http://www.personalspaceflight.info Space tourism, public space travel, and the beginnings of a new industry Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:18:05 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en On Tuesday night votes in Sierra County, New Mexico overwhelmingly approved a quarter-cent sales tax increase to help pay for Spaceport America. The vote was perceived as critical not so much for the money it would generate (only about $2.3 million over 20 years, barely one percent of the ... http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2008/04/24/next-steps-for-spaceport-america/ Speaking of Armadillo's John Carmack, in his team's latest update, he provides his own unvarnished assessment of the various companies in the suborbital spaceflight sector. The Scaled Composites/Virgin Galactic partnership "is the safest bet for success", but cautions that Virgin may need the field to itself in order to ... http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2008/04/07/carmack-surveys-the-field/ [Yup, still at the airport] To follow up on a posting from during the Space Access ’08 conference, I have an article in this week's issue of The Space Review examining what it will take to become a "rocket pilot", and just how interesting an occupation that will be. As ... http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2008/04/07/followup-on-the-excitement-of-rocket-piloting/ [Catching up on news items while waiting on a delayed flight] An AP article last week reported that New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and spaceport authority executive director Steve Landeene made the rounds in Washington looking for additional federal support for Spaceport America. They met with, among others, NASA administrator ... http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2008/04/07/new-mexico-seeks-federal-support-for-spaceport/ I was contacted by a reporter earlier this week looking for information about Sprague Astronautics, a company that made a splash a few years ago (under the name AeraSpaceTours) but has been quiet since. (Its last press release is dated June 28, 2005.) I haven't heard anything about ... http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2008/04/03/requests-for-info/ A session of the Space Access ’08 conference last night dealt with "paths to rocket piloting": how can people who are interested in piloting a number of the new suborbital vehicles under development prepare for getting those jobs. Some companies have turned to test pilots and/or former astronauts, but ... http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2008/03/28/rocket-piloting-as-exciting-as-operating-elevators/ Last January Sweden announced plans to study the development of a commercial spaceport in Kiruna, a site in the northern part of the country home to a sounding rocket range, with Virgin Galactic as the potential first tenant. An announcement about the "next step" for Spaceport Sweden is now ... http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2008/03/28/next-step-for-spaceport-sweden/ Here are a few items of interest I picked up from listening to the webcase of the XCOR press conference yesterday in LA: Lynx is designed to fly up to four times a day, which allows a single vehicle to carry as many passengers in a day as a larger vehicle ... http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2008/03/27/a-few-notes-from-the-xcor-lynx-press-conference/ Some other items about XCOR's new suborbital vehicle plans from media reports published this morning: According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), development of Lynx will cost abut $10 million with per-ticket prices of about $100,000, which the WSJ dubs "economy fare", but adds that "the low-fare carrier to the ... http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2008/03/26/other-lynx-notes/ Credit: Mike Massee/XCOR XCOR Aerospace announced today its plans to develop Lynx, a suborbital rocketplane. Lynx is similar in concept to XCOR's earlier suborbital vehicle project, Xerus: a two-seat winged vehicle that takes off from a runway under rocket power, ascends to altitude, and glides back for a runway landing. ... http://www.personalspaceflight.info/2008/03/26/xcor-announces-lynx/