At Space Access yesterday Dave Masten of Masten Space Systems provided a brief update on his company’s vehicle development efforts. He noted that when they decided not to participate in the Lunar Lander Challenge last fall, they thought they were two weeks away from flight. “We are still two weeks away from flight,” he said, having run into a number of technical problems in the intervening months. “But we think we’re really there this time.” Those flight tests will be of its initial small-scale prototype, the XA-0.1; once those begin they’ll start work on the larger XA-0.2, the vehicle they’re developing for this year’s Lunar Lander Challenge, unless other works keeps them from participating. “We’re going to try and fly in the Lunar Lander Challenge. There is a hope that we won’t because we’re too busy with other stuff, with other contracts.” Masten said their appearance at last year’s X Prize Cup, where they test-fired an engine, attracted the attention of some people who have asked them to perform some R&D work.

Incidentally, today’s Los Angeles Times has an article about Norton Sales Inc., the North Hollywood junkyard that has a huge amount of used aerospace parts, from valves to rocket engines. Featured in the article are Dave Masten and Jon Goff of Masten Space, visiting the warehouse to look for parts. “It’s dangerous coming to a place like this,” said Masten. “It’s like shopping on an empty stomach.” Other Norton Sales customers include Orion Propulsion, Scaled Composites, and SpaceX.

You can buy a lot of things on Amazon.com, from books and DVDs to clothes and jewelry. Did you know that you can also buy a full-scale replica of Goddard, the Blue Origin spacecraft? It’ll only cost you $9,999,999.00 (on sale from $11,999,999.00!). The product description: “A full sized replica of Goddard. This is a great item which is detailed from the cockpit to the tail. Shown above you can see some of the detail that goes into building these fantastic replicas.” Be warned, however: the shipping weight is just over 22 trillion pounds, so it’s not going to make the UPS guy very happy.

The replica is sold by a vendor named TVPATAM, whose store includes a mix of ordinary items (camera, headphones) and the Goddard replica, along with a Space Rock Paperweight and G Suit (made of “a heavy duty denim twill” in three sizes and four colors), each for $999,999. It looks like someone (perhaps associated with Blue Origin?) has a sense of humor.

(Via collectSPACE and rich text.)

We’ve pretty much established here already that, despite various media reports, William Shatner is not one of the celebrities who have signed up for suborbital spaceflights with Virgin Galactic. Still, this explanation from Shatner in an article from The Times of London is a bit humorous:

“One little tile burns and you drop to your death? I’ve been approached to do some things with astronauts and the preparation that astronauts go through. One of the things you have to do is get used to weightlessness and they have a Boeing plane that does an outside loop so you’re weightless for about 30 seconds. It’s called the Vomit Comet and I don’t like to vomit.”