Contactmusic.com reports on how one of Arthur C. Clarke’s visions is inspiring a French musician to plan for the first lunar concert — hopefully with Richard Branson’s help:
Jean Michel Jarre wants his next gig to be out of this world – the electro-pop pioneer is adamant he will one day perform on the moon.
Richard Branson after his first flight aboard WhiteKnightTwo at the Oshkosh airshow.
AIA PRESS RELEASE
Aerospace Industries Association enrolled eight companies this week, bringing the total new regular member companies joining the association this year to 31. AIA’s regular membership now stands at an all-time high of 133. With 175 associate members, AIA’s total membership is 308 companies.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk talks to Vator.tv.
NASA's Orion spacecraft
AEROJET PRESS RELEASE
Aerojet, a GenCorp (NYSE: GY) company, announced today that it successfully conducted a static firing of the third nozzle risk reduction motor in support of the Orion jettison motor, a critical component of the launch abort system (LAS) for NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle. This successful test firing validates several nozzle design changes implemented to enhance the safety and reliability of the jettison motor.
Space Access Society Bulletin –
Alert Followup Friday 9/24/10
by Henry Vanderbilt
Two relevant developments:
– One, a news item in the Orlando Sentinel says that the new version of House NASA Authorization bill HR.5781 has been informally run past the Senate, and the response was that the Senate wouldn’t pass it.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
The National Review looked a bit more into Charles Bolden’s upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia. Based on NASA Public Affairs Officer John Yembrick’s reply, which he forwarded to me (see below), there’s nothing much there.
The Saudi Arabia visit is part of a larger three-nation tour involving aerospace conferences in each location. Bolden will spend next week in Prague at the 61st International Astronautical Conference. This is the largest space conference in the world, and it is attended by the heads of the all the world’s space agencies.
Ares I-X lifts off from the Cape.
Both the Space Frontier Foundation and the Space Access Society have issued action alerts urging supporters to oppose the House’s revised NASA spending bill.
“Although they’ve done their best to appear to be compromising, the fine text makes it clear that they want to continue Constellation,” wrote Space Frontier Foundation Executive Director Will Watson.
Both Watson and SAS Founder Henry Vanderbilt said that the new House bill places unacceptable restrictions on NASA’s planned commercial crew transport program.
“This new version of HR.5781 places a whole tangle of reviews, reports, certifications, and other requirements on Commercial Crew, the general effect of which cannot be other than to discourage such efforts,” Vanderbilt wrote. “It retains specific Commercial Crew poison pill requirements that neither NASA nor existing Russian providers have to meet.”
Rep. Bart Gordon has released a compromise NASA funding bill that provides $1.2 billion for commercial crew efforts, an increase from the $464 million in the original House bill. This is short of the $1.6 billion in the Senate version.
Details of the bill after the break.
ASTRONAUTS4HIRE PRESS RELEASE
Astronauts4Hire’s inaugural mission as a contracted flight researcher will be testing the world’s first beer to be certified for drinking in space. The beer, produced as a joint venture between Saber Astronautics Australia and the 4-Pines Brewing Company (under the name Vostok Pty Ltd), is a recipe designed for easy drinking in both in microgravity and on Earth. It is intended to meet anticipated demand from the nascent space tourism market. (more…)
Artists conception of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft in orbit
A couple of brief SpaceX related news items. Space News reports that the next Falcon 9 launch has slipped from Oct. 23 to Nov. 8 or 9. The rocket will launch the first Dragon cargo freighter on a test flight. The program is already running two years behind the original schedule.
UKSA PRESS RELEASE
On September 20-21st, the UK Space Agency hosted a meeting at the International Space Innovation Centre at Harwell, England to look at the feasibility of a proposal by the privately-held Reaction Engines Ltd. for the design of a single-stage to orbit launch vehicle (Skylon) and its novel propulsion concept (SABRE). The meeting brought together nearly a hundred invited experts from the UK, Europe, Russia, the US, South Korea and Japan to examine the technical and economic prospects for the technology.
International Space Station
NASA PROGRAM UPDATE
The International Space Station partner agencies met Tuesday, Sept. 21, by videoconference to discuss continuation of space station operations into the next decade and its use as a research laboratory.
(more…)
