A few odds and ends from the last week of 2007:

• The Washington Times reported on Richard Garriott’s planned flight to the ISS in 2008 in an article published on Christmas Day. In addition to Garriott’s plans to perform commercial experiments on his flight, the article notes that “companies are invited to develop advertising campaigns or commercials that Mr. Garriott could shoot in space.”
• The British newspaper The Guardian reexamines Virgin Galactic’s plans to perform suborbital spaceflights from Kiruna, Sweden, allowing passengers to fly through the aurora borealis. There’s not much news here, other than that a sounding rocket flight is planned for November with cameras on it “to find out what being inside the aurora actually looks like”; it apparently never occurred to scientists to do this before.
• In Monday’s The Telegraph, also from the UK, Jim White feels a blast of nostalgia for the heady days of the 1960s space race thanks to Virgin Galactic (with an assist to Wallace and Gromit). Virgin’s planned suborbital flights will be expensive, but “for many of us of a certain vintage it might well represent the finest value for money: I’m getting all excited about the possibility just writing about it.”

Marketing Week reports Thursday that Virgin Galactic will be unveiling more than just the design of White Knight Two and SpaceShipTwo during an event at the American Museum of Natural History in New York on January 23. “We will be unveiling the entire design and structure of the project, and it looks nothing like what we’ve had before,” said Will Whitehorn. Among the additional details to come out at that event: the use of the system to launch small satellites and how the research that has gone into the project “can benefit other airlines”. Also to be revealed: a new branding scheme for Virgin Galactic. “The eye [in the Virgin Galactic logo] will remain, but it will have new branding around it and a new color scheme.” (Perhaps more use of Virgin’s distinctive shade of red?) Whitehorn also said that, in their current plans, the first commercial suborbital flights could take place “by the end of 2010.”

That’s the designation that Virgin Galactic is giving to the coming year, according to a Flight International article that reports on a speech given by Will Whitehorn on Thursday at a space conference in the UK. Virgin anticipates a busy year, highlighted by the first test flight of the White Knight 2 carrier aircraft in July. The airplane is 60% complete now and is scheduled to be fully assembled by June; the aircraft’s “last” engine will be delivered in January. Virgin is also planning to publicly unveil the designs for White Knight 2 (which Whitehorn says resembles the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, also built by Scaled Composites) and SpaceShipTwo on January 23. The report doesn’t indicate where or how that will take place, but previously Virgin officials had said they were planning an event in New York in January. The report doesn’t provide a schedule for the development of SpaceShipTwo, other than to say that the first vehicle is currently 50% complete. (Also no word on what Burt Rutan, who is notorious for not releasing vehicle development schedules, thinks of all of these announced plans.)

Whitehorn added that Virgin is considering also using White Knight 2 or a larger successor, White Knight 3, as the first stage for an orbital launch system. That system, which would also involve a two-stage rocket, would be intended to put smallsats into orbit for $3 million.

Virgin Galactic has been signing up travel agents around the world to help it sell its suborbital spaceflights. So what’s in it for the travel agents, besides some publicity and a chance to be on the cutting edge of what could be an emerging market in the overall tourism industry? Money, as Australia’s The Daily Telegraph reports in a profile of “up-market travel agent” Penny Spencer:

In May this year she became the first agent outside America to sell a fully-paid $260,000 ticket.

“It’s a three-hour trip into space and paying up-front will ensure (the client) is among the first 100 space tourists,” she said.

It’s not a bad earner for Spencer, either.

In an industry that has largely done away with travel agents’ commissions, Virgin is making an exception for its space flights and is paying almost five per cent - that’s $13,000 for Spencer’s top line - though she insists it took quite a bit of organising.

Looking at the prices above (which are in Australian dollars), it appears they may need to recalibrate given the US dollar’s recent fall: A$260,000 is now nearly US$230,000, compared to the US$200,000 price that’s usually been associated with a Virgin Galactic flight.

The newspaper Irish Independent has a profile of businessman Tom Higgins, best known for making millions with a psychic hotline. At the end of the piece Higgins discusses his other major claim to fame: being one of the first two Irishmen to sign up for a suborbital spaceflight for space tourism. It looks like, though, he needs his staff to clean their crystal balls or reshuffle their Tarot cards: “Next year will probably (he can’t say for certain — even the psychics aren’t sure) see Higgins in space.” In fact, next year is very unlikely, unless Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites have made far more progress on SpaceShipTwo than they have let on in public.

Higgins is vying with Bill Cullen to be first. “According to Higgins, he had his name down first and has paid, but Cullen is mates with Richard Branson, who owns Virgin Galactic, which is sending the spaceship into space,” the article notes. “Higgins, ever with an eye to publicity, wanted there to be a space quiz on the Late Late Show to decide the owner of the seat on the first space ride but Cullen apparently would not agree to this and now a draw is supposed to take place.” Shouldn’t those psychics be able to tell Higgins if he’ll go first?

An article in The West Australian reports that a Virgin Galactic seat will be auctioned off Saturday night during the Chinese Chamber of Commerce annual ball in Perth. Curiously, the article claims that “Bill Gates, Warren Buffet [sic], Oprah Winfrey, Sir Richard Branson and Donald Trump have already signed up for a space flight”. Branson, of course, has “signed up” for a flight: he owns Virgin Galactic. The other names, though, should be treated with a heavy dose of skepticism. After all, does the Oracle of Omaha strike you as someone who would spend $200K on a suborbital spaceflight? Although perhaps he and Bill could convince Oprah and The Donald to play a round of zero-g bridge…

Richard Branson spoke at an event Tuesday night in Jacksonville, Florida, talking about his various ventures, including Virgin Galactic, which led to this exchange as reported in the Florida Times-Union:

Branson began building his business empire in the 1970s when he established Virgin Records, initially as a mail-order record outlet and later a record label. Virgin then expanded into a host of fields, including mobile phones, aviation, animation and, in one of Branson’s most high-profile endeavours, space travel, with Virgin Galactic planning on sending tourists into space two years from now - for a price.

“How many people out there are willing to spend $200,000 to fly into space?” [host Howard] Kelley asked, a question that elicited a lone clap from the back of the hall.

“Well, one,” Branson said with a chuckle, and then pointed out into the audience. “I’ll see you later.”

Cue the “thrill of victory, agony of defeat” theme music…

• Our first stop in our world tour is Israel, where the first travel agency certified by Virgin Galactic has started selling tickets. According to the director of that agency, Galactic Dreamlines, most Israelis who have expressed an interest in suborbital spaceflight to date are businesspeople “who like new experiences and adventures.”
• Next we go all the way to New Zealand, where one Virgin Galactic customer, Jackie Maw, is preparing for training in the US. One of Virgin’s 100 Founders, Maw will undergo training, including centrifuge time, at the NASTAR Center outside Philadelphia.
• And, finally, we go to Canada, where a musical group called the TADROS twins claim that they will be “the first artists to do a musical project in space”. They announced Monday that they have signed up with the “airline” Space Adventures to fly no earlier than 2010; a more specific launch date will be announced in 2008, and they don’t specify if it will be an orbital or suborbital flight. They plan to sing “a song for peace” while in weightlessness. They already appear to have completed some training: they “lived in a bubble for 7 days and 7 nights on the esplanade of La Place des Arts in Montreal”, where they wrote and recorded songs being released in a new album.

Above: a panel of space travelers discuss the spaceflight experience on Thursday afternoon. From left: Jeff Hoffman, Jay Buckey, Michael Lopez-Alegria, Anousheh Ansari, Dan Barry, Janice Voss, and John Herrington.

The second and final day of the International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight started off with a focus on spaceports (actually, it started off with a flamenco dancing demonstration, but that’s another story), and later turned its attention to the financial issues associated with NewSpace and closed out with a panel of government and commercial space travelers. Some highlights:

• Olle Norberg of Spaceport Sweden, in what was billed as the first public appearance (at least in the US) from an official of that planned spaceport, said that they are currently in the midst of a feasibility study for the facility, located at the Esrange sounding rocket launch site in northern Sweden, that is scheduled to conclude at the end of next year. If all goes well the spaceport could be open to Virgin or other operators in 2011-2012. One challenge: working through a tangled regulatory landscape that is not as well-defined as in the US.
• Turning to local spaceport issues, work is underway on the environmental assessment for Spaceport America in New Mexico. Officials here hope that the assessment is completed by September, which would allow a groundbreaking perhaps at next year’s conference. (The assessment is also required for the spaceport to get an FAA license.) The current schedule calls for Spaceport America to open in April 2010.
• Many communities in southern New Mexico, from Las Cruces to small towns like Hatch, are looking to the spaceport as a big driver of economic development for the area. One speaker said the spaceport was going to be the biggest economic benefit for southern New Mexico in 20 years.
• One issue in the area has been a sales tax (officials, “gross receipts tax”) that will help fund the spaceport. (Those taxes will contribute $60 million to the spaceport, with the state paying the rest of the $200-million cost of the facility.) Doña Ana County, which includes Las Cruces, passed the tax earlier this year, but two other counties, Sierra and Otero, have yet to hold their own referenda on the tax. Lori Montgomery, mayor of Truth or Consequences, NM, said Sierra County will likely hold a referendum on the tax in March or April of next year, after “educating” the citizens about the tax.
• A search for a new executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority is winding down, and the office plans to make an announcement by early November. Kelly O’Donnell, the current acting executive director, said the office plans to ask the state for a four-fold budget increase in 2008 to help staff up the office.
• Alex Tai, at the end of a general presentation about Virgin Galactic, said that the company had booked $31 million in sales so far, the largest figure announced by the company to date.
• Lov Levin of t/Space said he wanted to challenge the “myth” that this was a new market: instead, he argued, we are in the midst of a transition from a government-dominated market to a commercial one, which may make it easier for potential investors to better grasp the opportunities.
• Janice Voss, who left the astronaut corps a few years ago to work on NASA’s Kepler mission (she plans to return at the end of this year, but not in a flight capacity), said when she left she looked at the opportunities in the commercial market when she left but couldn’t see where the market was going. If she was leaving now, she said, it would be a different situation, with many more opportunities.
• John Herrington, a former NASA astronaut now working for Rocketplane, said that he expects a wave of retirements from the astronaut corps when the shuttle program ends, particularly among those who don’t expect much of a chance to get the limited flight opportunities once Orion comes online. These people, he said, will certainly look at opportunities in the commercial sector.
• Understatement of the day: Chuck Lauer, filling in for George French on a panel about how NewSpace companies have adapted to the changing market, about the K-1 saga: “Obviously there are challenges we are working through.”

(The picture above doesn’t have anything to do directly with the conference, it’s just a nice view of the Moon rising around sunset Wednesday as seen from the conference site in Las Cruces.)

Yesterday’s sessions of the International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight didn’t have any groundbreaking revelations, but there were still some interesting developments and news from the various conference sessions, which I’ll summarize below:

• One of the most informative presentations during the day was the first, by Valin Thorn, deputy program manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew & Cargo Program. He addressed head-on the recent decision to terminate the funded COTS agreement with Rocketplane Kistler, saying that they had missed milestones not only for their financing, but also a cargo module critical design review. He called the K-1 concept “outstanding” and said he wouldn’t be surprised to see them resubmit a revised proposal in the new round of COTS bidding.
• John Herrington, filling in for George French in the same morning session (French was at the conference but called away to a board meeting), confirmed earlier reports that the company had lined up commitments from investors for $300 million of the sought-for $450 million (not $500 million as reported elsewhere), but those plans fell through because of a variety of reasons, including NASA’s agreement to buy Progress and Soyuz flights from Russia as well as comments by unnamed NASA officials that appeared to be disparaging towards COTS.
• Herrington did say that work was proceeding with the XP suborbital spaceplane, and the company plans to announce a revised design of the vehicle on Friday. From what I understand, this will be more than a minor tweak to the existing modified-Learjet approach. Herrington said that some of the investors who has expressed an interest in the K-1 may also be interested in investing in the XP (which is done by a separate subsidiary company, Rocketplane Global), but didn’t have anything specific to say about XP financing.
• Thorn’s talk also revealed some new developments by other companies that have unfunded COTS agreements. SPACEHAB is working on a concept called ARCTUS to develop a cargo spacecraft based on the Centaur upper stage. PlanetSpace, in addition to their work on their Nova booster and spaceplane, is also working on a less-ambitious concept that would use a launch vehicle called the Athena 3 (a Lockheed Martin Athena 2 augmented with two shuttle SRB segments) for carrying cargo to the station.
• SpaceDev CEO Mark Sirangelo said his company is continuing work on its Dream Chaser design for both orbital and suborbital applications, including working with NASA on an unfunded COTS agreement. The company’s operations have been disrupted because of the San Diego wildfires that forced them to evacuate their Poway, California headquarters; he said their team is working on their new COTS proposal from a trailer on a beach near San Diego.
• Sirangelo added that SpaceDev may work with Benson Space Company on engine technology for BSC’s suborbital vehicle, but plans no additional involvement on that project.
• Hugues Laporte-Weywada, senior vice president of EADS Astrium, didn’t offer a lot of new details about his company’s suborbital space tourism vehicle. That effort started in early 2006 with market and design studies; the Rocketplane-like spaceplane won out over rocket-and-capsule and air-launched spaceplane approaches. The company is continuing work on both technology and financing, and hopes to have all the money lined up to develop the vehicle as soon as possible in early 2008.
• The government-commercial synergy panel was a crowded mix of familiar topics (operationally responsive space, the Marine Corps’ SUSTAIN concept, and other RLV technology development work), without a lot of new developments announced.
• Two afternoon panels featuring past and expectant space travelers were combined into one, with Anousheh Ansari and two NASA astronauts (Michael Lopez-Alegria and Dan Barry) discussing what their orbital flights were like, as well as expectant or would-be space tourists Reda Anderson (Rocketplane), Craig Willan (Virgin Galactic), and Lori Garver (who tried to arrange a trip to the ISS in 2002) discussing their expectations. One theme that emerged: when you’re in space, take time to simply soak in the experience rather than get caught up in tasks or taking pictures.

Thursday’s sessions appear focused on spaceport development, financing, and more discussions with astronauts. I will continue, as schedule and technology permits, to microblog some insights from the conference on Twitter during the day.