ArabianBusiness.com reports that a Dubai-based company has chartered an entire Virgin Galactic suborbital tourism flight for its top management.
The unnamed company has made a $500,000 deposit on the $1.2 million flight, which will carry six executives to an altitude of about 110 kilometers (69 miles). The flight is expected to take place in 2010. More details will be released in July.
AdelaideNow has a story about Virgin Galactic’s plans to establish a spaceport in Australia for suborbital tourism flights. The London-based company is considering launch sites in South Australia’s Outback and Victoria.
“We do have plans to launch from venues worldwide and Australia is in our long-term plans,” said Virgin Galactic’s Carolyn Wincer. “South Australia and Victoria would be good places to launch from.”
Investors and would-be space tourists are getting antsy about the prospects of Rocketplane Global, the Oklahoma company that plans to launch suborbital flights in two to three years.
Eliza Strickland has an excellent story at Wired.com about the problems plaguing Rocketplane, which originally hoped to begin flying its business jet-style space plane last year. Some investors and customers are looking at other options.
Strickland believes the company made a mistake by trying to tackle both suborbital tourism while also developing an orbital vehicle under NASA’s COTS program. The space agency ended the $207 million agreement in September after Rocketplane failed to come up with private financing to supplement NASA’s funding.
Rocketplane is also suffering from a lack of billionaire investors, such as Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson and Microsoft’s Paul Allen. Virgin also has suffered years of delay, soaring costs, and a fatal explosion that killed three workers at spaceplane builder Scaled Composites. However, investors are still confident about Branson’s suborbital venture.
Former astronaut John Herrington resigned as Rocketplane’s chief test pilot in December. Earlier in the year, a travel company sued Rocketplane alleging the space firm was focusing on the COTS and had abandoned it space plane.
In a candid blog post, Armadillo Aerospace founder John Carmack offers a spirited defense of his company’s efforts at developing a commercial suborbital vehicle. He also provides candid assessments of his company’s major competitors. Carmack praises some, questions the viability of others, and dismisses one European company with two words.
Some quick highlights:
Sir Richard Branson literally dropped in on Bond University in Australia on Sunday, giving a wide-ranging speech to students there. The British billionaire made a surprise helicopter stop at the school, where he told students that Virgin Galactic would consider putting a spaceport along the Gold Coast for its suborbital tourism flights.
“I think the Gold Coast region is where we would take off from. You never know,” Branson said.
GoldCoast.com.au has the full story.
Jeff Foust takes a look at what one expert calls an emerging “horse race” between companies in the suborbital tourism arena over at The Space Review.
Although Virgin Galactic has gotten much of the attention, XCOR, Rocketplane Global, Armadillo Aerospace, EADS Astrium and other companies are competing to send tourists on the ultimate joy ride. They are all taking somewhat different approaches to this challenge.
“If it is a horse race, who will win the ultimate prize: not just the first vehicle to enter the market, but the one that wins the market in the long run?” Foust writes. “The diversity of technical approaches, from the takeoff and landing techniques to the number of passengers, makes any predictions difficult.”
Rand Simberg has a few comments about Jeff’s article over at Transterrestrial Musings that are worth a look.
Rob Coppinger has posted detailed notes of his interview with XCOR’s chief engineer Dan DeLong on his Hyperbola blog. DeLong discusses the Lynx Mk. 1’s technical details and flight profile. He also provides information about the more powerful Mk. 2 version.
Rob Coppinger has posted detailed notes of his January 24 conversation with Virgin Galactic commercial director Stephen Attenborough over at his Hyperbola blog on Flight Global. These notes are in addition to an article that Coppinger wrote examining the company’s business plan and SpaceShipTwo’s rising costs (now estimated at nearly $250 million).
Attenborough had some interesting things to say:
Rob Coppinger has an excellent in-depth look at Virgin’s Galactic’s over at FlightGlobal.com. Among the interesting nuggets in Rob’s report:
This is an excellent piece of writing that raises some interesting questions about how easy it will be for Virgin to turn a profit and for investors to begin to see returns.
Source: Rocket Global Press Releases
Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Global has announced the appointment of Paul Metz as its new vice president and chief test pilot. The company has also promoted David G. Faulkner to the position of chief technology officer.
As Chief Test Pilot, Metz will be responsible for all aspects of the pilot and passengers interfaces on the Rocketplane XP as well as training of the flight test team that will perform the flight test and licensing of the first XP. He will also work closely with the engineers developing the flight control system to ensure the best possible flying qualities for the vehicle and develop and supervise the training programs for passengers and future XP pilots.
“Paul is one of the most respected and capable test pilots in the country and we are very pleased to have him join the team,” Faulkner said. “His experience is second to none as a test pilot. Paul has been involved in three complete vehicle developments from concept to flight test as Chief Test Pilot for the F-20, the YF-23 and the F-22. In addition, he has had significant involvement during the development and flight testing phases of the F-5, B-2 and F-35. This experience makes Paul invaluable to the Rocketplane XP Program.”
Continue reading ‘Rocketplane Global Appoints Paul Metz as New Test Pilot, Promotes Faulkner to CTO’
National Geographic Uses G-Force One to Film Station Identifications
National Geographic broadcasts ‘zero gravity’ idents
Design Week
“National Geographic is today broadcasting what it claims are the world’s first channel idents filmed in zero gravity, developed by Brothers & Sisters.The idents will be used as promos for National Geographic’s Space Week, launching in January.
“The advertising consultancy, which was commissioned in April on the strength of an [...]
XCOR Introduces First Space Tourist, Says Demand High
Their thunder stolen by a leak to The Daily Mail, XCOR introduced its first space tourist, London-based banker Per Wimmer, and said that it has 22 reservations for suborbital flights aboard its Lynx vehicle beginning in 2011.
Vanna Bonta - Space Sexologist
I’m sitting here watching an episode of “The Universe” on The History Channel and guess who pops up on the screen but novelist/poet/actress-turned-citizen-of-the-cosmos Vanna Bonta. She’s apparently working on a flight suit that will allow for easier sexual couplings in microgravity.
There’s a segment showing her and husband Allen Newcome testing their 2suit aboard Zero G’s [...]
NASA Extends Contract for Soyuz Transport to ISS
NASA PRESS RELEASE
NASA has signed a $141 million modification to the current International Space Station contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency for crew transportation services planned through the spring of 2012.
Progress Report: JP Inflates Ascender 100 Vehicle
JP Aerospace has posted updated photos of the inflation of its Ascender 100 airship. The company is working on creating lighter-than-air vehicles that can float into space.
Chiao: Deepen U.S., China Cooperation in Space
Former NASA Astronaut Leroy Chiao makes the case for space cooperation between the United States and China on his blog.
“It makes sense politically and programmatically to cooperate with China, in all areas. Space would be a good place to symbolically signal such a shift in policy. The United States did this with Russia in the [...]
