Founder of Saxavord spaceport diagnosed with terminal cancer
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Frank Strange, the founder and CEO of the Saxavord spaceport in the Shetland Islands, yesterday revealed that he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and is given about six months to two years to live.
He said he was hopeful to be present for what could be the first orbital rocket launch from UK soil now expected to happen in November of this year.
Speaking to Shetland News on Thursday, the 67-year-old said the future of the spaceport was in good hands with a highly capable management team and very supportive investors.
Reflecting on his health, Strang said he had been struggling eating over past months. An endoscopy a few weeks ago discovered a tumour in his oesophagus (gullet) which was found to be cancerous and had also spread to the lungs. “I am going to step back but not down,” he said. “If I step down that would probably kill me before the cancer does.
“The spaceport has been my life; it has come at a high personal cost over the years.”
It would truly be a tragedy if this man dies before the first launch at Saxavord occurs. The German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg had hoped to do a launch there last year, but an explosion during a prelaunch static fire test made that impossible. It hopes to try again in December, assuming the United Kingdom’s odious red tape does not get in the way.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Frank Strange, the founder and CEO of the Saxavord spaceport in the Shetland Islands, yesterday revealed that he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and is given about six months to two years to live.
He said he was hopeful to be present for what could be the first orbital rocket launch from UK soil now expected to happen in November of this year.
Speaking to Shetland News on Thursday, the 67-year-old said the future of the spaceport was in good hands with a highly capable management team and very supportive investors.
Reflecting on his health, Strang said he had been struggling eating over past months. An endoscopy a few weeks ago discovered a tumour in his oesophagus (gullet) which was found to be cancerous and had also spread to the lungs. “I am going to step back but not down,” he said. “If I step down that would probably kill me before the cancer does.
“The spaceport has been my life; it has come at a high personal cost over the years.”
It would truly be a tragedy if this man dies before the first launch at Saxavord occurs. The German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg had hoped to do a launch there last year, but an explosion during a prelaunch static fire test made that impossible. It hopes to try again in December, assuming the United Kingdom’s odious red tape does not get in the way.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
There are times that I wonder if God any hates human interest at all in spaceflight and astronomy.
Stephan Hawking dared peek into the firmament and was struck down.
Astronaut Husband was ashamed of having fibbed on a form…
https://ablogaboutnothinginparticular.com/rick-husband/
Korolev died before N-1 was perfected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_I8Y5gjIpE
Glushko passed after his rocket fly twice before the USSR.
Jack Parsons–inventor of cast solids–was an out-and-out diabolist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons
And now–we have this crud:
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-space-exploration-democratic-equitable-potential.html
Sigh…I can’t win.
Jeff, I don’t think Korolev had much to do with the N-1 but it would have been nice for him to have seen it fly successfully. Nevertheless he is commemorated every time a Soyuz rocket is launched and the boosters separate to form the “Korolev Cross” in the sky.
As for that last link, barf.
I’m not surprised by the Brit bureaucracy. After the Second World War the Brit aviation bureaucracy decided they would rather have a bureaucracy than a light aircraft industry and completely succeeded in that goal.
We should all be happy.
There are more LV options than ever before–and yet, there is this funeraial pall.
In the 1990s, things seemed to be looking up–when all we had was shuttle and Delta IIs and the occasional Atlas/Titan.
I think that–before 2001 (when we were still thinking Space Odyssey, not 9/11) we still felt like maybe there would be an outside chance of having at least one of Kubrick’s craft work–after a fashion.
Each decade of the 20th Century had its own vibe….Gangs of New York to biplanes…the Roaring 20s… Depression 30’s…WWII 40’s…rock and roll 50’s…peace and love 60’s….then…the dismal 70’s, the Me Generation 80’s.
Post 2000… everything seems frozen.
The same time period elapsed between Carpenter ‘s THE THING and 2011’s “pre-make” that elapsed between Thing from Another World and Carpenter’s re-imagining.
Everything seems..stale now.
Elon needed to pop up in the 1980’s