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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Rutan, space tourism, and the c-word

SPACE.com landed an exclusive interview with Burt Rutan, published back on Friday. By and large there’s not a lot new here: many of the comments he made here are similar to comments he has made in the past, such as at the ISDC in May. He revealed that one of his biggest concerns was potential […]

Orbital space tourism update

Space Adventures announced today that Charles Simonyi, the company’s most recent client, has won medical approval from Russian authorities for a future Soyuz flight. Space Adventures did not disclose, though, when Simonyi might fly, saying only that “More details regarding Dr. Simonyi’s scheduled launch date, commencement of training and specific mission objectives will be announced […]

Not a customer

Congressman Frank Lucas (R-OK), whose district includes the Oklahoma Spaceport, mentioned it at a town meeting in Enid, Oklahoma on Tuesday, according to an article in the Enid News and Eagle. Lucas described the activities at the spaceport, including plans by “Rocket Plane” [sic] to perform suborbital spaceflights from there. But would Lucas want to […]

A Founder speaks

Alan Walton, a “self-made millionaire” in Connecticut, is one of Virgin Galactic’s initial customers, or “Founders”, and was recently interviewed by the Hartford Courant. A few interesting items he said in the interview: the complete flight (from takeoff to landing) will be two and a half hours long, with two pilots and six passengers; he […]

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