so much commitment, so much effort and dollars to get here."

Hicks said he talks to the foreign teams to find out, for instance, "how the Brazilian team got here from there. We want to keep it manageable, but we will continue to grow. Even some of the U.S. stories are across the spectrum of challenges."

Ellengold said the rockets are cool, "but the real story is the people. They develop their project from nothing and get here, for example, from Waterloo in Canada. They have been participating for seven years. This is their third year here and the first time they have propulsion."

A man asked if they anticipated growth beyond the current goals.

"We may have already broken the carbon line," Ellengold said. "The team used an alternative data set. It went very high, but we're not sure how high. We can't confirm the height."

He said the launches of rockets are the goal, but "it's still an engineering project. We need verifiable data. We want to see records set without asterisks. What is the next step in the competition? Right now, we have two levels, up to 10,000 feet and up to 30,000 feet, but we can go up from there. Consider these efforts the farm team, the junior varsity team leading to the pros. There are still goals to be chased. Anything can be a record. How can we set up an unbiased group to separate the amazing things these students have done?"

An audience member asked what experimental sounding rocket meant.

"The term comes from the nautical term for sounding to depths," Ellengold said. "This is taking soundings at altitude. We moved from the nautical soundings in the 1920s,'30s. '40s, '50s and have moved from the nautical to where we are starting to learn about altitude. How to measure it is called a sounding. Sounding rockets can carry scientific instruments. These are not just atmospheric experiments. Some of these rockets are experimental. We may not be re-inventing the wheel, but we can build a better wheel. A technician works off an established protocol. An engineer creates the procedure. The students that understand the problems are better prepared to move forward."

A man asked about infrastructure changes at the spaceport. Hicks said more gravel had been put down for the solid fuel rockets. "We got some capital outlay for the vertical launches and will get power and a better road surface. My role is to get ahead of infrastructure needs. These are great changes. This is our third event. By the fourth, we will get rid of the generators and have power to the launch sites."

Ellengold said the opening of the south road makes the trip a better drive this year. "We have more communications improvements. We doubled the number of backpacks for students. We have more radios. We have demonstrated the economic development impact of this event. We have more teams with more available resources."

A woman asked how close the Spaceport is to being able to put normal New Mexicans in space.

"Virgin Galactic will be the first to put humans in space," Hicks said. "The cost of each return flight varies from the potential of a point-to-point flight."

Mackay said Virgin Galactic has five astronauts working for it. "In December, Beth was the first one strapped in the cabin. It was a very successful flight. We are moving everything from Mojave to New Mexico. We are very excited. We still have a few test flights to do. Every expectation is that they will go well. We should be providing commercial flights by next year."

Moses said Virgin Galactic has proved the concept. "It was a phenomenal experience. The view is stunning. Our customers will be the first to fly weightless and be absolutely still at apogee. It is amazing. The launch is smooth. You go up and up, the sky gets black, then you get out of the harness and float. The Earth is brighter and sharper than I expected. It is a visceral break through the atmosphere on the way back, which slows the spaceship down, and you glide to a landing to stop. I skipped off the ship."

The next article will cover the interviews done by three members of the Beat team.