This article is amusing:
CosmoCourse CEO Pavel Pushkin told Sputnik New Agency, he came up with the idea of suborbital tourism back in 2013 when he was working at Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center.
“We were reviewing various concepts of commercial space rockets and came up with the idea of launching people into space via suborbital trajectory.”
Wow, as far back as 2013! What a visionary.
Note that it’s short on details.
Less than an hour to go for the next SES-9 launch attempt by SpaceX. Eric Berger has the story.
I listened in by phone. Here‘s the white paper.
As one would expect, a consensus from thirteen space organizations is going to be mostly motherhood, and implicitly self contradictory. More after I’ve taken the time to go through it. Elliot Pulham said that the campaigns have received it with “gratitude and interest,” but as he said, the main goal is not so much to inject space into the campaigns as to prevent people from saying stupid things about it. Good luck with that.
No, we can’t “just” throw our trash into the sun.
But I hate when people use current launchers to demonstrate the cost of a massive space project. That’s not how it would be done. And I wish they’d simply say “the sun is the most expensive place to get in the solar system.” Because it is.
Space News has a story on Bridenstine’s proposed legislation.
I’ll have to take a look at the actual draft bill, but it has some good things, and some not so good. I don’t think that SSA should be simply handed over to the FAA. I don’t think that FAA should even be involved in launch licensing. If we’re going to be making radical changes in structure, it’s time to seriously consider a U.S. Space Guard.
It’s been rescheduled for Tuesday. They’re hoping that the fourth time will be the charm.
I think this is an issue of lack of experience with subcooling the LOX. This is only the second flight of the new vehicle. With sufficient flight experience, they’ll get it down, I’m sure.
The latest agenda (including Yours Truly) is up. It really is the best space conference for the buck.
Some thoughts and history from Doug Messier.
I didn’t try to wangle an invite, because I’m currently in Missouri, sort of on vacation (which is why the light blogging as well). But if I’d been in CA, I’d have probably driven up, just to see who else was in attendance.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s the official release from Virgin Galactic.
…in spaaaaaaaace.
I wrote about this a few months ago.
This is a huge day for Kip Thorne (and others). Nadia Drake has a comprehensive story up already.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s another write up by Matthew Francis at The Atlantic.
[Update a few more minutes later]
Here‘s the paper itself.
[Update a while later]
And one from Miri Kramer.
[Update a while later]
And from Loren Grush.