Space Adventures announced Tuesday morning that it will acquire Space Launch Corporation, a company that was at one point developing a low-cost responsive launch system for DARPA. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed; Space Launch will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Space Adventures. Space Launch, founded in 1999, is best known as the […]
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As you may have already heard, the trustees of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust awarded the first Heinlein Prize to Peter Diamandis last week. The prize, designed to reward practical contributions to space commercialization, went to Diamandis for his role in establishing the X Prize, among other space-related accomplishments. (Pat Bahn identified […] Wednesday night’s CBS News broadcast included a two-minute, 45-second segment on plans to develop a commercial spaceport in New Mexico. The report was even-handed, and even optimistic about the prospects for space tourism at the spaceport, which today is still just empty land save for a small launch pad built for UP Aerospace’s sounding rockets. […] While many astronauts have spoken favorably of space tourism, a couple of current and former astronauts recently were more skeptical. In a speech this week in Pensacola, Florida, former astronaut Kathryn Sullivan turned “sarcastic”, noting the costs of orbital spaceflight: When it came to space tourism, Sullivan’s tone turned sarcastic. It costs $10,000 for each […] So desperate, it seems, that we’ve turned to the movies for insight? In a LiveScience.com blog post, SPACE.com’s Tariq Malik notes that a new ad for the upcoming summer blockbuster Superman Returns features a spacecraft, presumably the Virgin Galactic spacecraft piloted by Richard Branson in his cameo appearance in the film. “But is it SpaceShipTwo […] MSNBC’s Cosmic Log cites a report by the Interfax-Military News Agency (not freely available online) with some news about Explorer, the suborbital space tourism vehicle under development in Russia for Space Adventures. According to the report, the vehicle, known is Russia as the AKS-55-5, will be ready to begin test flights “as early as 2009″. […] On the aptly-named Space Cynic blog, Shubber Ali complained on Sunday about an article in the Sydney Morning Herald that gave what he felt was an overly rosy view of the emerging space tourism industry. As he put it: “‘Oh, no,’ i thought to myself. The Kool-Aid has made it to Australia.” While the article […] One New Zealander is really looking forward to taking a suborbital flight on Virgin Galactic. How much? The New Zealand newspaper The Press reports that he recently changed his name to “Mark Rocket”. Seriously. (Mr. Rocket would not disclose his previous name.) He is apparently one of Virgin Galactic’s “Founders”, the elite group of 100 […] Rocketplane Kistler announced late last week that it has teamed up with Alenia Spazio North America to work on cargo containers that could be used on commercial ISS resupply missions. (The Rocketplane press release about the agreement is not on either the Rocketplane or Kistler Aerospace; free registration is required to read the article in […] |
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Spaceport Michigan?
The state of Michigan isn’t pursuing a spaceport, unlike next-door neaighbor Wisconsin (which may or may not be serious about a spaceport), but an editorial Friday in the Bay City Times suggests that the state should take the idea seriously. Why? Jobs and money, of course: “Don’t just think out of the box in trying […]