space tourism
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Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson complete first fully crewed spaceflight
Virgin Galactic has completed its first fully crewed spaceflight, with Richard Branson aboard.
Blue Origin sells seat aboard its first human flight for $28 million
Blue Origin has sold the first seat aboard a New Shepherd rocket for $28 million — although the buyer remains mysterious.
Virgin Galactic's next rocket-powered test flight confirmed for May 22nd
Following an rocket motor failure on its last test, Virgin Galactic has confirmed that VSS Unity's next flight will take place on Saturday May 22nd.
NASA and Axiom Space's first private ISS mission could happen as soon as January
Four astronauts will make the trip aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon module.
Virgin Galactic’s VSS Imagine is its shiny, next-gen spaceship
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip III will start ground tests later this year. It’s an eye-catching vessel, finished with a mirror-like material that’s meant to reflect its surroundings. The coating also offers thermal protection.
Virgin Galactic delays space tourism flights to early 2022
Virgin Galactic has delayed its first space tourism flights to early 2022 as further delays creep into its test program.
Virgin Galactic plans next rocket-powered test flight for February 13th
Virgin Galactic is taking its next shot at a rocket-powered flight test on February 13th, with hopes it fixed the motor failure from December.
James 'Scotty' Doohan's ashes may have been smuggled aboard the ISS
James Doohan's ashes may have been clandestinely brought aboard the ISS.
Virgin Galactic will livestream its SpaceShipTwo cabin reveal on July 28th
Virgin Galactic will reveal the SpaceShipTwo's cabin interior on July 28th.
SpaceX will fly space tourists to the ISS as soon as next year
Houston-based private space company Axiom has forged a partnership with SpaceX to fly paying tourists to the ISS as soon as the second half of 2021. Under the terms of their deal, SpaceX will use the Crew Dragon capsule to ferry three tourists and an Axiom staff member, who'll make sure they don't interfere with the NASA crew members doing their job, to the orbiting lab. It's worth noting that Axiom was the company NASA chose to build the space station's first commercial destination module.
Virgin Galactic will let people hop to the front of the line for tickets
Are you determined to hop aboard one of Virgin Galactic's tourist spaceflights before any of your friends? The company is happy to accommodate you -- if you're willing to pay. Alongside its latest earnings (more on those in a moment), Virgin has announced a One Small Step program that will bump qualified customers to the front of the line for "firm" reservations. Beginning on February 26th at 3AM Eastern, serious travellers can register online with a $1,000 refundable deposit to get into orbit sooner when tickets are once again available.
SpaceX could send private citizens to space as soon as 2021
SpaceX is one step closer to sending private citizens into outer space. The company signed an agreement with Space Adventures to fly space tourists in the Crew Dragon. Up to four individuals will have the opportunity to take flight sometime in late 2021 or 2022.
Blue Origin might not send humans to space until 2020
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin still plans to offer space tourism trips on its New Shepard rocket, but before any passengers take flight, the company is expected to launch at least two more uncrewed test flights. Tuesday, Blue Origin filed an application for its next test flight with the Federal Communications Commission, CNBC reports. The filing is for "Flight #12 on the New Shepard space launch booster and capsule." The earliest it might happen is November.
A balloon to the beyond: World View on savoring space tourism
Jane Poynter wants you to take a trip to space that's as comfortable as a luxury cruise. She's spent two years living in the sealed research lab Biosphere 2, and serves as president of Paragon Space Development Corporation, where she led development of the life-support systems for the 2018 Inspiration Mars mission. Now, as CEO of World View, she's been developing a solution for space tourism that relies on a huge helium balloon, not rockets. That means no training necessary, no dealing with the uncomfortable effects of heavy G-force acceleration and a trip that lasts four to six hours.
Why is an opera singer going to the ISS?
It's been a weird life for Sarah Brightman, starting out as a dancer before recording one-hit wonder I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper, later reinventing herself as a classical soprano. Now, if you recognize the name, it's probably because she sang the duet to Time To Say Goodbye, more commonly known as the "opera song" that played repeatedly during season two of The Sopranos. Now, however, the 54-year old is going to the International Space Station to become the first recording artist to perform in space, at a personal cost of anything up to $30 million.
Investigation of Virgin Galactic crash focuses on faulty tail deployment
US aviation investigators think they know how Virgin Galactic's SpaceshipTwo broke up in mid-flight, but don't yet know why. The crash tragically killed co-pilot Michael Alsbury, seriously injured pilot Pete Siebold and set back CEO Richard Branson's space tourism program severely. NTSB acting chairman Christopher Hart said that the tail section on SpaceshipTwo (normally only raised during descent below Mach 1.4) deployed shortly after the rockets fired -- even though neither pilot commanded it to. As a result, the ship broke up seconds later from the excessive drag and crashed into the Mojave desert.
Balloons could power space tourism by 2016
Richard Branson is investing in a plane that'll take tourists to the edge of space, but who needs that when you've got balloons? A company in Arizona is working on a high-altitude craft that'll use a huge balloon to gently carry passengers voyagers to the edges of the atmosphere. It's already tested the technology with a 10-percent size scale model, which carried and safely returned a payload of 200 kilos. The next step is to build a full-sized equivalent, capable of journeying 120,000 feet into the air and back again -- just short of the 127,852 feet that Felix Baumgartner fell during the Red Bull Stratos experiment / publicity stunt. Of course, anything that involves a trip to space (or as close as anyone can say) is going to be expensive, and it'll set you back $75,000 if you choose to get in line when commercial trips begin in 2016.
Golden Spike unveils ambitious plans for $1.5 billion trips to the moon
Space tourism? Yeah, been there, doing that. But in the world of private travel, there's really no such thing as too much competition. Today, the newly formed Golden Spike Company took the wraps off of an exceedingly ambitious plan that would eventually see pairs of citizens hoisted up to the moon for a cool $1.5 billion. Before you brush it off as fancy dreaming, it's worth nothing that the firm's CEO previously worked for NASA, while it has amassed a lineup of advisers that includes Newt Gingrich, former NASA shuttle program manager Wayne Hale and Homer Hickam, a former NASA engineer. It clearly understands what it's up against in trying to make this a reality, but loads of questions remain -- there's no firm word on how it'll fund itself as it works up to that inaugural flight, and there doesn't appear to a pre-order link on its website. But hey, at least those recent Powerball winners now have something even they can't afford, right?
Richard Branson confirms Virgin Galactic's first space tourism flight will launch next year with him on board
Richard Branson has long said that he'd be on board Virgin Galactic's first commercial space tourism flight, and he's now confirmed that will take place sometime next year with his two adult children along for the ride (a bit of a delay from the company's original 2011 target). That trip will of course be made with the company's SpaceShipTwo craft, which has already completed a number of test flights, and which is capable of flying 100 kilometers (or just over 60 miles) above the Earth for a planned two and a half hour flight with five minutes of weightlessness. As the AP notes, some 529 people have already signed up for the $200,000 per person rides into space, each of whom will have to take part in a week of training prior to their trip. Bookings can still be made on Virgin Galactic's website.
Dark horse set to ride into space race, strapped to world's largest solid rocket booster
Alliant Techsystems (ATK) may not be on top of your betting card, but it has plenty of shuttle motor pedigree. To compete with the likes of SpaceX, Astrium and others, it's putting that technical savvy into its Liberty system to carry seven astronauts -- or tourists -- and cargo into low earth orbit. The huge 300-foot rocket and composite crew module would use ATK's solid rocket motor, originally designed for the ill-fated Ares 1, along with EAD's Ariane 5 engine, to become the heaviest lifter in NASA's fleet. Already knee-deep in a separate project, the Space Launch System designed to send Orion into deep space, ATK would like to wean NASA off it's pricy $63 million Russian ISS hitchhikes with a cheaper option that could be mission-ready in just three years. We've heard that kind of talk before, but if Liberty pulls it off, it could give our out-world aspirations a much needed ticket to ride.
