Kelly Space: Measuring The Moon From the Inland
Empire?
The moon is closer to the Inland Empire than you might think. So is
Mars. When the Starship Enter-prise hits warp drive for the first time, you
can pretty much count on seeing it from Interstate 10. NASA reports that
there are some 1500 space-related businesses in the private sector and 34 of
them are right here in the Inland Empire. Mostly in San Bernardino County.
Kelly Space and Technology would be just one of them. KST is a privatelyheld commercial aerospace and technology development company based at
San Bernardino International Airport, what we used to call Norton AFB.
Kelly’s plan is to create and commercialize technologies that will open space
to large scale development of a reusable launch system that would serve as
an enabler for low cost, routine access to space.
As market and investment climates have fluctuated widely over the
years, KST has sought and obtained revenue from related activities, such as
supporting NASA’s Space Transportation Architecture Studies and Space
Launch Initiative with the ultimate goal of replacing the space shuttle. KST
has also secured “Congress-ional Add” funding from the Department of
Defense to develop the jet and rocket engine test site at the San Bernardino
International Airport.
That test site is designed to take over some 20 percent of the work
done at a Norco site that is closing. That testing was done under the
operation of Wylie Laboratories involving liquid propulsion and component
testing and is subleasing the San Bernardino space from KST. Revenue from
the test facility is earmarked to fund KST’s Sprint space vehicle. Sprint was
originally planned to beat the Burt Rutan space flights for the $10 million
dollar X-fund, but it quite literally hasn’t gotten off of the ground yet.
When asked about Rutan’s Space Ship One flights, KST’s president
and CEO, Mike Gallo, said, “I wish it was us, but one day we’re gonna get
there.” Gallo was among some 50,000 people who watched the Rutan launch
up in the Mojave Desert last year and compared the event to Alan
Shepherd’s historic Mercury flight of 1961.
Still, Kelly is not sitting still. They have developed a wide array of
launch vehicles for both unmanned and manned missions to space. Utilizing
their patented tow launch technology, their reusable launch vehicles push the
envelope
of spacecraft design while dramatically reducing launch risk and cost per
pound of payload.
KST has spacecraft to meet any number of needs and cargo transport
vehicles. This new century of space flight, they believe, will be one
dominated by innovative ideas and new ways of thinking, which can make
Kelly one of the leaders of commercial space technology.