Space tourism: February 2010 Archives

Burt Rutan has given Hyperbola permission to print in full the original memo the founder of Scaled Composites sent to Congressman Frank Wolf that was the basis for the Wall Street Journal article that has sparked so much comment including from Rutan himself. Rutan's further comments that he released on 26 February can be found here in Hyperbola's previous blog posting about this episode in the US national debate over what NASA should do next

I occasionally banter with my friend, Mike Griffin on subjects that
include golf, the AGW scare and NASA policy.  After sending him my
latest tirade, he shared with me his recent letter to you regarding
taxpayer-funded space research.  I promised him that I would send you my
thoughts on the debate, which follow:

From my past comments on NASA's post-mid-70s manned space
efficiencies/accomplishments, an observer might think that I would
applaud a decision to turn this important responsibility over to
commercial developers.  However, he would be wrong.

Free video streaming by Ustream
Thanks to U-Stream and whomever SpaceRef which is organising this video stream you can watch the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference here at Hyperbola

Credit: DLR / caption: EADS Astrium Phoenix was designed for autonomous landings

Meet Alpha the new suborbital vehicle under study for the European Union, or perhaps I should add the forerunner to Alpha that was called Phoenix, built by EADS Astrium (then known as Space) and tested in 2004 for the German Aerospace Centre DLR

Phoenix was a subscale reusable launch vehicle testbed for flight testing automatic subsonic approaches and landings

But sources involved in the European Union funded and European Space Agency managed Future high Altitude high Speed Transport (FAST) 20XX programme tell Hyperbola that Phoenix is the basis for the air launched reusable suborbital vehicle that is being called Alpha - just look at the official image for a start


credit: ESA / caption: Looks a bit like the EADS Astrium's Phoenix doesn't it

credit: BNSC / caption: this is the front cover of the Space IGS report

Not yet available at either the British National Space Centre or Space Innovation and Growth Team (IGT) websites but found here at its own website, here are some choice qoutes from the latest review of the UK's spaceflight industry, the Space IGT's strategy report

Over the last decade, industry and Government have collectively failed to grasp the opportunities we identify in this report. Space in the UK has been characterised by review after review allowing other countries to steal a march on us. This must now cease and be replaced by positive and practical actions. We must make up our minds where we want to go and where we want to be in 20 years time.