A pair of articles in Sunday’s edition of the Wichita Eagle discuss the connections between Rocketplane and Wichita and the Oklahoma Spaceport. The Learjet that Rocketplane is converting into its XP spaceplane was built in Wichita, and some of Rocketplane’s employees previously worked for aerospace companies in the Kansas city. Even David Urie, Rocketplane’s executive […]
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You may not have heard of Travelzoo, a web site that bills itself as “a global Internet media company” that specializes in publicizing travel deals, but 10 million people apparently have. The company celebrated the ten millionth subscriber to its email newsletters by awarding that person, Matthew Wagner, a suborbital spaceflight through Space Adventures. Wagner […] No, this is not some kind of World Cup reference, but rather the apparent competition between two sites in Europe for a future Virgin Galactic spaceport. The British newspaper The Business noted in Sunday’s edition that Virgin Galactic has set its sights on Kiruna, in northern Sweden. Flights there would begin as early as 2011 […] Rocketplane Ltd. have a shot out to Space Shot in a press release yesterday, congratulating the gaming company on its debut. Of course, SpaceShot contestants are competing to win tickets for Rocketplane flights, so you’d expect a congratulatory note. MSNBC’s Alan Boyle follows up with SpaceShot’s Sam Dinkin in a blog post, and finds that […] Virgin Galactic sent an update to subscribers of its email list on Wednesday. The update isn’t posted on its web site, so here’s a summary: Virgin announced last week its first “Founder” from Dubai, an artist named Namira Salim. (An article from over five years ago described her as a “sculptor, painter, musician and a […] Australian-born NASA astronaut Andy Thomas has a vision for Woomera, the long-forgotten Australian launch site: a “10-year plan to use the Outback site to send international tourists into space and launch satellites”, according to The Advertiser, an Adelaide newspaper. Thomas has suggested that the Australian government spend A$150 million (US$110 million) over ten years to […] That leading publication of the space industry, Insurance Journal, follows up a report on the web site of Lloyd’s of London that the insurer, famous for taking on risks conventional insurers shun, is considering providing coverage for Virgin Galactic. The insurance would cover the “hull value” of Virgin’s SpaceShipTwo vehicles; the cost would depend on […] Back in the bad old days of the Cold War, many “Kremlinologists” were forced to divine changes in the Soviet government and policy by keeping track of who was on the podium to review parades in Red Square, and just what was being shown on parade. That’s an easy task compared to figuring out what […] Speaking of Rocketplane, I have an article about the company’s first microgravity research customer, a Japanese organization called HASTIC (Hokkaido Aerospace Science and Technology Incubation Center), in this week’s issue of The Space Review. This got a little attention back in February when HASTIC officials were honored by the Oklahoma legislature, but after talking with […] |
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A tale of two spaceports
Also in this week’s issue of The Space Review, Taylor Dinerman examines the number of commercial spaceports that have been proposed or are under development. Much of his essay is a contract between New Mexico, which is committing over $100 million to build a spaceport, and California, which has largely ignored space tourism and related […]