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?

News reports out of Melbourne, Australia over the weekend indicated that Space Adventures had selected an Australian-born millionaire to be the backup to Richard Garriott on his trip to the ISS next October. “Self-described ‘thrillionaire’ Nik Halik has been named as the back-up crewman for next year’s October commercial flight to the International Space Station,” reported the Herald Sun. Another paper, The Age, also reported that Halik said that he had been selected as the backup for the trip, putting him in “a good position to lead the next flight in 2009″.

There’s just one problem with all this, as you might imagine upon reading this far: Halik hasn’t been selected yet by Space Adventures to be the backup. According to company spokesperson Stacey Tearne, Halik is indeed one of the candidates to pay $3 million to be Garriott’s backup, but no decision has been made. A selection will be made in January “at the latest”, she said in an email this morning.

Little details like that aren’t stopping Halik from dreaming big, though. According to the Herald Sun he said he wants not only to go to the ISS some day, but also “be one of the first to colonise the moon”. “By 2018, the Japanese want to colonise it and have a moon base and use it to explore the galaxy,” he told the paper. (This may be news to the Japanese.)

It appears that Halik, who made his money through investments and investment seminars (”over 31,178 people have already attended his Mastery Educational Events”), has been pursuing this goal for some time, according to this 2006 article:

In 2003, Nik commenced his training through the Russian Orbital Space Program. Having completed his Edge of Space supersonic flight and Zero Gravity training flight just recently in Moscow, he will be the first recorded Australian civilian to fly Sub-Orbit soon, qualifying him the status of being certified as an astronaut. The next adventure after this will be his ultimate mission and destiny to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) for a fortnight orbital stay. Nik, alongside his sponsors is planning on executing the first history making stock market trade in SPACE.

In this week’s issue of The Space Review I have an article about Lori Garver and Lance Bass, who tried to be orbital space tourists in 2002. Most people in the space industry are familiar with Garver, and her talk at the ISPS last month in New Mexico didn’t have much in the way of new insights about her “AstroMom” bid to go to the ISS. Bass, on the other hand, while attracting all the media attention when his plan came forward (and later collapsed), has talked little about his attempt to fly in space in any detail. The former *NYSNC star does go into some details in his new book, Out of Sync, which I recap in the article, ranging from his surgery to correct an irregular heartbeat to the difficulty he had raising money (including being forced to pay for the rest of his training out of pocket, to the tune of nearly a half-million dollars, to stay on track for his planned fall 2002 launch.) Bass doesn’t say in the book if he has any desire to try to fly in space again, either on a suborbital or orbital flight; Garver, by contrast, says that “I guess I feel like I will still go to space”, although she has no immediate plans for a spaceflight.

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.”

The introduction of this Arizona Republic article probably puts it best:

By day, Morris Jarvis works as an instrumentation and control engineer for Intel Corp.’s newest factory, Fab 32.

By night and on the weekends, he is Arizona’s version of the “Astronaut Farmer,” building a vehicle he hopes to launch into space someday.

Jarvis is building a small winged vehicle that can be launched by balloon or rockets (the article is vague whether the balloon is part of the launch system or just, as noted, a means to generate revenue before going to rocket-powered flights), eventually carrying four people to about 100 kilometers for $100,000 apiece. He estimates he needs only $5.4 million to begin rocket-powered flights (”only” in sense that other ventures have suggested needing far larger amounts—think of EADS Astrium and its €1 billion).

From the limited information in the article, though, it’s tough to take this venture that seriously. Jarvis has kept a low profile in the personal spaceflight community to date. At the very least, given his location, he should be presenting his project at the Space Access conference in Phoenix; if he did, people might be better able to judge his effort from a technical and financial standpoint, and even perhaps offer some assistance.

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.

I’m in the media building at Holloman AFB, having gotten out of a press conference a little while ago about the X Prize Cup and related announcements. A few highlights:

Rocketplane Global, as expected, unveiled its new design for the XP suborbital spaceplane. The company is no longer using Learjet hardware for the vehicle, deciding instead to use a new design that is superficially similar in shape to the old one (with the exception that the V-tail has been replaced with a T-tail, and with more windows in the fuselage), but able to accommodate five passengers plus a pilot. They’re using a different jet engine, the J-85, but the same AR-36 rocket engine under development by Polaris Propulsion. The vehicle also features new landing gear similar to that used by the F-5 fighter. The interior will be designed by Frank Nuovo, a designer who has worked with clients ranging from Nokia to BMW.

While the new XP cabin is bigger, Rocketplane vice president and test pilot John Herrington said that the passengers, at least initially, won’t be allowed to float around the cabin once in weightlessness. His concern is that people will become disoriented trying to move around and could injure themselves and others. Down the road, it may be possible to remove a couple seats and allow the rear two passengers to float, he said.

Rocketplane officials, including Herrington and program maanger Dave Faulker, said that they believe they will be able to raise the money needed to develop the vehicle by the end of the year. They did not, though, disclose how much money they’re looking for. Current schedules call for flight tests to begin in 2010; AR-36 engine tests are scheduled to begin in the near future.

Rocket Racing League officials did announce three new teams, bringing the total number of teams to six. CEO Granger Whitelaw also confirmed rumors that their prototype X-Racer flew three times yesterday in Mojave, although he declined to offer many technical details regarding the flights, including their length and the turnaround time between flights. Whitelaw said that “exhibition” flights would begin at air shows in spring 2008, with actual competitive flights slated to begin in 2008-2009, depending on when they secure a TV contract and other sponsorships.

Teachers in Space announced that it wll soon start collecting applications by teachers for suborbital spaceflights. There will be two competitions: one for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) teachers, and one for K-12 teachers in general; both will have to submit either lesson plans or proposed experiments they would perform during their flights. (In an interesting twist, all the lesson plans submitted by will be posted online in an wiki.) The project has no application deadlines right now. The effort has commitments from five companies (Armadillo, Masten Space Systems, PlanetSpace, Rocketplane Global, and XCOR) to carry flights; Ed Wright’s company, the US Rocket Academy, has purchased a number of flights from XCOR Aerospace that is in the “double digits”.

(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.

The French news agency AFP reports today that a Russian politician may replace Richard Garriott on an October 2008 Soyuz flight. Just a week ago Space Adventures announced that Garriott, an executive at a computer gaming company and the son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, would be a passenger on that Soyuz taxi flight to the ISS, spending a week on the space station. However, AFP, citing an article in the Russian newspaper Kommersant, reports that Garriott may be replaced by Vladimir Gruzdev, a wealthy politician and adventurer. Gruzdev had been reported last month as a likely candidate to be the first Russian space tourist and certainly has the means to pay for the trip himself, although his political party, United Russia, would reportedly pay for the flight as “our budget contribution to the space program”, according to party head Boris Gryzlov. A Roskosmos official told Kommersant that Gruzdev “takes priority” over Garriott and would be on that mission; it’s not clear what would then happen to Garriott (perhaps train as a backup and fly in spring 2009?)

Update: according to a RIA Novosti article published Friday, apparently in reaction to the Kommersant report, Roskosmos head Anatoly Perminov said Gruzdev would not fly before late 2009, not next October. “November 2009 seems a likely date, not the fall of 2008, and I cannot put a final timeline to it since the decision will be influenced by the U.S. and other European Space Agency member countries, Japan, and others,” he told the news service.

Getting accepted by the training staff at Star City was a particular challenge of Anousheh Ansari in her bid to fly in space, she said in an interview with the Collegiate Times, the campus newspaper of Virginia Tech, where Ansari spoke last night. Ansari explained that the staff at Star City was not used to training female cosmonauts, given that there are virtually none in Russia. “Having a woman was a big adjustment for all of them and they were not so welcoming at the beginning,” Ansari said. “All throughout my life I learned that I just do what I think is right and go after what I want and just do my best and usually the people change their minds. They saw my passion and how excited I was, and my excitement finally transferred to them and they were excited for me. I felt welcome after about the first month and a half.” (Presumably, though, the training personnel there were used to female American astronauts like Susan Helms and Peggy Whitson, who both flew long-duration missions to the ISS before Ansari.)

Ansari didn’t offer much in the new of new insights or developments in her interview there. Asked if she would like to go to space again, she said, “I would love to. I loved being in space and I felt at home. If I get another opportunity to do it, I will.”