Space Access summary article

I wrote a lengthy summary article about the just-completed Space Access ’06 conference in Phoenix for The Space Review. It covers many of the topics discussed in my writeups here in more detail. The theme that emerged from the conference was one of incremental progress for the entrepreneurial space transportation field: no one seems to […]

Brief Saturday Space Access overview

As before, here’s a brief summary of some highlights of the Space Access ’06 sessions on Saturday relevant to space tourism:

You might remember the February 2005 announcement of the Personal Spaceflight Federation, a new industry group created to support the emerging space tourism industry. However, after that initial announcement, there was no other visible […]

Brief Friday Space Access summary

There were a lot of good presentations Friday at the Space Access ’06 conference in Phoenix, although not necessarily a lot of breaking news. Given limited time (plus the fact that the wireless network in the conference room was down most of the day) I’ll for the moment provide some brief highlights:

Rick Homans, secretary […]

A SpaceShot update

At Space Access ’06 Thursday afternoon, Sam Dinkin offered an update on the progress of SpaceShot, which launched its skill-game contest for Rocketplane seats earlier this month. A few highlights:

He said that he has a patent pending on SpaceShot’s “asycnhronous” single-elimination tournament concept, which allows people to enter at any time, waiting until a […]

SpaceShot/SpaceChannel.tv deal

SpaceShot issued a press release this morning (not yet available on their web site) that they have entered into a promotional agreement with a new space entertainment venture, SpaceChannel.tv. Each of the first half-million people who sign up for an account with SpaceChannel.tv will receive two free entries in SpaceShot’s competition, a promotion valued at […]

Orbital space tourism survey

SpaceWorks Engineering, Inc. (SEI) has posted an online survey regarding demand for orbital space tourism. Normally I am skeptical of any such online surveys, because the audience is self-selected: rather than a random sampling that takes into account various demographic factors of the audience (as is the case with traditional polling) online surveys can be […]

Off to Space Access

I will be leaving shortly to go to Phoenix for Space Access ’06, the annual conference that focuses on the entrepreneurial space transportation industry, with many intersections with space tourism. I will try to post some updates during the conference through Saturday, depending on conference events and network access.

No “millions for a billionaire” in California

In Monday’s issue of The Space Review, Taylor Dinerman contrasted the commercial spaceport situations in New Mexico and California: while New Mexico was investing over $100 million into a new spaceport, attracting Virgin Galactic and the X Prize Cup, California has done little to promote Mojave Airport, an FAA-licensed spaceport that was the site of […]

The long arm of the FAA

An article in this week’s issue of Flight International magazine has a provocative headline: “US claims right to set new space tourism regulations globally after treaty examination”. As the opening paragraph summarizes:

US persons or organisations operating suborbital test flights outside the USA will still have to obtain a Federal Aviation Administration permit, according to […]

A tale of two spaceports

Also in this week’s issue of The Space Review, Taylor Dinerman examines the number of commercial spaceports that have been proposed or are under development. Much of his essay is a contract between New Mexico, which is committing over $100 million to build a spaceport, and California, which has largely ignored space tourism and related […]