Space Adventures’ CEO Eric Anderson believes that his company will have signed up the first tourists for their proposed circumlunar mission by the end of this year. Anderson made the comments last week at the Flight School conference in Colorado, according to SPACE.com. That’s a bit later than what Anderson said a month ago at the ISDC, when said he was working with a few prospective customers over the next few months to sign them up for the flight. The ticket still costs $100 million each, with two available for the flight.

Anderson added that, on the orbital front, his company is working with the Russian space agency Roskosmos to try and increase the number of Soyuz flights to provide more flight opportunities for space tourists. Also, he hopes that the first tourist spacewalk from the ISS could take place in 2009.

Today (assuming you’re reading this in the next few hours) is the third anniversary of the first flight into space by SpaceShipOne. A couple people emailed me to ask if I was going to post on this, and while I thought about taking a deep big-picture view of the significance of the anniversary, but realized what I wrote last year on the second anniversary of the flight is still valid today. Progress has been made (and continues to be made, as recent developments have demonstrated), but you still can’t fly into space on a suborbital vehicle. Perhaps by this time next year that will be different, at least if you’re a test pilot for one of the leading vehicle developers.

Evidently being executive director of the National Space Society isn’t keeping George Whitesides busy enough (hard to believe, given all the energy he puts into NSS activities): he has signed on to be a “senior advisor” to Virgin Galactic, according to a report by Space News (subscription required). He’ll work with Virgin on government and regulatory issues, according to the report, as well as being a general advocate for the company; he’ll split his time between Virgin Galactic and the NSS. Perhaps now he’ll get a discount on the reservations he and his wife, Loretta, have on SpaceShipTwo…

Spaceport America, the new commercial spaceport being developed in New Mexico, remains on schedule even though construction won’t begin until next year, state spaceport authority officials said Tuesday. Construction of the spaceport will begin in April of 2008, shortly after the state anticipates receiving a spaceport license from the FAA. The state is currently working on the environmental assessment portion of the licensing process, as well as engaging in Virgin Galactic in discussions about the spaceport design. The cost of the facility is still pegged at $198 million.

Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of the first flight into space by SpaceShipOne. As a reminder of that event, and the potential for the future, here’s a video I stumbled across recently, featuring a talk by Burt Rutan at the TED conference last year. He talks about the stagnation he sees in the aerospace industry (which he measures in part in terms of the top speed of aircraft over the decades) and the need for innovation, which he believes will be spurred by a “new capitalist space race”. If you’ve seen Rutan speak previously, you’ll find the theme and content familiar, but it’s a good encapsulation of his thoughts about the emerging private spaceflight industry.

Some reaction (and clarification) on the EADS Astrium announcement this week about its plans to develop a suborbital vehicle for space tourism markets:

Burt Rutan, contacted by SPACE.com, doesn’t think much of the plan. He thinks it, and other rocket-powered aircraft that take off from a runway under rocket or jet power, will be more expensive to develop and operate, and also have greater operational risks. “The non-recurring development cost of a suborbital spaceship that has rocket and jet engines — both of which leave the atmosphere and experience reentry — will be far more than our SpaceShipTwo program,” he said.

The vice president of the European Commission, Guenter Verheugen, is also dissatisfied with the Astrium proposal, but for very different reasons: “It’s only for the super rich, which is against my social convictions,” he told Reuters. (One wonders what he thinks of the many terrestrial luxury items and resorts that are also affordable only by the “super rich” in Europe or elsewhere.) The article also notes that an Airbus official “declined to answer a question on the apparent paradox of a company trying to cut emissions in one area while investing in a project to blast rich travellers into space.” Perhaps because the paradox wasn’t apparent to him or others.

Also, thanks to a few readers that helped alleviate my ignorance about the seating inside Astrium’s “space jet”. It turns out the seats are hinged on each end, allowing the seats to rotate into the proper position during ascent so that the g-forces are aligned on the G_x vector through the body. It turns out there’s an illustration in a brochure about the vehicle, although, curiously, no matching image in a photo gallery. In any case, it makes much more sense to me now.

The online edition of Space News reported late Wednesday that Rocketplane Kistler missed its May milestone in NASA’s COTS program (subscription required). That milestone required RpK to have completed a second round of private financing by the end of the month; it has yet to complete that round, according to a NASA spokesperson contacted by Space News. NASA doesn’t plan to penalize the company for the missed milestone at the present time, instead choosing to work with the company “on a plan that would provide the company additional time to meet its goal while also meeting NASA’s needs.” RpK, by all accounts, has been making steady technical progress on the K-1 vehicle, announcing back in February that it achieved a systems requirement review for the vehicle three weeks ahead of schedule.

Yesterday the European aerospace company EADS Astrium announced its proposal to develop a suborbital vehicle to serve the space tourism market. While this is a new design, the concept of operations is almost identical to what Rocketplane Global has been developing for several years: a vehicle the size of a business jet that takes off under jet power, ignites a rocket engine at altitude to fly a suborbital trajectory, then land again under jet power. If nothing else, the Rocketplane people should feel pleased that concept has been “borrowed” by a big aerospace company (even though Astrium’s actual vehicle design is somewhat different from the Rocketplane XP.) It also appears that those earlier reports about the use of an A380F as a carrier aircraft turned out to be unfounded.

EADS didn’t release a lot of technical details about the vehicle design, but one thing about it struck me as odd. Look at the seating design of the cabin:

I can understand why the designed put the seats sideways: it makes it easy for passengers to look out windows, and may allow for a shorter passenger cabin. However, during ascent, this design means that the g-forces experienced by passengers will be on the G_y vector: across the body from left to right (or right to left, depending on how you’re oriented), which doesn’t seem as preferable as taking the g-forced through the body on the G_x vector. One of the features of the SpaceShipTwo cabin, for example, is the movable seat, so that the g-forces go through the G_x vector on both launch and reentry.

So what does Astrium’s entry into the market mean for space tourism in general, and other companies in the market? The endorsement of the suborbital space tourism concept by one of the world’s largest aerospace companies does certainly give industry an additional air of legitimacy, although it’s not clear just how important or necessary that endorsement is (except, perhaps, in the eyes of some contrarians.) And the addition of new ventures may increase the likelihood that one or more of them are eventually successful.

However, how seriously should this proposal be taken? According to the BBC Astrium estimates that it will cost €1 billion (US$1.3 billion) to develop the vehicle, and that the company will seek additional investment. They plan to charge €150,000-200,000 (US$195,000-265,000) per ticket, which puts them on the high end of known prices, particularly compared to Virgin’s $200,000 list price. It’s tough to see how the business plan for this would close, given the huge investment required: at the €200K ticket price, that means a revenue per flight of €800K. That would mean Astrium would have to fly the vehicle 1,250 times to recoup their investment—and that assumes a marginal cost per flight of zero! That’s sharply different from other companies, which require anywhere from five to 20 times less money to develop their vehicles, making it much more likely they can fly enough to pay off the investment.

A conspiratorially-minded person might wonder if this is an example of what’s known in the computer industry as FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt): by playing up their experience and putting such a high price tag on the venture, it could create uncertainty in the market that smaller, less experienced companies can pull off their plans. That may not be an intentional effect, but it is something to look out for in the months to come.

The X Prize Foundation announced yesterday that Brett Alexander has joined the organization as its executive director for space prizes and the X Prize Cup. In that position, according to the press release, he will “work to secure financing, create rules, recruit teams, develop rollout and media plans and investigate international partnerships for all future space-related prizes” run by the foundation. He will also “create and manage content” for the X Prize Cup. Alexander, a former space policy analyst in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, was previously a vice president for corporate and external affairs with t/Space (he is now a senior advisor with the company). Alexander is also president of the Personal Spaceflight Federation, a position he will retain.

Given all the hype and hoopla surrounding many new commercial space ventures these days, it’s easy to overlook the fact that there are people out there not convinced that these companies, or the industry in general, are that real. A case in point: on the web site for Earth & Sky, a science radio show, space historian David S. F. Portree takes a highly critical look at NewSpace (or “Newspace”, without the intercapped “S”, as he writes it.) Portree is very skeptical that commercial human spaceflight will take off (so to speak), “mainly because piloted spaceflight is expensive and difficult” He brings up some legitimate concerns, such as what will happen to the industry in the wake of a fatal accident, as well as the dangers of extending analogies to early aviation too far. He also argues that NewSpace wants NASA to “get out of the way” while also asking it for public funding, which is something of a corruption of what most NewSpace companies are saying and asking for. He also argues that NewSpace is similar to the “1970s space colony craze” (remember “L5 by ’95″—as in “1995″?)

I left a comment critiquing his analysis (and, just checking now, it looks like I owe David a response to his reply). If you have something to add, you’re probably best served by commenting there, not here.