The Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space terminal hangar facility (center), Spaceport Operations Center (Left) and “Spaceway” (Runway) at Spaceport America. (Credit: Bill Gutman/Spaceport America)

The New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) is set to request an additional $6.9 million from the state government to fund the paving of a road to Spaceport America due to shortages of expected revenues from Virgin Galactic spaceflights and tourists visiting the site, the Las Cruces Sun-News reports.

The $15 million project will pave a 24-mile dirt road that runs north from near the village of Hatch to the new spaceport. Currently, drivers from Hatch and Las Cruces must travel a longer, more circuitous route that runs north to Truth or Consequences and then south to Spaceport America.

(more…)

Dynetics’ friction stir weld team (left to right: John Meyer, Greg Neal, Taylor Murphy, Todd Renz, Andre’ Paseur) in front of the first Dynetics SLS advanced booster demonstration cryo tank barrel, successfully welded using the Marshall Space Flight Center Vertical Weld Tool. (Credit: Dynetics)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Aug. 13, 2013 (Dynetics PR) – Dynetics officials today reported successful progress on the company’s hardware build and test tasks in support of advanced development for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS). This announcement comes at the end of the third quarter of the contract NASA awarded last fall to a team made up of Dynetics and Aerojet Rocketdyne to reduce risks for Advanced Boosters that could help meet SLS’s future capability needs.

(more…)

Via Bill Deaver & Mojave Transportation Museum PLANE CRAZY BUCKS — John Joyce, publisher of the Rosamond News, presents an $800 check to Mojave Transportation Museum Foundation Treasurer Cathy Hansen to support Plane Crazy Saturday for one year. Joyce collected the funding from area businesses Barnett Carpet, Karl’s Hardware, Kieffe and Sons Ford, and the Rosamond News. Donations have also been received from Jim Balentine’s Mojave Radio Shack and the […]

Our correspondent, Nickolai Belakovski, reports from the DC-X conference in Alamogordo, NM: Dumitru Popescu announced that ARCA is in talks with Spaceport America to bring their Haas 2b. The vehicle can carry a capsule to 160km, a capsule which can carry 5 people, a pilot and 4 passengers. They expect to be able to start moving to the spaceport in the next few months. They intend to compete with other […]

With the U.S. Navy’s well deck ship USS Arlington stationed against its pier at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, divers in small boats approached a test version of NASA’s Orion crew module.  As part of a deliberative process, the divers attached tow lines and led the capsule to a flooded well deck. With the capsule in position over the recovery cradle, the water drained until the capsule settled.

During the stationary recovery test of Orion at Norfolk Naval Base, divers attached tow lines and led the test capsule to a flooded well deck. (Credit: NASA/Dave Bowman)

(more…)

BOULDER, Colo. (Mars Society PR) – Today during the 16^th Annual International Mars Society Convention, the Mars Society announced the launch of an international engineering competition for student teams to propose design concepts for the architecture of the Inspiration Mars mission.  The contest is open to university engineering student teams from anywhere in the world.

(more…)

The 3-D images above are of bone from untreated and treated mice from a NASA study that used simulated microgravity to look at a novel therapy to prevent bone loss during spaceflight.
(Credit: NASA)

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — Studying the science of biology in microgravity opens a world of possibilities! Research ranges from plant growth to cell growth and from bacterial virulence to strength in human bones. The scope of biology research provides scientists from many disciplines with opportunities to express and explore their area of interest, translating findings into treatments and applications for use on Earth and in space exploration.

(more…)

NASA’s $16.5 billion deep space Orion Multi-purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) is suffering from underfunding that threatens increasing program risks and causing delays in a program that won’t fly with astronauts until 2021, the space agency’s watchdog reports.

“Constrained funding for the MPCV forced Program managers to adopt a less-than-optimal incremental development approach in which elements necessary to complete the most immediate tests are given priority while development and testing is delayed on other important but less time sensitive aspects of the Program,” NASA’s Inspector General said in an audit released this week. “While this may be the only realistic and affordable development approach available to NASA given the Program’s current funding profile, such an approach increases risks.”

(more…)

They’re are having a 20th anniversary reunion for the first flight of the DC-X experimental vehicle in New Mexico this weekend. Although I was unable to go, long-time reader Nickolai Belakovski is there, and he will be filing some reports for us. Virgin Galactic President George Whitesides spoke earlier today and took some questions. Here’s Nickolai’s report: He said they’re gearing up for the second powered flight, probably for that […]

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has selected for possible flight demonstration 10 proposals from six U.S. states for reusable, suborbital technology payloads and vehicle capability enhancements with the potential to revolutionize future space missions.

After the concepts are developed, NASA may choose to fly the technologies to the edge of space and back on U.S. commercial suborbital vehicles and platforms. These types of flights provide opportunities for testing in microgravity before the vehicles are sent into the harsh environment of space.

(more…)