Space for Fun and Profit Georgia Tech's John Olds is working to bring space travel to the masses By Shawn Jenkins
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t first glance, you might mistake John Olds for a throwback. Dressed in shirt sleeves and tie, the clean-cut, 30-something professor from Georgia Tech's School of Aerospace Engineering bears a striking resemblance to a NASA astronaut, circa 1960. In reality, Olds is anything but an anachronism. His research is cuttingedge for a space industry looking to save millions in launch costs and pave the way for the next generation of space travel—the kind that will take ordinary people into orbit. "We're involved mostly in advanced concepts—things that probably won't fly until 10 or 15 years from now," says Olds, who manages Tech's Space Systems Design Lab. "For example, we're working on single-stage, horizontal take-off vehicles that could take off like an airplane—launched on long magnetic levitation tracks at high speeds—and go all the way into orbit, landing back on earth like an airplane. Another advanced concept we've investigated is called Polaris—a rocket plane designed to carry three paying 'space tourists' on a pretty exciting suborbital flight into space." Polaris was produced by students in his Spacecraft and Launch Vehicle
Design class for the X-Prize University Design Competition sponsored by the X-Prize Foundation. A non-profit organization created by graduates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the X-Prize Foundation is hoping to stimulate the space tourism industry by offering a $10 million prize to the first privately-financed company to produce a commercially viable, reusable space vehicle that could carry civilian passengers into space on a frequent basis. Their Design Competition is intended to get space-oriented college students interested in the frontier of civilian space travel. Tech's X-Prize team—the fictitious corporation Global Spacelines Inc.— beat out three other schools, including host MIT, to take the $5,000 grand prize for their Polaris conceptual design and business plan. "We were very pleased to beat MIT," Olds says with a contained grin. "And it was on their home court. We had a team of seven students who had worked on it for about nine weeks as their primary topic; MIT had about 20 students and about six professors working on it for a year." His students' success in the X-Prize competition could be attributed to Olds' proactive approach to teamwork. As part of his Spacecraft and Launch Vehicle Design course, the stu-
The Olds File Born: December 13, 1964, in Spartanburg, S.C. Education: B.S., North Carolina State University, 1987; M.S., Stanford University, 1988; Ph.D., North Carolina State University, 1993. Personal: wife, Melinda. Achievements: Georgia Tech Teaching Fellow; Registered Professional Engineer, State of Georgia; National Science Foundation Fellowship; Tau Beta Pi Graduate Fellowship; Eagle Scout. Leisure Interests: computers, model railroading, travelling.
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dents form Integrated Design Teams, in which each person assumes an area of expertise. "Teamwork is more representative of how they will function in industry," Olds says. "I have Dr. Dennis Nagao from the DuPree School of Management come speak to the class about teamwork, brainstorming, communication. I also have them take online personality tests so that they can get a feel for how they will behave in teams, given their strengths and weaknesses. Multidisciplinary design optimization is at the root of what we do academically." He illustrates by pulling up a web page created by one of his graduate students for a master's project. The user-friendly page (atlas.cad.gatech. edu/~issi/rbcc/) is a virtual do-ityourself spaceplane kit—a direct interface with Georgia Tech's computers that allows anyone with a computer and a modem to run a complete package of projections, including advanced trajectories, engine analysis, weights and measurements, and cost models. Having grown up during the space age, Olds was influenced by the Apollo program and the space shuttle. He chose aerospace engineering as his vocation when he was in high school, but nearly took a slightly different career turn. "NASA puts out announcements every couple of years when they're recruiting for an astronaut class, so a few years ago I decided to send in my application to be a mission specialist," Olds says. "There are different types of astronauts: pilot astronauts, the military and test pilots which most people associate with that; and mission specialists, most of whom have a doctorate in some type of technical area." Olds submitted his resume and took the obligatory medical exam. He had