Thanks to Michael Mealling, I’ve got connectivity enough to announce that the FAA presented XCOR with their launch license this morning, at the Space Access Conference. It was the 180th day after completion of their licence application submittal, so they brought it in under the wire.

More later, but further details can be found at Michael’s wiki. Up to the minute pictures are also available on the wiki page.

[Update on Sunday evening]

If you haven’t seen it, Alan Boyle, who was in attendance with me (and who I greatly enjoyed meeting), has a more extensive story.

I’d think that a planetary protection officer would have a much larger portfolio than just worrying about extraterrestrial biological contamination. If he’s not responsible for detecting and fending off errant asteroids and comets, who is?

As though I wasn’t busy enough, I find this at NASA Watch (I also heard about it from a friend at Boeing).

White papers are invited that address initial challenges facing Project Constellation and Project Prometheus in general, and the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) in particular. Enclosed are the key focus area, issues, and suggested white paper topics. White papers that examine one or more of the topics are invited. Papers that address other important aspects (in a manner consistent with the information requested below) are also welcome. Viable white papers should be consistent with the January 14, 2004, U.S. Space Exploration Vision, as well as with generally accepted laws of physics. Innovative approaches

I haven’t had time to read it, but the Cap’n of the Clueless has what looks like an interesting post on warfare in space.

I’ve always found it a little ironic that in Star Trek, and most other science fiction, the model of the interplanetary/interstellar military is the navy. That makes sense, because we generally, or at least popularly, think of spaceships rather than spaceplanes, and the relatively slow maneuvers and docking, and indeed the nature of outer space itself, make the ocean a much more apt analogy than the air.

Yet in this current time-space continuum, the Pentagon has assigned space to the Air Force, and they’ve made notably little progress with it. I suspect that once we solve the earth-to-orbit problem, and the atmosphere becomes a temporary hindrance on the way to the rest of the universe, that the naval model will in fact prevail.