The competition heats up: On Monday the Russians announced that they plan to fly two tourists around the Moon by 2017.
This is in conjunction with Space Adventures and the previous tourist flights that have gone to ISS. They say they have two customers willing to pay the $150 million ticket price, but they have also been saying this for years. I am not sure I believe them anymore.
The competition heats up: The suborbital tourist company XCOR has raised $14.2 million of private investment capital.
It looks increasingly like this tortoise is going to catch up with the Virgin Galactic hare in the race to launch the first suborbital private space tourists.
SpaceShipTwo is outside its hanger today, undergoing cockpit pressure tests.
The article also provides some additional information about the rumored engine issues of the spacecraft, suggesting that the company is working hard to replace its nitrous oxide-rubber engine with a nitrous oxide-nylon engine.
Will SpaceShipTwo take passengers into space this year? Branson says yes, Messier says probably not.
Messier’s analysis seems very sound to me. Moreover, if you watch the video of Branson at the link, he sure doesn’t seem comfortable making his claim. I hope Messier is wrong, but the history and facts seem to support him.
Did you ever get the feeling of deja-vu? On Monday Richard Branson claimed that Virgin Galactic will fly its first space tourists this year.
I am all for his success, but I must admit I am becoming skeptical. Branson said exactly the same thing in May 2013, except then he was claiming that the first tourist flight would occur before the end of 2013. It didn’t happen.
There are too many rumors about the engine troubles with SpaceShipTwo to allow me to accept Branson’s claims any longer at face value.
The competition heats up? Beyonce might beat Lada Gaga into space.
And in related news, TV actor Ashton Kutcher had some serious stomach issues during a zero-G practice flight on the vomit comet.
The competition heats up: A new company is now offering balloon flights to the edge of space for one third the price of a suborbital flight.
World View passengers will soar to an altitude of about 30 kilometers (about 100,000 feet) — far short of SpaceShipTwo’s intended 110-kilometer (68-mile) high peak. Inside the capsule there will be little sensation of microgravity. Rather, the whole point of the ride is the view. “You can be sitting up there having your beverage of choice watching this extraordinary spectacle of the Earth below you and the blackness of space,” project co-founder and Paragon president Jane Poynter told Discovery News. “It really is very gentle. You can be up at altitude for hours, for days for research if you need to be… I think we have the opportunity to give a really, really incredible experience to people — and for a lot less than most of what’s out on the market right now,” she said.
Among other things, Sarah Brightman talks about her planned trip to space.
Posted from New Mexico.
The competition heats up: Jeff Bezos reveals some details about the goals of his space company, Blue Origin.
Blue Origin is now working on its third version of the New Shepard, which is designed to take everyday people on suborbital journeys. Bezos said that he’s hopeful that this will be the last iteration, and he wants to see the next vehicle ready for commercial operation. “I’m very optimistic about that,” he said. Bezos didn’t give any specific timetables. However, he did say that Blue Origin’s orbital vehicle, designed to send astronauts to the International Space Station and elsewhere, will be tested by 2018. Eventually, the goal is to let anyone fly up into space safely at reasonable prices.
Not a lot of details, but previously we knew practically nothing. That the present ship is being designed for suborbital tourist flights makes it a direct competitor of Virgin Galactic and XCOR. And considering the problems that Virgin Galactic has with SpaceShipTwo, and that XCOR doesn’t have the big bucks of Bezos, Blue Origin might actually be in the lead in the race to put the first tourists in space.
A new survey shows that one out of every three persons wants to travel in space.
The number rises to one out of two once the technology has become reliable.
Posted as we drive through Forest City, Arkansas, following our master, the GPS, which suggested a detour to avoid construction delays on I-40. We have crossed the Mississippi!
Richard Branson has revealed that Justin Bieber has signed on to fly on SpaceShipTwo.
The competition is now really heating up. Bieber probably doesn’t want to be left behind, considering the publicity Sarah Brightman has been getting for her planned space flight to ISS.
The competition heats up: Richard Branson recently told an audience in Dubai that the first commercial flight of SpaceShipTwo will occur before the end of 2013, and that commercial flights from Dubai will occur two years later.
The competition heats up: Russia has confirmed Sarah Brightman’s tourist flight to ISS, now scheduled for October 2015.
The competition heats up: New rumors suggest that the first powered flight of SpaceShipTwo will occur April 22.
Sarah Brightman’s visit to ISS in doubt.
Soyuz taxi flights normally visit the International Space Station for a period of about eight days. NASA and Roscosmos are considering extending a 2015 visit to one month, however. If that happens, Brightman would have to give up her seat to a scientific researcher, who would perform some short-term experiments aboard the space station.
Roscosmos manned space flight director Alexei Krasnov had previously indicated that Russia might consider carrying two paying customers on the 2015 taxi flight. So, it would be theoretically possible for Russia to fly Brightman and the researcher. It’s unknown whether Brightman would want to spend that long aboard the space station, however, and pricing policy to longer-duration stays have not been worked out.
A (new) Mexican standoff at the old spaceport.
Messier not only provides a detailed analysis of the negotiations on-going between Virgin Galactic and Spaceport America over liability issues, he also provides context, much of which is not encouraging. For example,
SpaceShipTwo is set to begin its first powered test flights later this year using a “starter motor” that will be smaller than the full-scale hybrid engine that will be used for flights into space. The motor will allow pilots to test the space plane in the transonic flight region, which would be a major step forward.
Whether the full-scale RocketMotorTwo engine, powered by nitrous oxide and rubber, will be ready to fly this year is an interesting question. There have been stories for years – persistent, consistent and never really denied – that the motor just doesn’t work very well. Hybrid motors can function effectively for smaller vehicles, such as the smaller SpaceShipOne vehicle that flew in 2004, but are difficult to scale up. SpaceShipTwo is three times larger than its predecessor.
Meanwhile, there are the liability questions which might force Virgin Galactic, and all other private space companies, to flee New Mexico. The analysis suggests that the taxpayers of New Mexico might have paid for a very expensive spaceport that might never pay for itself.
More details on Virgin Galactic’s first glide test of SpaceShipTwo with its rocket motor attached.
The competition heats up: If you and a friend happen to have $1.4 billion, the new private company Golden Spike wants to take you to the Moon.
Golden Spike’s news release said the venture would make use of existing rockets as well as commercial spacecraft that are currently under development to send expeditions to the lunar surface, with the estimated cost of a two-person lunar surface mission starting at $1.4 billion.
There will be a lot of press stories about this. And it is good, as it illustrates again the increasing shift from government-run space missions to a robust private industry. The idea of a private company doing this is no longer considered absurd but perfectly reasonable.
Whether Golden Spike itself will do it, however, is another thing entirely. Please forgive me if I reserve the right to be a little skeptical at this point.
Sources in Russia indicated today that the contract for Sarah Brightman’s space tourist flight has not yet been signed.
Brightman will have turned 55 by that time, which means she will become one of the 20 oldest cosmonauts of the world, among which there is now only one woman (Barbara Morgan, which made a shuttle flight in 2007). “It is not known how the next three years, which the singer will spend in permanent travel around the world, will affect her health,” the source said. It is most likely that only Russian cosmonauts will take part in the 2015 ISS mission, who will take all three spaces in the Soyuz, he said.
The story focuses on the publicity gained for Brightman by making her announcement, but the actual scoop, assuming the source is correct, is that she doesn’t have a contract.
