New developments on that fall ISS opportunity

Last week Space Adventures announced that they believed that there was a chance a seat would open up on a September Soyuz flight to the ISS that may allow them to fly another tourist to the station. And indeed that seat, which was to be occupied by a Kazakh cosmonaut, does appear to be [...]

First Chilean astronaut? We’ll see

Software developer Symantec announced Wednesday the winner of its contest to send someone into space: Jorge Patricio León López, who was selected from 30 finalists after participating in a weightless aircraft flight by Zero-G. As the press release claims, “In addition to being one of the first to participate in a commercial space travel [...]

Space Adventures announcement today

Space Adventures sent out an announcement late Thursday that they will be holding a teleconference for media Friday at 1 pm EDT to “discuss [the] future of space tourism, [and] available seats for upcoming orbital flights”. From the announcement:

Join Eric Anderson, co-founder, president and CEO of Space Adventures, to discuss the future [...]

Paul Allen, future space tourist?

Compared to the good ol’ days (2001), a space tourist flying to the ISS these days is a little, well, ho-hum. Back in 2001 there was all the drama associated with whether NASA would allow Dennis Tito to fly to the station on a Soyuz, and if so, what sort of reception he would [...]

Notes from my Simonyi interview

On Wednesday I had a long telephone interview with Charles Simonyi, scheduled to make a return trip to the International Space Station late next month. (The interview got delayed a couple hours because his training that day ran long.) I plan to have a more complete account of the interview in Monday’s issue of [...]

The wide world of space tourism

A roundup of space tourism news from across the globe:

Our first stop is Davos, Switzerland, where Space Adventures’ Eric Anderson says “business is good” for the space tourism company. Anderson, attending the World Economic Forum, said he’s looking for additional customers, but potential clients “should not expect any bargains because of the global [...]

The end of space tourism is near (again)

The commercial space community was atwitter (figuratively and literally) over a Russian news report that Russia planned to end taking space tourists to the ISS after this March’s return trip by Charles Simonyi. The implication was that there wouldn’t again be any other means of visiting the ISS.

However, this report is hardly the [...]

Virgin update and other notes

Rob Coppinger of Flightglobal.com covered a speech this morning by Will Whitehorn of Virgin Galactic at a UK space conference. Whitehorn said that the first flight of WhiteKnightTwo will be “soon” (but we’ve heard that before) and that SpaceShipTwo is “almost finished”. Virgin Galactic is now putting its second group of 100 customers [...]

Garriott says game over; is a space career next?

Richard Garriott, the space tourist who flew to the International Space Station last month, is leaving computer game company NCSoft to pursue new ventures that were at least inspired by his recent trip to space. “Many of you probably wonder what my plans are, now that I have achieved the lifelong dream of going [...]

Garriott in orbit

Richard Garriott is now the sixth commercial passenger to fly into orbit on a Soyuz taxi flight to the ISS. The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft lifted off on schedule at 3:01 am EDT (0701 GMT) and entered orbit nine minutes later. The flight is a realization of a long-term dream of Garriott, son of former [...]