Another space tourism survey

I noted in an earlier post that one of the key issues with forecasting the demand for space tourism is the need to do an updated survey to see how preferences have changed since the original Futron/Zogby study in 2002. SPACE.com reports that such an effort is underway by Incredible Adventures, a Florida-based adventure tourism […]

Celebrities and space tourism

So is Paris Hilton headed for outer space? Do you even care? Well, the Sunday Mirror newspaper in the UK thinks so, reporting that Hilton has paid the full $200,000 price for a flight on Virgin Galactic. A “source close to Paris” told the paper that Hilton has been “a fan of the Star Wars […]

Revisiting space tourism demand forecasts

You may recall that a few years ago Futron Corporation published a demand forecast for orbital and suborbital space tourism that has been widely regarded in many quarters. [Full disclosure: Futron is my employer.] Yesterday Futron published a short white paper that slightly updates the results of the suborbital forecast, taking into accounts developments in […]

Spare us the details

As further evidence that Anousheh Ansari will be taking the place of rejected Japanese space tourist Daisuke Enomoto on next month’s Soyuz flight comes this report from AFP about modifications being made to the Soyuz spacecraft to accommodate Ansari. And why are those changes being made? “A woman’s organism is different, that’s why we need […]

Chinese space tourism

Wired News has a brief article about Space Adventures’ plans to open a Chinese office, an effort to court the growing number of wealthy Chinese who may be interested in flying in space. While the effort appears to be initially focused on flight opportunities outside China, both orbital and suborbital, Space Adventures also sees a […]

Bigelow on The Space Show

Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, will be the guest on David Livingston’s “The Space Show” this Thursday, August 24, at 7 pm PDT (10 pm EDT). This will be a rare opportunity for the general public to ask Bigelow questions about his company and its future plans.

Ansari to replace Enomoto

While there has been no formal announcement from Space Adventures, Roskosmos officials said Tuesday that, as expected, Anousheh Ansari will replace Daisuke Enomoto on the Soyuz flight to the ISS next month. Ansari has been training in parallel with Enomoto as his backup, and when Enomoto was medically disqualified Monday, Ansari was the most likely […]

PSF relaunches

The Personal Spaceflight Federation originally formed last year after the passage of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act as a means for companies to exchange information about industry best practices in the nascent personal spaceflight (aka space tourism) industry. However, the organization faded from public view now long thereafter. A few months ago PSF president […]

Dice-K rolls snake eyes

In a surprise development, the Russian space agency Roskosmos announced Monday that Daisuke “Dice-K” Enomoto, who was to fly to the ISS next month on the Soyuz TMA-9 mission, had been removed from the crew because of an undisclosed medical condition. (See a summary of the announcement and related links.) With Enomoto no longer able […]

SpaceX, RpK win COTS awards

NASA announced this afternoon that, as many people suspected in the days leading up to this afternoon’s announcement, that SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) won Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) awards to develop cargo and crew transportation vehicles to serve the ISS. SpaceX proposed the Dragon capsule, launched atop a Falcon 9, as described in […]