Space tourism: November 2008 Archives

credit: Xcor Aerospace / caption: Lynx launches an upper stage, another potential use for it 

Hyperbola has learnt the identity of the first customer for Xcor Aerospace's Lynx suborbital vehicle and this blog can say now that

credit: Flight

Hyperbola has learnt that Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo has made short runs under its own jet engine power and been shackled to a Mojave air and space port concrete platform test stand so its four Pratt & Whitney 308A engines can be fired up, potentially to full power

While Virgin Galactic's leadership has told Hyperbola that low speed taxi trials had occured it is only now that other Mojave based sources have confirmed the Scaled Composites designed aircraft's progress

For just a few seconds of video footage (cell phone video quality or better) of the WK2 moving under its own power, or having its engines run on the test stand (good sound needed) or, if it occurs soon, the aircraft's first take-off, Hyperbola will give you $100. One hundred dollars for a few seconds work, that's the bounty on offer

The posting of the video on this blog will be completely anonymous so footage from Scaled Composites or Pratt & Whitney (its engineers are helping with the engine's installation, test and flights) employees are welcome and would be treated sensitively

credit: ESA

UK rocket developer Starchaser Industries has a link on its website to the executive summary of the report it produced for the European Space Agency under a €150,000 contract

credit: Swedish Space Corporation

It can't be denied that publicity surrounding the Swedish Space Corporation's (SSC) proposed Spaceport Sweden since January 2007 would have done nothing but good for tourism for that nordic country's most northernmost arctic city, and the port's nearest outcrop of civilisation, Kiruna

But one wonders whether a combination of Swedish legal knots, European aviation rules and US arms trafficking laws won't derail the embyronic spaceport project

credit: FAA AST

At the 29 October 2008 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) COMmercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) meeting a John Sloan gave a presentation on the FAA's office of commercial space transportation's (AST) international strategy that includes preparations on future suborbital point to point  (SPTP) travel

click on any of the images in this blog post to see larger versions in the same browser window

credit: spacefuture.com

On this sort of trajectory if any of you wealthy Hyperbola readers choose to splash your cash on a space tourism flight in the near future you might want to make sure your service providers include g tolerance training so you can avoid g induced loss of consciousness (G-LOC)

At the 3rd International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety conference, held in Rome in October, Worldview Spaceflight  subcontractor cum operations director Andrew Quinn, also an independent consultant to undisclosed space tourism companies, gave a presentation about centrifuge training for space tourism safety purposes

He showed videos of himself using a centrifuge for his masters degree research in May 2006 and then again in 2007, during early partnership discussions between Worldview Spaceflight and UK technology company Qinetiq

Qinetiq's centrifuge in Farnborough, England, was the facility used on both occasions. Quinn says Qinetiq are interested in providing centrifuge services to organisations looking to offer space tourism 

click through to the extended portion of this blog post to watch the videos of Quinn using techniques to cope with 4g and 6g and avoiding G-LOC

credit: Virgin Galactic

Hear Scaled Composites' founder and chief technology officer Burt Rutan talk about SpaceShipTwo's (SS2) flight frequency and alternate applications at the 2008 Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin

In this short clip (truncated due to technical difficulties) Rutan talks about the flight rate he expects from SS2 and the alternative applications such as small satellite launching and Earth observation

click through to the extended portion of this blog post to download the audio clip