A day after a visit to Bigelow Aerospace’s corporate headquarters to interview Robert Bigelow, myself and a number of other reporters traveled up to the company’s manufacturing facility in an industrial park in North Las Vegas (with a spectacular view of the Las Vegas skyline) for a press conference and tour. At the press conference, Robert Bigelow and six other company employees, including project manager Eric Haakonstad, entertained questions for an hour about Genesis 1 and the company in general. A lot of the questions covered the same ground I did with Bigelow himself yesterday; MSNBC’s Alan Boyle has an excellent summary, with photos, of the event. (While those on a separate tour of the plant organized by the Space Frontier Foundation could not take photos, reporters on a separate tour could, albeit with significant restrictions, as Alan discussed in his Cosmic Log account.)

Here are a few photos of my own from the event:

A full-scale mockup of the pressure vessle of the full-sized module Bigelow is developing.

Robert Bigelow and project manager Eric Haakonstad at the press conference.

A view inside the mission control center for Genesis-1. The modern facility, with giant video screens on two walls, was completed just last month.

Several members of Genesis 1 team, as well as one of the ubiquitous (but friendly) security guards, pose in front a full-sized mockup of Genesis 1.

Astronauts who have performed EVAs have routinely stated that their spacewalks have been the highlights of their trips to space, giving them a sense of freedom not possible by simply flying inside a spacecraft. Now, space tourists with a little extra spending money (okay, a lot of extra spending money) can share in that experience. The New York Times reported today (and Space Adventures has since confirmed) that the company will offer tourists the option of performing an EVA during their flights for an extra $15 million. Roskosmos, the Russian space agency, has signed off on the plan, with agency officials claiming that tourists with the right “physical and psychological capabilities” could require just an additional month of training to undertake the EVA. The spacewalks would last up to 90 minutes; by comparison, typical spacewalks by shuttle and station crew members last six to seven hours. The EVA also, according to Space Adventures, “would lengthen the mission approximately six to eight days”; it’s not clear if they mean extending the mission from six to eight days (a two-day extension), which could be accommodated with the regular Soyuz taxi flight schedules, or a week-long extension, which would require changes in the overall schedule for such taxi missions.

Virgin Galactic has a vehicle under development, a group of 100 Founders that have paid to be the first to fly on the vehicle, and a list of tens of thousands of people who have expressed an interest in flying at some point. So it’s a little surprising to see that Virgin has put a call for travel agents to help sell their flights. The “Virgin Galactic Space Agents” will be existing registered travel agents who will book flights on SpaceShipTwo for suborbital tourists. Prospective “space agents” have to demonstrate to Virgin skills like “managing your client expectations” and “excellent customer service”, as well as how they would go about drumming up business for Virgin. This is an intriguing move since, to date, Virgin Galactic has appeared effective in rounding up customers on its own, thanks in large to the publicity it has generated. Perhaps the company is thinking ahead to a time when there will be more competition for suborbital space tourism flights and Virgin will need more than the Branson publicity machine to keep up sales?

The European Space Agency (ESA) is taking a small step to promote the development of a European space tourism industry through a small-scale initiative announced Thursday. The “The Survey of European Privately-funded Vehicles for Commercial Human Spaceflight” will allow European companies planning vehicles intended to serve the space tourism market to submit proposals through ESA’s General Studies Program; three of the companies will receive awards of up to €150,000 (US$190,000) to further develop their plans. “The aim of the study will be to critically review the spacecraft design and mission profiles, ensuring they are technically feasible, and develop sound business plans in order to allow companies to approach potential investors,” the ESA study notes. Given that there hasn’t been too much vehicle development activity in Europe to date that has been focused on space tourism (former X Prize contenders like Starchaser and Bristol Spaceplanes in the UK and ARCA in Romania), one wonders if this project will stimulate some new plans on the continent.