Financier Per Wimmer says that investors have recovered their “risk appetite” over the last six weeks, which is a good sign for the growing space tourism industry.
Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo with SpaceShipTwo (credit: Virgin Galactic)
The emerging space tourism industry will prove to be a boon to microgravity biomedical research, the CEO of a space research company said on Wednesday.
The planned NewSpace Center in Titusville, Florida will give visitors an immersive way to experience our future in space, the project’s manager told a space gathering on Wednesday.
 
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Extending the life of the space shuttle is all but impossible now because of an inability to manufacture additional external tanks, former space shuttle astronaut Jon McBride said on Wednesday.
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Financial Issues in the Synergy of Space & Hospitality/Tourism/Entertainment
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Amaresh Kollipara: co-founder and managing partner, Earth2Orbit LLC
Michael Leventhal: attorney and founder, MC Squared
Barry Bloom: founding principal, Abacus Lodging Investors LLC
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Space is not a destination, it is an enabler for businesses to expand their existing verticals. Panelists believe that the interest from the hospitality industry will be huge once space tourism gets going.
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AIAA PRESS RELEASE
Corporate members of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) recently joined together to celebrate the recipients of the 2009 AIAA Foundation Educator Achievement Awards, and to show that the aerospace community is appreciative of their outstanding efforts in the classroom to inspire the next generation of the aerospace community.
X PRIZE PRESS RELEASE
The X PRIZE Foundation, with its partners BT Global Services, John Templeton Foundation and the United Nations Office for Partnerships, will host a groundbreaking incentive2innovate conference (i2i) for senior-level executives, June 8-9 at the United Nations in New York.
i2i will provide an intimate forum for attendees to collaborate with extraordinary business leaders on initiatives to make an immediate impact on innovation, operations and revenue generation within their respective organizations.
Rob Coppinger has posted video interviews with Reaction Engines’ managing director Alan Bond and UK science and technology minister Lord Paul Drayson.
Endeavour commander Mark Polansky is using Twitter (Astro_127) and YouTube to answer questions.
Alan Boyle has reviewed Michael Potter’s film, “Orphans of Apollo,” for his Comic Log website. He reviews the lessons that the failed effort to commercialize the Mir space station taught people:
The biggest lesson is that you want to have the government as your customer, not your enemy. “I think the slightly more commercial and realistic and politically savvy entrepreneurs who are now investing in private space understood where Walt went wrong,” David Chambers, who was MirCorp’s vice president of strategic planning, says in the movie. “And they’re prepared to play nice with the various governments that they need to play nice with.”
A One-way Ticket to Mars
Paul Davies
Astrobiology Magazine
What I’d like to talk about today is how to cut the cost of going to Mars. And there’s one very obvious way, which is a one-way mission.
Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo with Burt Rutan and Richard Branson
All will get taste of oasis for space: Desert launches will benefit KSC
Florida Today
Florida’s Space Coast will lament the end of the shuttle program and the loss of thousands of great jobs. But 2010 could mark the start of one of the most exciting periods in the history of human spaceflight. Gigantic leaps forward in our ability to fly people in space are coming, and they’re coming fast.