Insert starry-eyed/out-of-this-world metaphors here

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 […]

Aloha, Rocketplane?

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, […]

Ansari’s book, Simonyi’s web site

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 […]

The loss of a spaceport pioneer

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 […]