International Space Station
Jeffrey Manber weighs in with his advice to Norm Augustine and his panel:
For me, it was kind of a Cold War throwback to have watched as members of the Augustine panel have traveled around the country listening to engineers and industry executives talk up one launch system and bad mouth another, push for one new NASA program and throw cold water on another. Think “sunshine laws” meets a Politburo meeting.
The Rajiv Gandhi award in the super achiever category went to Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G. Madhavan Nair.
Ares Needs a Death Panel: Government Must Buy All Rides to Space Commercially
Space Frontier Foundation Press Release
In the wake of the Augustine Commission’s declaration that the troubled Ares rocket program is unaffordable under any realistic budget projections, the Space Frontier Foundation renewed its call to immediately cancel the costly dead-end project and replace it with multiple commercial vehicles.
“Three years ago we published Unaffordable and Unsustainable, declaring that government must henceforth ‘buy all crew and cargo services with a destination of low Earth orbit [from] commercial providers using privately-owned and operated spaceships’,” said Foundation co-Founder Bob Werb.
Comfort Suites is having a competition in which you could win $200,000 to pay for your trip into space.
Artists conception of WhiteKnightTwo and the SpaceShipTwo space tourism vehicle. (Credit: Virgin Galactic)
WONDERING where to go for your holidays? Melbourne publicist Emma Morris has to tell Richard Branson whether she’ll accept a free flight to space.
The 27-year-old is the winner of a Virgin Blue competition and has a ticket to blast off in her name.
Glitch forces SKorea to abort rocket launch
The Associated Press
A technical glitch forced South Korea to abort liftoff of its first rocket into space Wednesday, delaying a launch that threatened to heat up tensions with rival North Korea even as they joined in mourning the death of an ex-president who pushed tirelessly for reconciliation.
Sir Richard Branson with Virgin Galactic pilots, staffers and investors. To his right is Mohamed Badawy Al-Husseiny, CEO of Aabar, which made a $280 million in Virgin Galactic.
Arabian Business reports that Virgin Galactic had real challenges in getting more funding for its space tourism project:
Credit Suisse, the financial adviser to Virgin Galactic on the $280m Abu Dhabi deal last month, has spoken of the battle faced by Sir Richard Branson’s company in finding an investor.
Judging from what I’m seeing from Korean television, the launch of South Korea’s first rocket has been scrubbed. The countdown has been stopped. And the launch tower, which had been lowered for the launch, has been raised back up to the rocket. No word on why yet. At least none that I can decipher.
Live link to Korean language broadcast of the KSLV-1 launch.
Korean astronaut Soyeon Li is Twittering the KSLV-1 launch.
INTERNET ARCHIVE PRESS RELEASE
Internet Archive today announced that high resolution files are available for download directly from the NASAimages.org website.
The improved download features offer a choice of high or low resolution files for still images, allowing users to select the version best suited for their needs. Many images on the site have a dimension of 3000 pixels or higher, making them suitable for printing at up to 11 x 17 inches on most printers. The website still maintains NASA’s file naming conventions for easy organization.
