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.”
Bigelow Aerospace made a cryptic announcement late Monday, stating that the company “will be making a very important and exciting announcement” at the National Space Symposium on April 10. About what? “For the first time, we will be presenting our business plans that we have kept to ourselves until now. This information that we plan to announce on April 10 at the Bell [sic] Aerospace Exhibit Center should help support the private space movement.” (I presume they mean the Ball Aerospace Exhibit Center.) Will this be about their Sundancer spacecraft, first announced at the AIAA Space 2006 conference in September? Or do they have something else up their sleeves?
Speaking of the Journal, the front page of today’s issue has an article about the lingering beef between Burt Rutan and Jim Benson. (Yes, subscription required. Blame the Journal, not me.) As many readers are already aware. SpaceDev, founded by Benson, built the hybrid rocket motor used by Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, but the two had a rather public falling out, which included threats of lawsuits by Rutan (which, the article states, were not followed through “to avoid the expense and distraction of litigation”.) The two now, of course, are rivals, with Rutan leading the development of SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic and Benson starting a new company to help fund development of SpaceDev’s Dream Chaser concept. For those who have followed this issue over the last few years, there’s not too much new here, although reported Andy Pasztor does get comments from both Benson and Rutan.
One other item of note in the article: Benson tells the Journal that he is planning “a nationwide competition to hand out free rides aboard his spacecraft” that will be formally announced in the next few weeks.
An article in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required) about the spike in sales of space memorabilia in the wake of the Lisa Nowak case mentioned in passing one other sale of interest to personal spaceflight enthusiasts:
Demand for memorabilia has spiked ever since billionaires started dabbling in private space travel and the Chinese government became interested in space. Aurora Auctions, of Bell Canyon, Calif., recently sold a brown M&M that left the Earth’s atmosphere in 2004 aboard the Paul Allen-financed SpaceShipOne. It went for $1,500.
“It was flown on the very first mission,” says Victoria Campbell, Aurora’s founder and chief executive. “That’s very important.”
Hmmm… I’ve got a whole bag of specially-branded M&Ms that were distributed at the X Prize flights in Mojave. Think that’s worth $1,500? Probably not. How about $1.50? It is a big bag, you know…
Microsoft and AMD, the sponsors of the “Vanishing Point” contest conducted online last month, announced Monday the winner of the grand prize, William Temple of Sacramento. Temple will get a suborbital spaceflight provided by Rocketplane Kistler; the date of his flight wasn’t announced although RpK is planning to begin commercial flights of the XP vehicle around 2009. For those wondering about taxes, which tripped up one other prize winner, Temple is also getting $50,000.
An article in the British newspaper The Independent last week about Richard Branson’s new climate prize mentioned that Branson risks being branded a hypocrite because his ownership of a fossil fuel-burning airline and “for setting up a company, Virgin Galactica, that intends to use the aircraft technology that won the X-prize to build up a space tourism industry where individual tickets for a 90-second ride in space will cost £100,000 each - as well as burning thousands of gallons of rocket fuel.” Wait a sec: Virgin Galactica? Must have been a random typo. However, a companion piece by the same author also uses the “Virgin Galactica” name twice in the same paragraph. Has Virgin Galactic changed its name, perhaps in a bid to ride the popularity of the TV show Battlestar Galactica?
The answer is almost certainly no: the company’s web site still uses the Virgin Galactic name, and that’s how the company was identifying itself as recently as last week at the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference. Still, it’s amusing to see that the two Independent articles aren’t the only times an “a” has been appended to the end of Virgin Galactic’s name. A search turns up a couple of other examples in the last month: an article in the University of Cincinnati newspaper, The News-Record, about a visit to campus by former NASA Ames director Scott Hubbard, who was quoted as saying “Privately funded rockets are being made … such as Virgin Galactica”; and a Fox News article, since pulled from the web, that mentioned in passing that Stephen Hawking announced “his plans to tour space in 2009 aboard one of Richard Branson’s planned Virgin Galactica space flights.”
When I saw Jim Benson at the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference in the DC area on Tuesday, he said his company, Benson Space Company (BSC), would have an announcement to make on Wednesday. What would it be about? “You heard about the person recently who had to give up the flight he won?” he said.
It turns out the AP had the story on Tuesday, reporting that BSC had found a way to give Brian Emmitt a flight to space. Emmitt, as reported last month, had to give up a suborbital flight he won in an Oracle contest because he couldn’t afford the taxes on it. BSC, according to the AP article, will hire Emmitt as a consultant. He will be a “test passenger” when BSC’s vehicle, Dream Chaser, is ready for commercial service (as soon as late 2008, Benson says), and will provide feedback to the company in return. Since the flight isn’t being awarded as a prize, Emmitt won’t owe taxes on it—just on what BSC pays him.