Esther Dyson to be Simonyi’s backup

Space Adventures announced today that Esther Dyson will train as the backup to Charles Simonyi for his spring 2009 flighyt. Dyson will pay $3 million for the training, similar to the training that Nik Halik paid for as Richard Garriott’s backup. Dyson, who made her name in the computer industry as the longtime editor [...]

Update on Russia and Space Adventures

To update my earlier post, I spoke briefly yesterday with Eric Anderson of Space Adventures to try and clarify any apparent contradictions between the company’s announcements and statements by the Russian space agency Roskosmos. Anderson said that Perminov’s statement that he had “no information about such plans” was reference to reports about Sergey Brin [...]

Russian miscommunication on Space Adventures’ plans

An article in Saturday’s edition of Florida Today reports that NASA “was among the last to know” about Space Adventures’ plans for a dedicated Soyuz flight to the ISS in late 2011. Of course, NASA didn’t need to be consulted prior to the announcement, so that’s not too surprising, although NASA and the other [...]

Space Adventures press conference: brief summary

Here are some of the key items from this morning’s press conference held by Space Adventures about their future plans (see their press release for some additional details):

The first major announcement was that the company has reached an agreement with Roskosmos, the Russian space agency, for a dedicated Soyuz flight to the ISS [...]

Sergey Brin, space tourist?

An intriguing short item in today’s San Jose Mercury News about the Space Adventures press conference later today:

Space tourists are getting their own ride. Space Adventures, a Virginia company that arranges passage for wealthy explorers to ride on Russian Soyuz rockets to the International Space Station, plans to buy a Soyuz flight [...]

Space Adventures announcement next week

Space Adventures sent out a media advisory yesterday announcing a press conference planned for Wednesday, June 11, in New York. The press conference will reveal the identity of a “notable future orbital client” as well as “significant announcements regarding new orbital spaceflight planning”, including a “vision for the next decade”. Richard Garriott, currently in [...]

Space Adventures acquires Zero-G

Space Adventures announced today that it has acquired a 100% stake in Zero Gravity Corporation, the company that provides parabolic flights that simulate weightlessness. Space Adventures already had a stake in the company (of undisclosed size, but said to be “one of the largest investors” in Zero-G); terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. [...]

Reviving Spaceport Singapore

A Reuters article last week led with the news that Virgin Galactic planned to order additional SpaceShipTwo vehicles, with an initial order of five. That, though, has been what the company has been saying for some time (although the option for seven more, also mentioned in the article, isn’t as widely known). Virgin’s Alex [...]

Another tale of “the end of near”

[Apologies for the long delay in posts - I'm catching up on a lot of other work.]

Last week Flightglobal.com reported that there will be no more seats for paying passengers on Soyuz flights to the ISS after April 2009 because of the increase in the station’s crew size from three to six. The [...]

Garriott’s backup announced

Space Adventures announced today that Australian entrepreneur Nik Halik will be the backup to Richard Garriott on Garriott’s fall 2008 flight to the ISS. Halik is paying $3 million for the privilege of being the backup; that money can be used later towards the cost of his own orbital or other spaceflight. Halik, 38, [...]