Sir Richard Branson greets Virgin Galactic ticketholders. Financier Per Wimmer is at left; behind Branson is Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn.
Virgin’s enterprises can soar – but also fail to reach orbit
The National
All exciting, cutting-edge stuff, a classic of the Virgin genre, and on the 40th anniversary of the moon landings, it must have been difficult not to get carried away with the astromania of it all.
The deal fits another Virgin pattern too.
Scaled Composites’ Bob Morgan describes the complexity and challenges of building the WhiteKnightTwo during an appearance at the Oshkosh airshow in Wisconsin.
All World Travel of New Mexico has sold its first ticket for a Virgin Galactic suborbital tourism flight – to someone who lives outside of New Mexico.
Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia
Symposium to focus on Spaceport
Delmarvanow
An academic symposium will be held this fall to explore the potential of what officials are calling “Virginia’s Spaceplex” in the Wallops Island area.
Accomack County and state officials met with representatives from several state universities Wednesday in Richmond to hear preliminary proposals for a concept study for the Wallops area, which would emphasize developing a vision for its potential and which eventually would lead to an economic impact analysis and concrete recommendations.
Fill ‘er up…..in Space?
MSNBC
The panel reviewing NASA’s long-range plans is giving a new boost to the old idea of setting up orbital fueling stations for spaceflight. If the space agency and the White House go down that route, it would mark a dramatic change in direction for future journeys beyond Earth orbit.
Some would say that’s just what the nation’s space effort needs.
The blast-from-the-past Doobie Brothers rocketed out the Oshkosh airshow where the futuristic WhiteKnightTwo aircraft was the main attraction.
Altair
2028? Goal of returning to moon could be slipping further away
Orlando Sentinel
NASA’s goal of putting astronauts back on the moon by 2020 is all but impossible to achieve, a presidential panel was told Wednesday.
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ISRO to tap US satellite launch market post tech agreement news
Domain-B
The Indo-US Technology Safeguard Agreement (TSA) signed recently will now allow India to launch non-commercial, US-made satellites from its spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, according to ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair. A proposed Commercial Space Launch Agreement will allow the commercial segment of the US market to be tapped.
Model of NASA's Orion spacecraft
U.S. Spaceflight Gap Wider Than Thought
Aviation Week
NASA probably won’t be able to meet its 2010 deadline for retiring the space shuttle fleet, and even if it does it will probably take about two years longer than planned to get the follow-on vehicles into operation, meaning the anticipated five-year gap in U.S. human space access is likely to stretch by at least a year.
At a public meeting Tuesday of the panel on the future of U.S. human spaceflight headed by retired Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, former astronaut Sally Ride presented findings on prospects for closing the space-access gap based on quick studies by the Aerospace Corp. and NASA’s Program Analysis & Evaluation office.
WhiteKnightTwo takes to the sky at the Oshkosh airshow.
Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan (right) on stage at the Oshkosh airshow with WhiteKnightTwo Chief Designer Bob Morgan and Virgin Galactic’s Will Whitehornn.
PRESS RELEASE
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation, an industry association representing 20 commercial spaceflight developers, operators and spaceports, today announced the appointment of Makovsky + Company, one of the nation’s largest independent public relations firms, as its public relations advisor.
Makovsky, which was recently recognized as the “Public Relations Agency of the Year†by the American Business Awards, will provide public relations, traditional and social media relations and public affairs counsel to the Federation.
