The particular form of Lockheed’s contribution would be “to invest the money on Athena rockets that would propel the PlanetSpace craft into space”; as noted here earlier this week, PlanetSpace is studying the use of Lockheed’s planned-but-never-built Athena 3 rocket as a launch vehicle for PlanetSpace’s COTS proposal. PlanetSpace has hired a lobbyist, Fred Doucet (described by the paper as “former prime minister Brian Mulroney’s chief of staff and political troubleshooter”), to help the company secure the investment.

T/Space was one of the six finalists for the COTS awards, but reportedly just barely lost out to Rocketplane Kistler and SpaceX. The company said in a statement that they are proceeding with their plans to develop its Crew Transfer Vehicle that would be launched by a scaled-up version of the QuickReach launcher being developed by AirLaunch LLC. A manned orbital flight could take place in late 2010, if all goes well (and an agreement like this can’t hurt, for even though it doesn’t provide the company any money, it does give it additional legitimacy in the eye of potential investors.)

A PlanetSpace statement includes some illustrations of its NOVA booster and Silver Dart vehicle that have not previously been widely circulated. The NOVA launcher is a cluster of seven boosters, each with four Alchemy engines that the company says are derived from the engine used in the V-2 over 60 years ago. The Silver Dart would have a glide range of 40,000 kilometers and a crossrange of about 6,500 kilometers, according to release, which would open up a number of point-to-point transportation possibilities. Indeed, PlanetSpace chairman Chirinjeev Kathuria said earlier this week that the company was looking into flights from New York to Mumbai, India in 45 minutes, an intriguing but certainly very long-term market.

PlanetSpace claims that its first atmospheric test flight of the Silver Dart could occur as soon as late 2008, with the vehicle launching from the company’s planned spaceport on Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, to an altitude of 6,500 meters and a downrange distance of over 6,000 kilometers. An orbital flight would follow in late 2009. Of course, neither the Silver Dart nor the spaceport exist yet, although PlanetSpace hopes the NASA deal will help them raise $200 million in funding in the form of “private investors and bank loans”.

• On Friday the Swedish government officially announced Spaceport Sweden, including an agreement to have Virgin Galactic conduct suborbital tourist flights from the facility near Kiruna. According to SPACE.com, the government doesn’t plan to invest any money into the site, saying that there is sufficient infrastructure there now to support SpaceShipTwo flights. However, the government has agreed to establish a regulatory framework similar to what exists in the US to permit those flights to take place, and will tackle export control issues as well on behald of Virgin.
• New Mexico governor Bill Richardson is scheduled to make an appearance in Las Cruces later today, but not for his nascent presidential campaign. Instead, Richardson will be stumping for the local tax referenda that would, if approved, provide the local share of funding for Spaceport America.
• Officials in Ohio are still in negotiations to lure PlanetSpace to an airport outside Columbus that would be the landing site for the company’s Silver Dart vehicle, as well as host manufacturing. One quibble: the article claims that “According to the most recent study by the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, commercial space transportation and related industries accounted for more than $98 million in economic activity in 2004.” In fact, that report put the total at $98 billion. Million, billion, who’s counting?

The article also quotes Cecil Clarke, the member of provincial parliament who represents the Cape Breton North area, as saying that because there has been a lack of criticism of the company’s vehicle plans, they must be sound: “Usually with the aerospace or aeronautics community, if there was question as to the validity of the project, usually there would be sharp criticism of it. I don’t recall nor have I seen, any experts in the industry saying that what they’re talking about is not feasible.” The problem with this assessment is that PlanetSpace has released few details about their plans, therefore, there is little out there to criticize (other than the lack of information, which is understandable and not unique to PlanetSpace.)

There are a few interesting items in the article beyond Capt. Wong’s motion sickness woes. The seasickness is an issue because the Canadian Arrow spacecraft will splash down in the Atlantic after launching from the Cape Breton spaceport in Nova Scotia, starting around 2010, according to the article. However, when the Cape Breton project was announced in August, it was intended only for orbital flights of its Silver Dart orbital spacecraft, not the suborbital Canadian Arrow capsule, which would operate from a “Midwestern” state. Earlier this month, when Ohio was revealed as that Midwestern state, the focus was on suborbital flights of the Silver Dart, a winged vehicle that could land on a runway, rather than the Canadian Arrow capsule that requires a water landing. (To make things more confusing, the spacecraft described later in the article does sound like the Silver Dart.) Has there really been a change in plans, or is the company (inadvertently) sending out mixed messages?

Wong also tells the Star that NASA is taking Canadian Arrow and PlanetSpace “seriously”, including offering unspecified technical expertise. “They know we can do this,” Wong said. Does that mean PlanetSpace has a Space Act agreement with NASA (something hinted at in the original report about the Cape Breton spaceport), or something more informal? Wong adds that Canadian Arrow has “partnership deals” with undisclosed aerospace companies in the US and Canada.

However, the best line of the article is not about space, but about Wong’s preference for flying helicopters rather than jets. “It’s nice to take off in snow in Moose Jaw and a couple of hours later be warm in Vancouver. But I like helicopters, too. It’s great to be able to land, pee and fly on.” The ultimate in quick turnaround time.

A few items of interest from this article: This is the first time that I can recall PlanetSpace saying that they plan to use the Silver Dart, which they originally proposed for orbital missions for NASA’s COTS demonstration program, for suborbital flights. Previously, they planned to use a capsule that would splash down (that capsule is still shown on the PlanetSpace web site.) That approach does make sense, though, if they’re still interested in developing the Silver Dart for orbital flights, which they are (chairman Chirinjeev Kathuria told MSNBC’s Alan Boyle that they’re still interested in NASA’s COTS program once it moves out of its current demonstration stage.) The Ohio site would not be used for orbital operations: PlanetSpace is still planning on developing a spaceport for that in Nova Scotia, as announced this summer.

Another issue is flight operations of the suborbital Silver Dart. PlanetSpace doesn’t intend to conduct launches from Rickenbacker, instead launching “from a floating barge or from a land-based pad”. Unless SilverDart has significantly different flight characteristics than other early-generation suborbital vehicles, which have limited crossranges, that launch site would have to be relatively close to the airport; perhaps no more than a few hundred kilometers. (Maybe Lake Erie?) That means that PlanetSpace may require two different spaceport licenses, one for launch and one for landing—which could be further complicated if the Canadian-American company decided to carry out launches from, say, Southern Ontario or the Canadian side of Lake Erie. Coordination with air traffic control would also pose more problems than for spaceports in California, New Mexico, or Oklahoma, especially since Rickenbacker is about 20 kilometers from Port Columbus International Airport, the city’s main passenger airport.

There’s also the question of where the money will come from for PlanetSpace to develop the Silver Dart and its Canadian Arrow-derived launcher. Kathuria, the article notes, is a millionaire who has had success in several industries (although a previous space venture he invested in, MirCorp, didn’t turn out so well). Apparently PlanetSpace’s funding is not a concern for Ohio officials, who cited “Kathuria’s confidential list of partners and backers” as one of the reasons why they’re in serious negotiations with the company.