Space Adventures, a company that has made millions selling orbital joyrides to people worth billions, is trying to ensure that its wealthy clients get a bit more respect.
The Virginia company that pioneered space tourism is rebranding its elite clientele as “space explorers,” pointing to the experiments that they conduct while vacationing aboard the International Space Station. In the process, the company is trying to leave its label as a “space tourism” outfit behind.
“Space tourism isn’t the right word for what we do,” Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson told Popular Mechanics. “It’s something more. What we’re doing is opening a new frontier. … We’re no longer exclusively a space tourism company, we’re a space mission company.”
Space Adventures kicked off its rebranding effort in earnest last week with the announcement that it would begin charting Soyuz flights to ISS beginning in 2011. The company currently flies tourists as the third passenger on regularly scheduled, government financed missions to the orbital outpost. The charter flights would be commercially funded, carrying a commander and two paying customers.
Google Founder Sergey Brin will likely be aboard the inaugural 2011 flight. He invested $5 million in Space Adventures, money that serves as a downpayment on a flight and makes him the charter member of the brand new Orbital Mission Explorer’s Circle. This exclusive club will have only seven members.
The rebranding effort has been ongoing for some time. Space Adventures’ client Anousheh Ansari, who flew to the space station, gave an interview to Space Future back in April in which she bristled at the label of “space tourist.” Ansari believes the six months of training made her more than just a tourist, even though she is not a professional astronaut.
NASA Eases Concerns Over Shuttle Objects
Associated Press
“Mission Control reassured commander Mark Kelly and his crew on Friday that their spaceship was safe for coming home, and that the missing clip — one of three that hold down thermal blankets on the rudder and speed brake — would not impact anything.
“A protrusion in the same area at the tail, which was reported by the astronauts around the same time, also was found to be harmless. The angle of the lighting and the rudder’s position made the so-called bump look strange when, in fact, it was exactly how it looked at liftoff, Mission Control said.”
Space Adventure’s plan to fund a private Soyuz tourism flight to the International Space Station still requires consultation with and approval by the United States and other station partners, the Associated Press reports.
“NASA space station manager Kenny Todd said that consultation hasn’t taken place. He said that since NASA is a primary partner in the space station, ‘it certainly wants to have an understanding of how that’s going to happen and what all would be involved’ in the private flight.”
Top among the concerns: that Russia will not be overburdened building Soyuz spacecraft required to transport crews to the orbiting outpost. After two recent hair-raising re-entries, this is not a trivial concern.
Continue reading ‘AP: Private ISS Flight Still Requires Consultations, Approvals from Partners’
The space shuttle Discovery has departed the International Space Station and is preparing for a Saturday landing back at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA reports that the mission is going well.
Meanwhile, officials say that the shuttle launch caused so much damage last week that it has knocked the launch pad out of commission. WESH-TV reports that the pad was a “ticking time bomb.” Hundreds of square feet of walls were damaged, with bricks puncturing a fence one-half mile away. The CBS affiliate reports there are fears that bricks could damage the fragile shuttle during a future launch, although another report said this fear was unfounded.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that a 200-square-foot section of the flame trench wall came loose. NASA is probing the launch pad for structure weaknesses, and it hopes to have the facility repaired by October. Work has been hampered by the presence of dangerous asbestos, which can cause deadly lung diseases.
Google Co-Founder Brin to Fly; Invests $5 Million to Join Exclusive Club of One
Space Adventures announced a deal with the Russian Space Agency on Wednesday to charter one Soyuz flight annually to the International Space Station beginning in 2011.
The flights will include one Russian cosmonaut and two paying tourists. Previously, space tourists have occupied the third seat on flights that swapped out older Soyuz vehicles attached to the station. The privately-funded mission will be conducted outside of the normal rotation of spacecraft and crews to and from the orbiting outpost, officials said.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin may occupy one of the two tourist seats on the 2011 flight. He has invested $5 million in Space Adventures, money that serves as a down payment on a space fight. The flight will apparently cost in excess of $35 million.
Brin is now the founding (and, to date, only) member of the new Orbital Mission Explorers Circle, which represent an effort “to build a definitive consortium of future private space explorers who share a lifetime goal of orbital spaceflight or the investment therein,” Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson said. The circle will eventually include six members.
Continue reading ‘In ‘Paradigm’ Shift, Space Adventures Sells Two Tickets on Same Soyuz Flight’
Image above: STS-124 Commander Mark Kelly works inside the Quest airlock with Expedition 17 Commander Sergei Volkov. Photo credit: NASA TV
NASA MISSION UPDATE
Mission specialists Mike Fossum and Ron Garan are scheduled to kick off STS-124’s first spacewalk at 11:32 a.m. EDT. During the 6-½ hour excursion, the pair will retrieve a shuttle inspection tool, service and inspect components of a solar alpha rotary joint and prepare the largest component of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory for installation on the International Space Station.
The spacewalkers’ first task is to transfer the Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) from the station’s truss to space shuttle Discovery. The OBSS, which attaches to the shuttle’s robotic arm for detailed inspection of the shuttle’s heat shield, was left at the station for STS-124 during the previous shuttle mission to provide room for the giant Kibo module in Discovery’s payload bay.
Next, the spacewalkers will prepare Kibo’s Japanese Pressurized Module (JPM) for installation. After inspecting the common berthing mechanism on the Harmony Node’s left side and opening a window cover, Fossum and Garan will work together in the shuttle’s cargo bay to remove contamination covers from the JPM’s docking surfaces. Fossum will also disconnect heater cables and remove locking bolts from the shutters of the JPM’s forward window.
Continue reading ‘Discovery Docks at Station, Astronauts Prepare for Spacewalk’
The Space Shuttle Discovery blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, beginning a two-week trip to delivery the last major scientific laboratory to the International Space Station.
The shuttle will deliver the second part of Japan’s Kibo module to the station. Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide is part of the seven-member crew led by Navy Cmd. Mark E. Kelly.
The shuttle’s external tank did shed some foam insulation, with at least one piece hitting the shuttle. NASA officials say this is not a worrisome issue at this point. Astronauts will fully inspect the shuttle for damage later in the mission.
For more complete coverage, you can visit any of the websites below:
NASA Official STS-124 Mission Site
Florida Today
NASASpaceFlight.com
There was great joy north of the border among scientists who have contributed to the successful Mars Phoenix mission. Yet, the celebration was mixed with sadness over the loss of a colleague who never got to see it.
U of A device to measure wind on Mars successfully lands - University of Alberta Press Release
“University of Alberta scientist Carlos Lange is thrilled that an instrument he invented, a wind sensor called the Telltale, has successfully landed on Mars. This is the first time Canadians have been involved with an interplanetary mission and Lange, a mechanical engineering professor, spent four years in preparation for this mission.”
Canadian Technology on Mars - Toronto Star
“A milestone for Canadian planetary science passed Wednesday when a highly sophisticated weather device aboard the NASA Phoenix lander successfully transmitted its first messages from Mars.”
Canadians feel loss of Mars mission scientist - Toronto Star
“Clinking glasses as they celebrated the triumphant touchdown on Mars of the Phoenix lander Sunday evening, York University professor Jim Whiteway and his team missed the one person who should have been there.
“Diane Michelangeli was the lead researcher behind the innovative Canadian-built meteorological station on the Phoenix, before she died of cancer last year – less than a month after the station was launched. Team members still feel the loss.”
Korea’s first astronaut, Yi So-yeon, is expected to be hospitalized for a week to recover from back injuries she suffered from the rough re-entry and landing of her Soyuz spacecraft on April 19, Telecoms Korea reported.
The Korean government says that Yi suffered from mild dislocation and bruising of the vertebrae. She is being treated with physical and drug therapy as well as acupuncture at an Air Force hospital in Cheongju, 137 kilometers southeast of Seoul. She entered the hospital on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, American astronaut Peggy Whitson has described the rough re-entry and landing, during which the crew was subjected to more 8 Gs - 8 times the force of gravity. It was a lot to handle for Whitson and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, who had both spent 192 days in space.
Whitson told Florida Today that the re-entry started later than expected - which indicates that the Soyuz descent module didn’t separate properly from the rest of the spacecraft. Soyuz then entered a “ballistic trajectory” - a preprogrammed maneuver when the re-entry module doesn’t separate as planned.
“Landing was pretty much the car crash that everybody described to me…I had no sensation of the bounce part of it, but I definitely had the senation of a lot of rolling going on after that first hit,” Whitson said.
G.B. Leatherwood and Carol Pinchefsky take a look at the small but growing group of non-professional astronauts in “Tourists, astronauts, or something else?” over on Space Future.
They report that Anousheh Ansari, who has been out promoting space tourism since she returned from her trip to the International Space Station, actually bristles at being labeled a space tourist.
“I had to train for six months and [learn] every part of the system on the capsule, the rocket, the space station,” she told Space Future. “I had to learn a new language, to interact with crew members, to do emergency practices. [I had] physical training. It took a lot of preparation. [I compare this to going] on expedition. You wouldn’t call someone who goes on an expedition a tourist, and that’s why I don’t like to be called a tourist: It undermines the effort that you have to put in.”
Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic will fly almost anyone who can survive a centrifuge ride aboard its SpaceShipTwo vehicle. The suborbital flight is expected to be far more gentle than a Soyuz trip to the space station. Training will be minimal.