Space Tourism

SpaceX Shoots For The Moon

SpaceX Shoots For The Moon

When Donald J. Trump won the U.S. Presidency, it was a pretty fair bet that America’s space program would soon be setting its sights on the Moon once again. What few saw coming however, was the bombshell that SpaceX dropped on Monday, as the company announced that it is in the advanced stages of mounting […]

Posted in: Space Tourism, SpaceX
Virgin’s VSS Unity Makes First Free Flight

Virgin’s VSS Unity Makes First Free Flight

After completing four captive carry test flights, Virgin Galactic conducted the first-free flight drop test of its second SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity. The test took place on Saturday, December 3rd over California’s Mojave Desert.   “Today, VSS Unity was piloted by Mark Stucky and Dave Mackay, with pilots Mike Masucci and Todd Ericsson as well as […]

The Drudge Effect on Space Policy

The Drudge Effect on Space Policy

By any measure, the Drudge Report is one of the most influential media websites in the world. So what does it mean when Drudge develops a fascination with space? In the weeks since the U.S. presidential election vaulted Donald Trump to the on-deck position of the most powerful job in the world, Drudge has been […]

Posted in: NewSpace, Space Tourism
Russia Still Wants to Send Tourists Around the Moon

Russia Still Wants to Send Tourists Around the Moon

A long touted lunar circumnavigation for space tourists is back in the news with reports from Russia that RSC Energia now has 8 possible candidates for the mission, which would take place aboard a specially modified Soyuz. The story from Sputniknews, actually quotes an interview from another paper Izvestia, which somewhat paradoxically (or not) made […]

Virgin Galactic / Blue Origin Videos and Which Ticket Would You Buy?

Virgin Galactic / Blue Origin Videos and Which Ticket Would You Buy?

There is little doubt that SpaceX is for the moment in a class by itself in developing partially reusable orbital space transportation, but it is interesting to note that the company has had very little to say regarding what if any role it sees for space tourism in the products it is developing. The Dragon […]

Virgin Galactic Unveils VSS Unity

Virgin Galactic Unveils VSS Unity

The nascent suborbital space tourism industry suffered a major blow on October 31st, 2014,  when Virgin Galactic’s VSS Enterprise was lost in a mid-air breakup over the Mojave desert during a powered test flight. Co-pilot Michael Alsbury was killed, and pilot Michael Siebold was badly injured. With the company already years behind schedule in the […]

NASA’s Year Long Mission Gets Underway

NASA’s Year Long Mission Gets Underway

Launch of Expedition 43 / Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls It’s not a five year mission, and it certainly isn’t going anywhere “no-one has gone before,” but NASA’s longest manned space mission got underway on Friday with the liftoff of a Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft carrying veteran American astronaut Scott Kelly, and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady […]

Posted in: ISS, Space Tourism
Swiss Space Systems Offers Customers Stock Opportunity

Swiss Space Systems Offers Customers Stock Opportunity

Own it!  : Image Credit / Swiss Space systems Swiss Space Systems has found a rather unique way to offer customers of its parabolic flights the opportunity to become investors. According to the company’s latest newsletter: “We’re offering S3 ZeroG flights at an exceptional price for a flight campaign taking place in Switzerland in the […]

Do Hybrid Motors Have Future After All? The Paraffin Wax Rocket

Do Hybrid Motors Have Future After All? The Paraffin Wax Rocket

Image Credit: IEEE / Emily Cooper In the immediate aftermath of the Virgin Galactic disaster, SpaceShipTwo’s hybrid rocket motor came under suspicion as the most likely culprit. And, although subsequent updates by the NTSB team investigating the accident have instead centered on a problem with the craft’s feathering device and likely human error, many articles […]

The Show Goes On: XCOR and Fandango Team Up for Interstellar Promotion

The Show Goes On: XCOR and Fandango Team Up for Interstellar Promotion

Image Credit: Interstellar In what has at times appeared to be a headlong rush to write off the future of space tourism as a response to the Virgin Galactic accident, a surprising (or perhaps not so) number of media sources have completely overlooked the fact that there are two other U.S. based companies, XCOR Aerospace […]

Posted in: Space Tourism, XCOR
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