To follow up on yesterday’s report where the cofounders of a social networking startup announced they were going to travel to the ISS, I received a response to some questions I posed the company from one of the cofounders/would-be space tourists, Cherry Mendoza. According to her, while they would start training in preparation for the flights this fall, formal training (presumably meaning actually starting training in Russia) would not begin until next spring. The two (Mendoza and Jennifer Bellofatto) would not fly together on the same flight since “such arrangements more than triple the cost of flight,” according to Mendoza. (Which makes sense given that typically only one seat is open per taxi flight.) One of them would fly in fall 2008 and the other in 2009, she said.

Although a Space Adventures spokesperson told me yesterday that she was not aware of their plans, Mendoza said that they have been talking with the company, but have yet to sign any contracts. The key point here is that, while they said in the press release yesterday that they plan to pay for the flight with money raised from venture capitalists, they are still working on getting the money: “Once we close VC funding we anticipate traveling in fall of 2008,” Mendoza said. And why spend $40 million of VC money—assuming they can raise it—on a pair of ISS trips, when that money could go into building up the business in more concrete ways? “We want to show that women can accomplish great things by supporting each other and working together.” We’ll have to see if that’s convincing enough for VCs to open their wallets…

The polls open in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, later this morning for a special referendum on a gross receipts tax to help pay for the development of Spaceport America. According to today’s Las Cruces Sun-News, local officials expect a close election, although there’s been no published opinion polling on the proposal and election officials said they didn’t have “the faintest clue” just how many people would turn out to the polls. Over four percent of county voters have already cast their vote through absentee ballots or early voting. The polls are open in the county from 7 am to 7 pm MDT (9 am to 9 pm EDT).

There was a surprising press release this morning claiming that the two co-founders of an online social networking startup had signed up to fly to the ISS. Cherry Mendoza and Jennifer Bellofatto of HerOrbit.com will start training in Russia in the fall of 2007 for a future unspecified flight or flights to the ISS (the press release isn’t clear if they’ll fly together on the same mission or on separate flights, the latter being more in accordance with past practice and the use of Soyuz taxi flights for ISS crew rotations.) The $20 million per person price would be paid by VCs who, the company claims in its announcement, “as with MySpace and YouTube, are eager to back promising Internet social networks.” (Are they really that eager to back such companies that they’ll blow $40 million on some space flights?)

Perhaps I’m being overly skeptical, but it’s hard to take this announcement at face value (indeed, had it come out yesterday, I’d assume it was an April Fool’s joke.) Space Adventures has brokered all the previous space tourists to fly to the ISS, yet as of midday today there was no corresponding announcement from them. Also, it looks a little odd to see them posing in blue jumpsuits with NASA patches on them - why would tourists working (ultimately) with Roskosmos be wearing NASA-logoed apparel, unless it was the only thing available for a last-minute photo shoot?

I’ve sent some inquiries to both HerOrbit.com and Space Adventures to try and learn more about this; if/when I hear anything I will post an update.

Update: According to Space Adventures, they have had no dealings with HerOrbit.com. This is looking more and more like a poorly-timed April Fool’s joke (it is, after all, April 2) - hardly a good way to build trust and goodwill in your company.

The Orange County Register gave Sunday a travel agent working with Virgin Galactic an opportunity to talk about the suborbital spaceflight experience. Tom Jackson has the basics of a suborbital spaceflight down, but he hasn’t captured all of the details. A few examples:

The technology is proven with the successful winning of the X-Competition [sic] at Mojave in September of 2004.

[…]

Once at 350,000 feet the power is dissipated and the craft powers upward and then slowly returns to earth in a glide controlled by its wing configuration and the two pilots. [The "power is dissipated" and yet it "powers upward"?]

[…]

The satellites that circle our Earth today circumnavigate the planet in 45 minutes at the speed of 17,500 miles per hour as there is no resistance at those altitudes. [Er, more like 90+ minutes]

Hardly egregious errors, but it makes you wonder…

With Doña Ana County all set to hold a special election tomorrow on the spaceport tax measure, spaceport supporters got a mixed message over the weekend from the state legislature: it approved $10 million of the planned $25 million in road improvements for the spaceport. The money, though, is enough to start work on the spaceport provided county voters approve the tax proposal tomorrow. State officials said they will work to get the remaining $15 million in road money next year.