Excalibur Almaz's space tourism vehicle concept. (Credit: Excalibur Almaz)

By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

Art Dula was at the Royal Aeronautical Society’s 3rd European Space Tourism Conference in London this week, promoting Excalibur Almaz (EA) and announcing an agreement with XCOR Aerospace for crew training.

Based upon what I have read, EA’s latest plan for using surplus Soviet-era space stations and capsules sounds pretty awesome. A flight to the moon and back for the low, low price of $150 million. Pricey, but definitely on the mega-cool side of the spectrum.

But, then again, the company’s plans always sound pretty cool. And then…well…

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The Composite Crew Module being rolled into the vacuum chamber at Marshall's Environmental Test Facility. The test will continue through the end of the summer. (Credit: NASA/MSFC/Emmett Given)

Huntsville, Ala. (NASA PR — This week, engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., moved a Composite Crew Module (CCM) into the Environmental Test Facility vacuum chamber to gauge how well a space structure fabricated with composite materials will react in a simulated space environment. Data gained during this test series will aid in the design and development of future in-space composite habitable structures.

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The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook As long as we’re celebrating the anniversary of the SpaceShipOne flight, I thought these clips might be appropriate. Just happened to run across them today. The Daily Show with Jon StewartGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Summary

• Astrium to study how ATV and Columbus know-how and technologies could be used in a variety of future missions
• Further developments to be decided at the next meeting of the ESA Ministerial Council in November 2012
• Two studies with an envisaged value of €13 million [$16.5 million] in total — €6.5 million [$8.25 million] each

21 June 2012 (Astrium PR) — Astrium, Europe’s number-one space company, has been awarded two studies by the European Space Agency (ESA) to define how to evolve technologies used on the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and the Columbus space laboratory for future space vehicles. The envisaged value of both studies is €13 million [$16.5 million] — €6.5 million [$8.25 million] per study.

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International Space Station

Washington D.C. (CSF PR) – Michael Lopez-Alegria, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, testified Wednesday morning before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Science and Space at a hearing entitled “Risks, Opportunities, and Oversight of Commercial Space.” Among the topics discussed at the hearing were risk-sharing, regulation, NASA’s Commercial Crew and the International Space Station.

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Planetary Resources, a company backed by billionaires who are seeking to make trillions of dollars mining asteroids, wants the public to get involved in its venture. The catch: the public will be expected to fund whatever activities it undertakes.

That’s the message from Planetary Resources Co-founder Peter Diamandis. If the company gets enough suggestions from the public, it was begin a KickStarter campaign to seek donations from the general public to fund them.

“To offer you a chance to actually get involved, we’ve been tossing around the idea of adding additional capacity in our production run, and either offering you access to a portion of our of our orbiting spacecraft – or – if there’s enough demand, actually build you an additional Space Telescope for your own use,” Diamandis wrote in a blog post.

Now, all this is very interesting…
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LAKE FOREST, Calif., June 18, 2012 (AC&A PR) — AC&A is pleased to announce the appointment of the former director of composites at SpaceX, Steve Smith, to manager of composite manufacturing.

In his role at AC&A, Smith will be responsible for all composite operations including driving the current development of the composite manufacturing facility, recruiting and employing a team of composite technicians whom he will oversee. Smith will also be involved in the day-to-day communications, process and development of composite projects and technical life cycles with AC&A’s valued clients.

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Mike Melvill flew SpaceShipOne into space and history on this date in 2004. Melvill piloted the small space plane to an altitude of 100.124 km (62.2 miles) on a flight lasting 24 minutes and 5 seconds. Melvill was the first pilot to fly a privately-built aircraft into space. Thousands gathered at the Mojave Air and Space Port to watch this historic flight. After the flight, Melvill climbed aboard his craft […]

Tests on RocketMotorTwo have begun in Mojave, which is a step toward integrating the engine into the SpaceShipTwo fuselage. The one interesting element is that unlike other test summaries, this one does not mention the length of the burn, which means it was a short duration event with a key emphasis on evaluating the test environment at the Scaled facility. As shown below, they were evaluating the test stand, data […]

Launch of Atlas V NRO satellite on June 20, 2012. (Credit: ULA)

With all the attention focused on SpaceX, there’s another rocket company that doesn’t get nearly the amount of credit that it deserves because its launches are almost always routine. ULA celebrated a milestone with the 50th launch of its Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program today as an Atlas V booster roared skyward from Cape Canaveral with a National Reconnaissance Office satellite aboard. Both EELVs — the Atlas V and Delta V — have proven to be highly reliable since entering service a decade ago. Each rocket has suffered an early engine cutoff, one of which had a serious impact on mission success.

The official press release is below.

CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, Fla., June 20, 2012 — (ULA PR) — A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket carrying a payload for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) lifted off from Space Launch Complex-41 here at 8:28 a.m. EDT today. Designated NROL-38, the mission is in support of national defense.

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