This week on The Space Show: California Space Authority and French Aerospace Valley; Smart-1; SmallSat conference; autor Dave Ketchledge.
CSF PRESS RELEASE
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is pleased to announce the creation of the Suborbital Applications Researchers Group (SARG), composed of experienced scientists, researchers, and educators dedicated to furthering the research and education potential of suborbital reusable launch vehicles under development by the commercial spaceflight sector.
ZERO-G PRESS RELEASE
Join us for themed flights that combine gravity-defying parabolic flight with extra-special entertainment, including a celebrity skateboarder and a Halloween costume party.
The National Research Council has issued a report that urges the space agency to reestablish the NASA Advanced Concepts Institute (NAIC), which the space agency shut down in 2007. The small office was focused on advanced concepts that could be used in future missions.
KEY NRC RECOMMENDATIONS
The committee recommends that NASA should reestablish a NIAC-like entity, referred to in this report as NIAC2, to seek out visionary, far-reaching, advanced concepts with the potential of significant benefit to accomplishing relevant to NASA’s charter and to begin the process of maturing these advanced concepts for infusion into NASA’s missions.
Ben Bova: Wasted opportunity in space
Naples NewsWhat if we had pushed ahead as vigorously after July 20, 1969, as we had in the years before the first lunar landing?
To begin with, we’d have a small city in orbit by now: a space station where hundreds of people live and work…
The Royal Scotsman has a profile of Princess Beatrice, fifth in line to the British throne and rumored (rumoured?) to have a seat on a future Virgin Galactic suborbital space tourism flight:
China to finish high-resolution topographic lunar map by September
Xinhua
China will complete a 3D topographic map of the moon by the end of September, according to a chief designer with the project on Wednesday, calling the map the “clearest” in the world.
Aerospace incubator gaining momentum
Boulder County Business Report
For a nonprofit incubator that formed in January, eSpace: The Center for Space Entrepreneurship has already taken off at a missile-like pace after it cleared its first hurdle in securing $2 million in government funding, added new mentors and chose its first three companies to incubate.
Orbital Sciences Corporation plans a Taurus II demonstration flight for December 2010.
ATK will test for the first 5-segment Ares first stage on Tuesday.
I took a VIP tour of Ames as part of the International Space University’s alumni weekend. Visited the motion simulator and the wind tunnel, the latter of which is the largest in the world. The full photo essay after the break.
EADS PRESS RELEASE
EADS, the European aerospace and defence company, has established a new subsidiary in Japan to help coordinate and support the Group’s marketing campaigns and industrial partnerships there. From its office in Tokyo, EADS Japan K.K. will aim to strengthen EADS’ presence in the country and forge further long-term business relationships with Japanese industry and aerospace institutions.