Additional notes about Olsen’s book

In this week’s issue of The Space Review I reviewed By Any Means Necessary!, a book by Greg Olsen in large part about his trip to the ISS as a private citizen in 2005. The book is broadly an autobiography, from his childhood to his post-flight activities, but it is largely centered around his efforts […]

Is the media clowning around?

Tomorrow morning a Soyuz rocket is scheduled to launch to the ISS a NASA astronaut, Roskosmos cosmonaut, and a space tourist, Guy Laliberté. Or rather, a clown, Guy Laliberté. That’s based on some of the recent media coverage, where Laliberté is almost exclusively referred to, in the headline or early in the story, as a […]

What’s in a name

This week the Personal Spaceflight Federation announced it was changing its name to the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and unveiled a new web site at the commercialspaceflight.org domain name. Why the change from the PSF to the CSF? According to the industry association, it’s a recognition that the companies who are members do more than personal […]

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 […]

Notes on the Laliberté announcement

As expected yesterday, Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté announced his plans to fly to the ISS at the end of September on the next Soyuz flight to the station. Laliberté is calling his flight the “Poetic Social Mission” in space “to raise humanity’s awareness of water-related issues” for his One Drop Foundation. “Information about […]

Weightless wedding

While there’s been talk for years about the first wedding or honeymoon in space using suborbital vehicles from Virgin Galactic or Rocketplane Global, one couple is going for a related first: the first wedding in zero-g. Noah Fulmor and Erin Finnegan are planning to hold a press conference this evening in New York to discuss […]

Video: Steve Landeene talks about Spaceport America

In the last of the series of video interviews I recorded during the Space Access ’09 conference in Phoenix earlier this month, Steve Landeene, executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, gives a brief update on the progress of Spaceport America and plans for its construction:

[…]

Project Odyssey update

The Pensacola News-Journal reports that Brice Harris has resigned as director of the “Project Odyssey” space tourism training program at the Andrews Institute in that Florida city. Harris had been under scrutiny since early this year after reports that he played a major role in obtaining a state grant for the effort while working in […]

Florida’s inspector general finds problems with Project Odyssey

Back in January the Orlando Sentinel reported that the Florida governor’s office was directing an investigation of Project Odyssey, a space tourism training program in Pensacola funded with state money that was announced in December, after it appeared that the project’s director was heavily involved in its formation and funding while a state employee. Now […]

First Chilean astronaut? We’ll see

Software developer Symantec announced Wednesday the winner of its contest to send someone into space: Jorge Patricio León López, who was selected from 30 finalists after participating in a weightless aircraft flight by Zero-G. As the press release claims, “In addition to being one of the first to participate in a commercial space travel flight, […]