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As Charles Simonyi prepares to his flight to the ISS in early April, he recently passed a major milestone: his own official spacesuit. “Being in my own spacesuit, which I’ll get to keep after the flight, is just an incredible experience,” he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He’s continuing his training with no problems. The article notes that “He’s continued posting photos and journals from his odyssey on his blog, charlesinspace.com.” However, he hasn’t posted a blog entry there since January 22.
Simonyi also tells Reuters that he’s happy to take of mundane and even dirty jobs while he’s on the station. “I want to participate in activities, for example the toilet needs a lot of maintenance.” He’ll also bring his passport with him, and not just in case he makes an emergency landing outside Kazakhstan. “It’s … to get a stamp in it. Like a tourist wants to get a stamp in an exotic place, I think, I will have it stamped on the International Space Station.”
Here comes Florida. That’s the message the head of Space Florida conveyed to Florida Today in today’s issue. Steve Kohler said that he has been talking to Virgin Galactic “among others”, trying to lure them to establish operations in the state. Kohler didn’t indicate if those discussions with Virgin were for operations in addition to the company’s announced plans in New Mexico, or as a backup should the company become disenchanted with the Land of Enchantment. Kohler admitted that New Mexico has already made a big financial commitment, “But there’s a long way from that and something coming out of the ground.”
SPACE.com published yesterday an overview of PlanetSpace and its plans to develop the Silver Dart spaceplane. What’s noteworthy about this review is that space tourism is a relatively low priority for the company, which is instead pursuing orbital flights to the ISS (and presumably other destinations, if any) as well as point-to-point flights, taking advantage of the Silver Dart’s designed capability to glide for long distances. “This is the killer application for space industry,” GEO Geoff Sheerin said of point-to-point flights. “You’ve got a destination already.” Later in the article, Sheerin ranked suborbital tourism flights third in the list of preferred missions for the Silver Dart. “If they’re not flying to orbit, then I’d like to fly them point-to-point and if they’re not flying point-to-point than I’d like to be flying them on short jaunts into space on space tourist flights, ” he said. Of course, the company first has to raise money and develop the vehicle—neither of which will be an easy task.
The British tabloid The Sun checks out a mockup of the SpaceShipTwo cabin on display at the Science Museum in London. So what could future SS2 passengers do on their suborbital spaceflights? “It could give visitors a opportunity to see life in space and maybe the chance to try and spot aliens and UFOs.” Um, right. But then, what do you expect from a paper arguably best known not for its hard-hitting insightful journalism but instead for its “Page 3″ topless pictorials?
On a more serious note, Business Week examines the design of the SS2 interior in an interview with Dick Powell, cofounder of design company Seymourpowell. He noted that Virgin wanted a full-sized model of the cabin “but they didn’t have the budget for us to do it” initially, although Powell won them over in the end by telling them they didn’t want a 3D computer model “that wasn’t very convincing and looked a bit crap”. The actual design work for the cabin interior wasn’t that out of the ordinary, he added. “The truth is that the processes by which you make planes, trains, rockets, and consumer products are all broadly the same… The individual companies [we work with] all have certain idiosyncracies but really, it’s not rocket science.”
It’s Valentine’s Day, and what better way for the personal spaceflight enthusiast to celebrate it by paying a visit to Space Love. (Actually, I’m sure there are a lot of better ways to mark the day, but bear with me here.) The site was created by Loretta and George Whitesides, the newlyweds who previously announced plans to be the first couple to honeymoon in space on Virgin Galactic. (George is executive director of the NSS, and both are co-founders of Yuri’s Night.) Right now there’s not much here—some background on the couple and their plans—but according to a press release they plan to “document the preparation and lead-up to the flight, and include suggestions for others who wish to celebrate their own honeymoons, anniversaries or even weddings in space.”
An AP article yesterday reports that Rocketplane Kistler is considering setting up suborbital flight operations in Hawaii. The flights by the XP spaceplane could start as early as 2010; in one approach mentioned in the article, the vehicle would take off from Honolulu but land at the Kona Airport on the big island. The flights, as well as the creation of a “space-themed” training center, would be in addition to flights from Oklahoma; company officials had previously expressed interest in setting up flight operations at a number of different locations, including Japan.
There are two interesting items of note in the article. The article mentions in passing that, in order for RpK to carry out the Hawaii flights, the state would have to get spaceport license(s) for the airport(s) the XP would fly from. A bill introduced in the Hawaii State Senate last month, SB 907, would create an Office of Aerospace Development (originally to be called the Office of Space Industry) within the state’s economic development and tourism department and set aside $500,000 for “Establishment of an international commercial spaceport”. However, when the legislation was reported out of committee the accompanying report to the president of the state senate stated that “Your Committee also has concerns regarding the establishment of a commercial spaceport, which has generated considerable community opposition in the past.” (A reference to past efforts to establish a spaceport on the southern tip of the Big Island). Therefore, the committee decided to “delete all references to a commercial space launch, international spaceport, and the appropriation for a spaceport” in the bill.
The second item of note in the article is the state of RpK’s financing for the XP vehicle program. Chuck Lauer, VP for business development for RpK, told the AP that the company has raised only $25 million of the $150 million it believes it needs “to field a commercial fleet of space planes.” RpK has been spending a lot of time lining up several hundred million it needs to develop the K-1 vehicle as part of NASA’s COTS demonstration program; will it be able to win a somewhat smaller amount in addition to support the XP?
A couple of announcements by recent and prospective space tourists yesterday:
Anousheh Ansari announced that she will collaborate with noted author Homer Hickam to write her memoirs. The book will recount Ansari’s journey from teenaged immigrant from Iran to her business successes to her flight to the ISS last fall. Proceeds from the book, which doesn’t yet have a publisher or a publication date, will be donated to charity. The fact that Ansari and Hickam—best known for his own rocket-inspired coming-of-age memoir, Rocket Boys—are collaborating isn’t a surprise: the two met in Huntsville back in December and, when asked about working together on a book, Hickam said “We may talk about that. It could happen.”
Meanwhile, publicists for prospective space tourist Charles Simonyi announced that Simonyi’s web site devoted to the mission has been updated with videos and other “rich new content”. The site, CharlesInSpace.com, isn’t new—it was announced in October—but it does appear to have some more material. The site does still have a flashy (and Flash-y) interface that can be sluggish, and his blog hasn’t been updated since January 22.
Lonnie Sumpter, executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, passed away Tuesday after a brief illness, the Las Cruces Sun-News reports. Sumpter had been involved with efforts to establish a spaceport in New Mexico since the early 1990s, and got to see his efforts finally realized with the development of Spaceport America, which hosted—albeit in rudimentary form—its first launch last September for UP Aerospace. “He was like a kid in a sandbox when he was launch director for the UP Aerospace launch,” Rick Homans, secretary of the state’s Economic Development Department. “He was so excited these last few years to see these dreams of a spaceport come to fruition.”
Bigelow Aerospace made a cryptic announcement late Monday, stating that the company “will be making a very important and exciting announcement” at the National Space Symposium on April 10. About what? “For the first time, we will be presenting our business plans that we have kept to ourselves until now. This information that we plan to announce on April 10 at the Bell [sic] Aerospace Exhibit Center should help support the private space movement.” (I presume they mean the Ball Aerospace Exhibit Center.) Will this be about their Sundancer spacecraft, first announced at the AIAA Space 2006 conference in September? Or do they have something else up their sleeves?
Speaking of the Journal, the front page of today’s issue has an article about the lingering beef between Burt Rutan and Jim Benson. (Yes, subscription required. Blame the Journal, not me.) As many readers are already aware. SpaceDev, founded by Benson, built the hybrid rocket motor used by Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, but the two had a rather public falling out, which included threats of lawsuits by Rutan (which, the article states, were not followed through “to avoid the expense and distraction of litigation”.) The two now, of course, are rivals, with Rutan leading the development of SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic and Benson starting a new company to help fund development of SpaceDev’s Dream Chaser concept. For those who have followed this issue over the last few years, there’s not too much new here, although reported Andy Pasztor does get comments from both Benson and Rutan.
One other item of note in the article: Benson tells the Journal that he is planning “a nationwide competition to hand out free rides aboard his spacecraft” that will be formally announced in the next few weeks.
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