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PC Magazine, of all publications, has a summary article of the appearance by Space Adventures’ Chris Faranetta and SpaceX’s Elon Musk at the Future in Review (or FiRE) conference in San Diego. (See earlier post.) There’s not too much new here: both go over their plans, and discuss some far-future propulsion breakthroughs (Faranetta is fond of laser propulsion, while Musk is not; both are disdainful of the space elevator concept.) Musk, though, has his eye firmly set on low-cost passenger travel to Mars, and soon:
“I hope that we’re the primary mechanism for getting people to orbit in the world,” said Musk. “By 2020 I’d like to take someone to another planet.” He believes that within 12 years or so, the cost of taking someone to Mars will be little more than “the price of a median house in California,” or just a few million dollars each.
Of course, by 2020 a few million dollars may not buy you anything in the most overheated regions of California’s real estate market.
Bigelow Aerospace is not nearly as secretive as it was just a couple of years ago: it now invites journalists to tour its Las Vegas facility where it is working on inflatable module designs, and it’s even revamped its web site. Still, it’s not very forthcoming about its plans, particularly in the near term. We do know the launch of Genesis 1 (or Genesis Pathfinder 1, by some accounts), its first prototype, is planned for next month on a Dnepr rocket, but that information comes from the Roskosmos manifest, not Bigelow itself. Today, the Allied Defense Group announced that its SeaSpace subsidiary has sold two 6.1 meter antennas to Bigelow. These antennas will be used at “commercial ground station facilities in Alaska and Hawaii.” The contract is a follow-on to a deal last year where SeaSpace sold a similar antenna system to Bigelow. The report doesn’t offer any more details, although the note that the antennas will be located at commercial facilities in Alaska and Hawaii suggests that Bigelow may be working with a company like Universal Space Network, which operates a worldwide network of ground stations, including locations in Alaska and Hawaii. That doesn’t mean too much in the overall scheme of things, other than to suggest that Bigelow does seem to be continuing to make progress.
The Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported today that officials with RSC Energia say the company is ready to double the production of Soyuz spacecraft. The increased production is necessary, the article states, in order to support six-person crews on the International Space Station. What makes this report interesting, though, is how Energia plans to pay for the increased production: through unspecified foreign investment, with the endorsement of the Russian space agency Roskosmos (which effectively controls Energia.) According to a Roskosmos official, “foreign investors were seeking reserved seats on Russian Soyuz craft in exchange for their investment.” Who these foreign investors are, and what they plan to do with those seats, may determine if there are more opportunities for orbital space tourists in the future, either through Space Adventures or another company.
In the last several weeks I have heard from a few people who have claimed that hotel rooms in Las Cruces were already tight for October’s X Prize Cup: according to one person I talked with at the ISDC earlier this month, all the hotel rooms in Las Cruces were already booked for the weekend. That’s not all that surprising: there are not that many hotels in Las Cruces, and they were filled up weeks in advance of last year’s event. Many people, myself included, ended up staying in El Paso, about 50 kilometers to the south.
But are all the rooms in Las Cruces already booked, more than five months in advance? Last night I checked room availability using Orbitz for a four-night span (October 18-22), which would encompass both the Cup itself (October 20-21), and a conference immediately preceding it. It turns out that while a few hotels are sold out, including the Hilton, many others have plenty of rooms available, and at affordable prices. So there’s no need to panic about hotel availability just yet, although if you’re even thinking about attending it wouldn’t hurt to get your rooms sooner rather than later. And in the worst case scenario, El Paso is not that far away…
SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Space Adventures vice president Chris Faranetta discussed space tourism and the future of commercial space ventures during talks Tuesday at the “Future in Review” conference in San Diego, CNET News.com reports. There’s not much news in this report, other than a comment by Faranetta that Space Adventures hopes to sign up two passengers for its proposed circumlunar flight by 2008.
Miller Lite is kicking off a new ad campaign this month, called “Man Laws”, who are crafted by, of course, “Men of the Square Table”. Joining the likes of Burt Reynolds, Eddie Griffin, and Jerome Bettis at the Square Table is SpaceShipOne pilot Brian Binnie. Binnie doesn’t get much face time—and only one line—in the three commercials on the site, although in one of them it looks like he’s trying really hard not to crack up. But then, it’s tough to compete with—or take too seriously—Burt Reynolds.
It does look like the ad writers were imbibing a bit too much in the product when drafting Binnie’s Bio on the site: “He was in the pilot’s seat during the world’s first manned homemade spacecraft as it cruised into low earth orbit at a speech of Mach 1.2.” Homemade? Low earth orbit? Mach 1.2? No matter, they got the general theme right: “But beyond his abilities as a rocket test pilot, Mr. Binnie took a chair on the council for one reason. He shrugged off the nay sayers, followed his heart and fulfilled every 5-year-old boy’s dream to become an astronaut.”
(Thanks to collectSPACE for the tip about the ad.)
None other than the New York Times examines the issue of what fashionable space tourists will wear, following up on an article in The Guardian last week (see earlier coverage). The Times article, though, does feature pictures of the “weightless wedding dress” by designer Eri Matsui mentioned, but not shown, in the Guardian article. In (simulated) weightlessness it looks, um,… poofy.
The AP has a review article on the “unprecedented rush to build snazzy commercial spaceports”, with a particular focus on efforts in New Mexico and Oklahoma. There’s not much new here, although the article thoughtfully includes a comparison to the last spaceport boom in the 1990s (some of the proposed spaceports listed on the map included with the article can trace their heritages back to that previous VentureStar-triggered boom). Derek Webber—a former colleague of mine—suggests that diversification can help cushion the blow of any future spaceport bust: “You’ve got to do your homework because not all states will succeed.”
Speaking of spaceports, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel follows up its earlier article about a proposed Sheboygan spaceport with an editorial that argues that the spaceport concept should be taken seriously. While acknowledging a number of issues that a spaceport there would have to face—not the least of which is the brutal winter weather—the editors retain some optimism about this effort. “The important thing is not to surrender to the mentality – one that is too prevalent in these parts – that automatically smothers fresh ideas and daring projects.”
In an interview in this week’s issue of The Space Review, former House Speaker (and potential 2008 presidential candidate talks about a variety of space issues, including space tourism. It sounds like he’d be willing to buy a suborbital ticket, although it’s not clear how much he’d be willing to pay:
TSR: Beyond participating in the VSE, what do you think of the current attempts to establish private space ventures? Do you worry that if the first suborbital flight carrying paying passengers ends tragically, the private push into space could be stopped dead in its tracks, even if the technology is in fact ready for such commercial use? Would you take such a flight?
Gingrich: I would gladly take a suborbital flight. We should seek to establish standards comparable to hang gliding or mountain climbing and allow adults to take recognized risks.
In the same interview, he advocates tax credits “for developing commercial flights into near space for space tourism”. Tax credits for space transportation in general has been proposed in recent years, but according to Rep. Ken Calvert, who has introduced such legislation in the past, tax credits in general are tough to sell to members of the Ways and Means Committee.
We’ve previously discussed here the conflicting accounts of a planned “spaceport” in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which has been fueled by a bill passed by the state legislature earlier this year that creates a Wisconsin Aerospace Authority with the intent of establishing a spaceport in the city on the shores of Lake Michigan. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reviews the situation in today’s issue, and continues to get conflicting accounts regarding whether a spaceport is really under serious consideration there. A spokesman for governor Jim Doyle called the legislation “unusual”, but one that did not harm state taxpayers: “It just allows the city and its private funders to explore a far-reaching, albeit long-shot, idea.” (City officials have previously said that their idea of a “spaceport” is as a science museum, not a literal launch site.) However, the bill does given the new aerospace authority the power of eminent domain should it desire to claim land for a spaceport, which worries some lawmakers. Said one state senator who voted for the bill but “confesses to some queasiness” about the prospect of rockets launching over Lake Michigan: “I’m optimistic that there will be enough pressure that if they did seek a permit (to build in the lake)… that the DNR [Department of Natural Resources] and the Legislature wouldn’t allow that to happen.”
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More on state spaceports
The AP has a review article on the “unprecedented rush to build snazzy commercial spaceports”, with a particular focus on efforts in New Mexico and Oklahoma. There’s not much new here, although the article thoughtfully includes a comparison to the last spaceport boom in the 1990s (some of the proposed spaceports listed on the map included with the article can trace their heritages back to that previous VentureStar-triggered boom). Derek Webber—a former colleague of mine—suggests that diversification can help cushion the blow of any future spaceport bust: “You’ve got to do your homework because not all states will succeed.”
Speaking of spaceports, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel follows up its earlier article about a proposed Sheboygan spaceport with an editorial that argues that the spaceport concept should be taken seriously. While acknowledging a number of issues that a spaceport there would have to face—not the least of which is the brutal winter weather—the editors retain some optimism about this effort. “The important thing is not to surrender to the mentality – one that is too prevalent in these parts – that automatically smothers fresh ideas and daring projects.”