Russian officials raise doubts about Brightman’s flight, and space tourism

Sarah Brightman attended to during tests that confirmed her fitness to fly to space as a space tourist in 2015. Some Russian officials have raised doubts that she will fly. (credit: sarahbrightman.com)

Last month, with considerable fanfare, Space Adventures and the Russian space agency Roscosmos announced at a press conference in Moscow that singer […]

Sarah Brightman may be the next commercial visitor to the ISS

Space tourism company Space Adventures sent out a media advisory Wednesday morning about a press conference the company plans to hold in Moscow on October 10. “Sarah Brightman will be in Moscow to make a ‘groundbreaking’ announcement,” the advisory states, without offering details about that announcement. Brightman, an “international singing superstar” in the words of […]

Space Adventures optimistic about the next decade of space tourism

Illustration of a Soyuz spacecraft and habitation module en route to the Moon for a circumlunar flight Space Adventures has proposed.

A decade after the flight of Dennis Tito, widely if not universally acknowledged as the first space tourist, the company than brokered his flight sees a bright future ahead for commercial human spaceflight. […]

Space Adventures and Virgin Galactic make a little news in Munich

On Sunday afternoon Eric Anderson, chairman of Space Adventures, and George Whitesides, president and CEO of Virgin Galactic, appeared on a panel at the Digital – Life – Design (DLD) conference in Munich. The half-hour panel, with the rather clunky title “New Space Mission”, was designed to provide attendees of this rather eclectic conference with […]

Space Adventures: Soyuz seats available

Space Adventures announced today that it has concluded an agreement with the Russian space agency Roskosmos and RSC Energia for additional Soyuz seats for future flights of space tourists, starting in 2013. Three seats will be made available as Energia increases production of Soyuz spacecraft from four to five a year; the additional Soyuz flight […]

Space Adventures to market Boeing commercial crew flights

Illustration of Boeing’s proposed CST-100 commercial crew capsule.

When Space Adventures announced last week a joint press conference with Boeing to discuss “a unique agreement between the two companies on commercial crew transportation services”, as the announcement put it, it seemed obvious what that agreement would involve: Space Adventures would sell seats on the […]

Space Adventures returns to suborbital spaceflight

Eric Anderson (left) and John Carmack talk about their suborbital partnership at ISDC on Thursday.

As expected, Space Adventures announced Thursday at the International Space Development Conference, (ISDC) in Chicago its partnership with Armadillo Aerospace to provide suborbital space tourism flights. Armadillo will develop a vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) suborbital vehicle carrying people […]

ISDC has a strong NewSpace flavor this year

I’m at the airport waiting to catch a flight to Chicago for this year’s International Space Development Conference, the annual conference of the National Space Society. (I was already supposed to be there, but Untied, er, United, canceled my flight last night.) This year’s conference has a particular emphasis on NewSpace, more so than conventional […]

Brief notes: Soyuz, Virgin, and… iCarly?

The news media has something of a case of amnesia when it comes to space tourism in Russia: they regularly, breathlessly report comments that Russia will stop flying space tourists on Soyuz flights to the ISS. Every few months, it seems, a Russian official makes comments to that regard, dutifully reported by the wire services […]

Who is Laliberté’s backup?

One issue not raised with last week’s announcement of Guy Laliberté as the next commercial ISS visitor is who his backup would be should he be unable to fly. Yesterday Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson hinted that an announcement was forthcoming, saying only that the person was “a very talented and special lady”. However, the […]