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 […]
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In yesterday’s sessions at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Boulder, Colorado, four major developers of suborbital vehicles presented updates on their efforts. Here’s a summary of what they revealed: Virgin Galactic: Stephen Attenborough provided considerable details about their plans to flight test SpaceShipTwo (SS2). Ground testing will continue until the end of this quarter, […] Yesterday industry publication Web Host Industry Review reported that UK-based hosting company DediPower had been selected to host the Virgin Galactic web site. The announcement made it sound like Virgin was expecting a wave of traffic to come to the site in the future: it mentions that DediPower would provide a hosting solution “capable of […] More than a week after the truncated SpaceShipTwo rollout event at Mojave Air and Space Port, it’s increasingly clear that the decision to evacuate the event averted a disaster. Airport general manager Stu Witt described the evacuation to the Bakersfield Californian, saying he made the decision when he saw the wind lift up a corner […] At last week’s unveiling of SpaceShipTwo in Mojave, Virgin Galactic commercial director Stephen Attenborough said that it was the company’s relative strong performance during the current recession—a “substantial net increase” in customers—that attracted the attention of Aabar Investments, the Abu Dhabi fund that purchased a 32-percent stake in the company for $280 million. But […] At about 7:45 pm Monday night, with the Virgin Galactic post-rollout party in full swing in Mojave, the person who had been announcing routine bus departures to various hotels made a more urgent announcement: everyone was asked to “evacuate” the tents where the event took place because of a high wind warning, and to instead […] Some photos I took of the SS2 rollout and related events: Here are a couple of pictures of the SS2 rollout from this evening: SS2 and WK2 roll into position Closeup of the side of SS2, including its own version of the ‘Galactic Girl’ nose art […] It’s cold. It’s windy. (advance excuse for typos: my hands are still warming up!) Not the best weather to roll out a new spacecraft, but it was still an interesting event. SpaceShipTwo is a beautiful spacecraft, rolling up to the site attached to WhiteKnightTwo. There were, by Virgin’s count, about 800 people for the rollout, […] I’m sitting in a hotel next to the Mojave Airport, which is serving as the registration area for SS2 rollout event. Even though the event is still a couple hours away, Virgin has already issued a press release about the unveiling and included some photos, one of which is below: SpaceShipTwo attached to WhiteKnightTwo […] |
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