Remembering the past, planning for the future

In this week’s issue of The Space Review, Tim Pickens recalls his good friend, Glen May, one of the three people who died in the explosion Thursday in Mojave. The two had worked together on the SpaceShipOne propulsion development effort several years ago. “Anyone who has seen SpaceShipOne tested or flown should think of Glen,” […]

Reaction to the Mojave accident

A recap of responses to Thursday’s explosion in Mojave:

The Personal Spaceflight Federation released a brief statement about the accident: “Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the families and those injured or lost in today’s incident. We will await the results of the investigation before further comment, but we have complete confidence that the […]

Mojave updates: investigation underway, remembering the fallen

Today’s Bakersfield Californian has a roundup on the latest developments in the explosion Thursday afternoon at Mojave Air and Space Port. Cal/OSHA investigators were at the scene of the accident to begin work studying the cause. According to a spokesperson for the investigators, the accident took place when the Scaled team was venting 4,500 kg […]

Homans resigns from NM spaceport job

Just a couple of months after becoming the executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, Rick Homans announced today that he is resigning to take a job in the private sector. Homans, who stepped down as the Secretary of Economic Development for the state to take over as head of the authority after the […]

George Whitesides’ second job

Evidently being executive director of the National Space Society isn’t keeping George Whitesides busy enough (hard to believe, given all the energy he puts into NSS activities): he has signed on to be a “senior advisor” to Virgin Galactic, according to a report by Space News (subscription required). He’ll work with Virgin on government and […]

Rutan and the future of spaceflight

Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of the first flight into space by SpaceShipOne. As a reminder of that event, and the potential for the future, here’s a video I stumbled across recently, featuring a talk by Burt Rutan at the TED conference last year. He talks about the stagnation he sees in the aerospace industry […]

Alexander joins X Prize Foundation

The X Prize Foundation announced yesterday that Brett Alexander has joined the organization as its executive director for space prizes and the X Prize Cup. In that position, according to the press release, he will “work to secure financing, create rules, recruit teams, develop rollout and media plans and investigate international partnerships for all future […]

What to give the rocker who has everything

According to British media reports, Liam Gallagher, lead singer of the British rock band Oasis, gave his older brother Noel, the band’s lead guitarist, a flight into space on Virgin Galactic for his 40th birthday. Apparently Noel Gallagher won’t be one of the first 100 “Founders” on Virgin: the report said that his flight won’t […]

Even space tourists have to bring back souvenirs

Odds are that, when you travel, especially to exotic, out-of-the-way locations, you’ll be charged with bringing back souvenirs for friends and family who didn’t get to go. That’s true even for space tourists. Only problem: there’s no gift shop on the ISS. So Charles Simonyi had to improvise when he brought “a plastic shopping bag […]

Profiling space tourists

USA Today takes a look today at the various people who have signed up to fly on Virgin Galactic, the usual mix of stars and starry-eyed folks, many of whom (like Victoria Principal) have gotten significant publicity already for signing up to fly on SpaceShipTwo. Virgin does reveal that they will be giving away two […]

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