• Billionaire aims to go higher and faster next time
• Virgin Galactic still can’t get SpaceShipTwo all the way up (to Karman line)
• FAA throws in the towel on deciding who is and who isn’t an astronaut

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Earlier this month, Richard Branson and two Virgin Galactic employees received commercial astronaut wings from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity flight test they took part in last July. The trio was the last group to receive the wings — FAA ended the program last year — and the honors came with a pretty big asterisk.

ROCKLIN, CA (Orbital Assembly Corporation PR) — Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC), the only company advancing the development and operation of a commercially viable, space-based business park with gravity, has named Andre Bormanis, scientist, Star Trek TV series writer and television producer to its advisory board.

Bormanis has had a lifelong focus on space and science including as a writer, technical consultant, and producer on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise. 

He is also co-author, with Dr. Logsdon, of “Emerging Policy Issues for Long-Term Human Space Exploration: Background Paper” and co-editor, also with John Logsdon, of Conference Proceedings: Emerging Policy Issues for Long-Term Human Space Exploration, by the Space Policy Institute. Bormanis has also written numerous articles on astronomy and space science.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

The first three passenger flights of Blue Origin’s New Shepard have been long on symbolism. On the first one, Jeff Bezos invited Wally Funk, who in 1960 was one of 13 women who underwent the same medical checks as the Original Seven Mercury astronauts. NASA wasn’t accepting female pilots at the time, so Funk had to wait 51 years to reach space.

New Shepard’s second flight included starship Capt. James T. Kirk, or more precisely, the actor who played the “Star Trek” captain, William Shatner. The third flight had Laura Shepard Churchley, the daughter of America’s first astronaut to fly to space, who launched aboard a vehicle named after her father, Alan.

Video Caption: Hollywood’s Captain Kirk, 90-year-old William Shatner, blasts into space and floats in a capsule above Earth aboard a ship built by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company. (Oct 13)

“Space Launch LIVE: Shatner in Space“Airing Live on Discovery and Science Channel, Wednesday, October 13, 8:30 -10:30 AM Discovery and Science Channel brings viewers the highly-anticipated launch of Star Trek star William Shatner as he takes his first flight into space — at the age of 90, soon to be the oldest person to fly to space — on Blue Origin’s New Shepard, a cutting-edge suborbital rocket. Scheduled for Wednesday after […]

KENT, Wash. (Blue Origin PR) — Today, Blue Origin announced actor William Shatner and Audrey Powers, Blue Origin’s Vice President of Mission & Flight Operations, will fly on board New Shepard NS-18. They will join crewmates Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries for the flight which lifts off from Launch Site One on October 12.  

TMZ.com reports that Capt. James Tiberius Kirk — actor William Shatner, anyway — will be heading to space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital launch system. We’re told Shatner will be on board in October for the 15-minute civilian flight — similar to the last launch. What we don’t know — BUT WHAT WOULD BE AWESOME — is if he wears his Capt. Kirk getup. Our sources say the mission […]

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

For eight years, they thundered aloft in cramped Russian spacecraft from a former Soviet spaceport in Kazakhstan, battling bureaucracy and gravity to blaze a trail across the heavens and redefine what it meant to be a space traveler. No longer would access to orbit be limited to highly trained astronauts chosen on merit and working on behalf of their nations; instead, space would be open to any sufficiently healthy people with enough money and moxie to qualify.

Two new space shows – one a drama, the other a comedy — are now in development. Ronald D. Moore – he of “Battlestar Galactic” and “Star Trek” fame – has gotten an order from Apple to produce a new drama series that imagines a world in which the global space race of the 1960’s never ended. Yes, Apple has now gotten into producing TV series.  No, I don’t know […]