Is asteroid mining about to begin?
Considering some of the major players who are either investors or advisers for this company, this story could get very exciting when the company’s full plans are revealed on April 24.
The first stage of the Antares rocket is now vertical on the launchpad at Wallops Island in preparations for launch tests.
Dawn’s mission at Vesta has been extended for forty days, while still allowing the spacecraft to reach Ceres as scheduled.
“Our spaceships to fly from here to Abu Dhabi to New Mexico in no more than an hour.”
The suggestion from this story is that not only will Virgin Galactic fly suborbital tourism flights out of Abu Dhabi, but the deal includes an effort to turn SpaceShipTwo into a transportation vehicle as well. Most interesting.
There are really only two important stories today concerning space exploration. The story that is getting the most coverage is the big news that the space shuttle Discovery is making its last flight, flying over Washington, DC, as it is delivered to the Smithsonian for permanent display.
Of these stories, only Irene Klotz of Discovery News seems to really get it. This is not an event to celebrate or get excited about. It is the end of an American achievement, brought to a close probably three to five years prematurely so that the United States now cannot even send its own astronauts to its own space station.
The other news, actually far more important, has gotten far less coverage, and includes three different stories all really about the same thing.
» Read more
USA, NASA’s prime contractor for operating the space shuttle, on Friday laid off nine percent of its work force.
I honestly have to ask: why did it take so long? The last shuttle flight was in July of last year. It couldn’t possibly have required that many people to prepare these spacecraft for display in museums.
Update: Typo corrected. Thank you Erik.
Some wisdom from Pravda: “Humans explore space only for profit.”
And then there’s this, from the U.N., not surprisingly published at MSNBC: “Private property in outer space: The other side of the argument.” To quote the U.N. expert: “More rules are needed, but I am also of the opinion that you do not need to create property rights [in space].”
It is a sad world when support for capitalism, private property rights, and competition comes from Pravda, while in the U.S. such ideas get slapped down.
ISS’s robot arm has now been moved into position in preparation for the Dragon berthing flight, scheduled for April 30.
The article also gives a nice outline of the entire Falcon 9/Dragon test flight.
North Korea’s attempt to put its first satellite into orbit today was a failure, breaking up less than two minutes after liftoff.
European subsidies have put Arianespace in the black for 2011 and 2012.
The key quote however is this:
But ESA governments have made clear they are not happy having to cover losses, especially since the workhorse Ariane 5 rocket, introduced in the mid-1990s, is well past its teething stage and has conducted 47 consecutive launch successes. Its last failure was in late 2002.
Arianespace has dominated the commercial launch market in recent years, yet can’t make a profit. In this case, however, I suspect that if the company lost its subsides it would somehow find a way to finally reduce its budget.
Russia commits to a twenty year space program, including building a new spaceport to replace Baikonur.
