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 plans to be the first couple to honeymoon in space on Virgin Galactic. (George is executive director of the NSS, and both are co-founders of Yuri’s Night.) Right now there’s not much here—some background on the couple and their plans—but according to a press release they plan to “document the preparation and lead-up to the flight, and include suggestions for others who wish to celebrate their own honeymoons, anniversaries or even weddings in space.”

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, as well as the creation of a “space-themed” training center, would be in addition to flights from Oklahoma; company officials had previously expressed interest in setting up flight operations at a number of different locations, including Japan.

There are two interesting items of note in the article. The article mentions in passing that, in order for RpK to carry out the Hawaii flights, the state would have to get spaceport license(s) for the airport(s) the XP would fly from. A bill introduced in the Hawaii State Senate last month, SB 907, would create an Office of Aerospace Development (originally to be called the Office of Space Industry) within the state’s economic development and tourism department and set aside $500,000 for “Establishment of an international commercial spaceport”. However, when the legislation was reported out of committee the accompanying report to the president of the state senate stated that “Your Committee also has concerns regarding the establishment of a commercial spaceport, which has generated considerable community opposition in the past.” (A reference to past efforts to establish a spaceport on the southern tip of the Big Island). Therefore, the committee decided to “delete all references to a commercial space launch, international spaceport, and the appropriation for a spaceport” in the bill.

The second item of note in the article is the state of RpK’s financing for the XP vehicle program. Chuck Lauer, VP for business development for RpK, told the AP that the company has raised only $25 million of the $150 million it believes it needs “to field a commercial fleet of space planes.” RpK has been spending a lot of time lining up several hundred million it needs to develop the K-1 vehicle as part of NASA’s COTS demonstration program; will it be able to win a somewhat smaller amount in addition to support the XP?

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 doesn’t yet have a publisher or a publication date, will be donated to charity. The fact that Ansari and Hickam—best known for his own rocket-inspired coming-of-age memoir, Rocket Boys—are collaborating isn’t a surprise: the two met in Huntsville back in December and, when asked about working together on a book, Hickam said “We may talk about that. It could happen.”

Meanwhile, publicists for prospective space tourist Charles Simonyi announced that Simonyi’s web site devoted to the mission has been updated with videos and other “rich new content”. The site, CharlesInSpace.com, isn’t new—it was announced in October—but it does appear to have some more material. The site does still have a flashy (and Flash-y) interface that can be sluggish, and his blog hasn’t been updated since January 22.

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 in rudimentary form—its first launch last September for UP Aerospace. “He was like a kid in a sandbox when he was launch director for the UP Aerospace launch,” Rick Homans, secretary of the state’s Economic Development Department. “He was so excited these last few years to see these dreams of a spaceport come to fruition.”