The First Repeat Space Tourist Launches

That's right, in a world first, a paying passenger has traveled to space twice.

That passenger is Charles Simonyi, and he traveled to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule. He launched on March 26 and arrived at the station on the 28th. So now, he has been in space eight days.

He of course payed his millions to do so to Space Adventures in their partnership with the Russian government. One of the ways Simonyi has been spending his time on the space station is using a HAM radio to communicate with amateur radio operators on the ground. That's right, if you're a HAM radio operator and are in the right place at the right time, you too can pick up transmissions from the first repeat space tourist!

Kinda makes me wish I knew someone who has one.

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Russia Announces No Joint Tourism After 2009

It seems they have made it official. The Russian Space Agency has announced that after 2009, they will not transport any more tourists to the International Space Station during their missions.

This is of no surprise, though, because the ISS will soon be operating with a crew of 6 instead of the current crew of 3. With the space shuttle out of service, the Russians are going to need all of the seating they can get to being up fresh crew members.

So what will this mean for Space Adventures, who has been arranging these visits? They will only be able to take two more tourists up before the deadline, but they have already planned for this. They arranged months ago for a private launch of a dedicated Soyuz vehicle after their usual access to the Soyuz missions has been terminated. So this is not the end of ISS tourism yet!

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Catch-Up: Sixth Space Tourist Launches

Okay, I admit that I knew about this story when it was happening, and I didn't post anything. Honestly, it was around the time that work started causing me headaches (it still is), and I was just too burnt-out and lazy to post it. If I hadn't been so lazy, I would have discovered early on that I was no longer getting my regular updates, but I still blame NBC. With that said:

On October 12th, Richard Garriott was launched aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule, thereby becoming the world's sixth space tourist. As all space tourists so far, Garriott achieved this feat through Space Adventures' agreement with the Russians to send tourists up to the space station for a tidy sum (currently about $35,000,000).

Garriott is actually on the board of Space Adventures, and shortly after returning from his week-long mission, he announced he was leaving his work as a developer for NCSoft (the makers of City of Heroes, among other games) to pursue interests related to his journey in space. So I have little doubt that we'll be hearing more from him.

Congratulations, Richard! As a successful video game developer and space tourist, you have lived the dreams of many a geek like me.

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Falcon 9 Assembly Nearing Completion

I wasn't sure this website would make it this far, but this is my hundredth post. Hooray! That is, if you don't count posts I've deleted because I mistakenly published them and posts that I've started writing but that haven't been... um... posted yet. But I don't count those, so why should you?

So for my hundredth post, I've decided to take a break from all this catch-up nonsense (keep sucking on that porcupine, NBC) and report on some exciting news that is happening right now.

The progress to SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has steadily proceeded, and after its earlier successful test firing, it is now being assembled for its first launch at Cape Canaveral.

The first stage flight tank arrived at the cape on December 18th, and was lifted off the truck on December 21st. Since then, assembly of the rocket has gone extremely well by all accounts. If no problems crop up, assembly will be complete as soon as today.

Even more exciting for SpaceX, NASA has officially selected them to provide cargo transfer service to the International Space Station using the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and SpaceX's Dragon-class spacecraft. Really, though, this comes as no surprise, since you don't demolish a launch pad unless you have a good reason.

Oh, here's some cool assembly pictures, credit SpaceX. Notice how small those traffic cones are compared to the nine Merlin engines at the bottom of the rocket, and how those in turn are dwarfed by the rocket itself.

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SpaceX Announces DragonLab

SpaceX came out with a pretty big announcement today; they announced the development of a vehicle intended for cargo transfer and experimentation: the DragonLab.

The DragonLab is an intermediate step toward their proposed Dragon spacecraft. The Dragon spacecraft will be VOTE a manned vehicle launched aboard the Falcon 9 rocket, the first of which is under construction. If it is successful, it will likely be used to transfer crew to the International Space Station after the Space Shuttle is retired.

The DragonLab will be an unmanned cargo vehicle that will be able to supply the International Space Station (through NASA's COTS program) and it VOTE will be capable of independent pressurized and unpressurized experimentation. The DragonLab will use much of the VOTE same technology and structure as the manned Dragon spacecraft, so it will also provide a way to test various systems in advance of the manned version.

This of course, has little or nothing to do with space tourism. I'm writing about it for three reasons:

1. Because SpaceX will likely be indirectly VOTE involved in space tourism through the anticipated launch of the Sundancer space hotel prototype aboard one of its Falcon 9 rockets.

2. Because SpaceX's dragon logo is really really cool (see below).

3. As an excuse to VOTE write a really VOTE annoying VOTE post VOTE on VOTE Election VOTE Day.

Enjoy!

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VOTE

Space Tourist Decides He Likes It

Does the name Charles Somonyi sound familiar? If it does, then you know that he is one of a very few space tourists. Specifically, he visited the International Space Station in 2007. And he decided he likes it... to the tune of $30 million, give or take $5 million or so.

That's right, he's going back! Next spring, a scant two years after his first space flight, he is going to board a Soyuz capsule headed toward the International Space Station, and in doing so become the first repeat space tourist. It seems he believes the cost it well worth the trip, which is good news for those of us waiting for... less expensive flights.

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Conflicting Space Adventures Comments Just a Misunderstanding

Well, it appears that the whole Space Adventures confusion has been just a big misunderstanding. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, I recommend reading through yesterday's post.

The misunderstanding is due to the fact that Space Adventures released two big announcements simultaneously. It turns out that the comment from Anatoly Perminov, the head of Roskosmos, most likely refers to Space Adventures' announcement about Sergey Brin becoming the next planned space tourist, and not about Space Adventures' use of the Soyuz capsule.

And who cleared it all up? Well, it was Jeff Foust of the Personal Spaceflight blog. I've mentioned New Voyage News in the past, but Personal Spaceflight is another great place to look for current and ongoing space tourism news updates. In fact, Mr. Foust called up Space Adventures personally to clear it all up. You can read his entire blog post here. In my book, that's extremely good journalism. Mr. Foust is clearly much more driven to provide good news than my lazy butt, but then I intended my site to be as much about voicing my opinions and chronicling my personal journey as about keeping track of space tourism news, so it's all good.

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Space Adventures Jumping the Gun?

So a funny thing happened the other day.

I usually watch all of the shuttle launches; it has kind of become a tradition. I haven't missed one since Return to Flight after the Columbia disaster. I also watch the shuttle landings, though less consistently than the launches. Then sometimes I leave the TV on while doing chores or whatnot while NASA TV shows replays and post-event press conferences.

During Saturday's post-landing press conference, one of the reporters asked a question about the recent Space Adventures announcement concerning their planned use of the Soyuz capsules for tourist flights. I was in the garage at the time hunting for a pair of pliers, so I missed the answer. Now I wish I hadn't.

It turns out that NASA wasn't consulted about the new plans. However, the agency doesn't seem too concerned about that either, despite the fact that they're planning on also using the Soyuz capsules to deliver astronauts and supplies to the space station between the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010 and the completion of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle in 2015. NASA's administrator, Mike Griffin, put it this way: "It is their system. They can fly it as they wish."

However, questions about Space Advenures' plans don't end there. Anatoly Perminov, the head of Roskosmos, the Russian Space Agency, released a statement on the agency's website claiming he was unaware of any such deal. However, in Space Adventures' official announcement, the quote provided by Alexey Krasnov from Roskosmos was less than vague: "We are very pleased to continue working with Space Adventures into the foreseeable future. This method for growing our commercial partnership with Space Adventures is beneficial for all parties. The Soyuz to be used for this mission shall be a specially manufactured craft, separate from the other Soyuz vehicles designated for the transportation of the ISS crews"

So will this relly go forward? Well, either this is just a series of silly miscommunications, or Space Adventures really has jumped the gun a bit. We'll see.

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Space Adventures Announces First Private ISS Space Flight

Okay, remember a week ago when I mentioned that Space Adventures was planning on releasing two big pieces of news? Well, those two pieces of news (the next space tourist and the future of Space Adventures' orbital flights) turn out to be quite closely related, and the latter is very exciting.

First off, the next announced space tourist that Space Adventures will send up will be Sergey Brin, one of Google's co-founders, and his space flight is scheduled for 2011. He has made a payment of $5 million toward the total amount for the flight, in a new program called the "Orbital Mission Explorer's Circle" in which potential astronauts may make payments toward future spaceflights that are transferable to others. There are six founding members of this circle, but only Sergey Brin has been announced.

Wait, 2011? That's past the Russians' cutoff date for the transport of space tourists into orbit alongside cosmonauts, you say?

Well, in the extremely unlikely event that you actually said that, I will respond with the second piece of news. Space Adventures has announced that after cooperative tourists flights are cut off in 2010, they will be cooperating with the Russian Federal Space Agency to launch fully private flights to the International Space Station using the Russian Soyuz capsules. The first of these flights is to be in 2011, with potentially more to come. Each flight will take up two tourists, a pilot, and supplies for the space station.

Other more minor announcements include the planning for Space Adventures to ramp up the weightless parabolic flight operations of Zero-G (which they bought earlier this year) to include 10,000 passengers per year, and perhaps eventually 100,000 per year. Also, Space Adventures is looking into the possibility of partnering with one or more companies to offer suborbital spaceflights. Virgin Galactic was mentioned, but Space Adventures doesn't plan to make any specific announcements in this area until suborbital tourist flights are up and running.

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EADS Releases Space Plane Project Details

The Chief Technical Officer of EADS, Robert Laine, was recently interviewed by the BBC concerning EADS Astrium's space tourism plans, and he actually went into quite a bit of detail about how the project is going to work.

EADS is a large European aerospace company that resulted from the 2000 merging of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG of Germany, Aerospatiale Matra of France, and CASA of Spain. They are responsible for creating everything from Airbus aircraft to military helicopters. The EADS Astrium division was created to encompass the space portion of EADS' Aerospace goals, and today, they have 12,000 employees in five European countries.

EADS Astrium is split into three principal roles. Astrium Services sells services that require complex or multiple-satelite setups, such as communications or navigation. Astrium Satellites designs and manufactures satellites, and Astrium Space Transportation supports manned space activities, and researches and develops space vehicles. Astrium Space Transportation has been responsible for such systems as the Columbus module, currently part of the International Space Station, and the European Space Agency's automated transfer vehicle, now in a parking orbit near the International Space Station, waiting for the space shuttle to leave so that it can dock.

Astrium Space Transportation is now in development of a space plane, intended to be used for tourism purposes. In his interview with the BBC, Robert Laine provided several new details concerning the program.

The expected cost of a trip on one of these space planes is €200,000. Astrium's studies of the potential space tourism market suggest that as many as 15,000 people would be willing to shell out this kind of cash every year for a ride on one of its planes. To facilitate that, Astrium plans to manufacture 10 space planes per year once they are in full production. Also, it was revealed that Astrium has no intention to provide the tourist flights itself; it will just sell the planes to others who will.

The plane will operate by using conventional jet engines to fly 12 km into the atmosphere, where it will ignite its rocket. The plane's liquid oxygen-methane rocket engine has been successfully tested for thirty-one seconds at a stretch, and the form of the plane itself has successfully passed initial wind tunnel tests. The plane will be able to carry five people into space (four tourists and one pilot), and the trip will take about an hour and a half.

And here are some pictures! The The first is credited to EADS, and the second to Marc Newson, the designer of the interior. Enjoy!

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A Few More Space Tourism Companies

Well, I've done it again! In the process of researching for these posts, I've run across a few more potential space tourism companies that I neglected in my previous lists. So here are three more!

SpaceDev
SpaceDev has the stated goal of building a private affordable space program, and they're doing it incrementally by working on designing and constructing various systems and satellites for use in space. They were founded in 1997 by Jim Benson, and started by creating thermal actuator technologies. It has since specialized in (among other things) the design and construction of very small satellites, and it is credited with the design and construction of SpaceShipOne's rocket engine. SpaceDev is currently designing the Dream Chaser spacecraft, which may be used by the Benson Space company for orbital tourist flights. For the record, I have been aware of this company for a long time, but I didn't include them among my space tourism company lists until now because I was not aware that they are the people who are designing the Dream Chaser.

SPACEHAB
SPACEHAB was founded in 1984, and has specialized since then in many spaceflight-related services. Notably, they have designed and constructed pressurized and non-pressurized cargo containers that have flown on nineteen shuttle missions. They have also provided services that facilitated the launch of over 200 commercial satellites, and they provide many other services and technologies to NASA and other government organizations. They are currently designing a module for the International Space Station, named (of course) Enterprise, with plans of potentially selling its use to miscellaneous interests. These are expected to be mainly scientific interests, but this could potentially open up the International Space Station for more tourism. Yeah, I know, it's a really slim possibility, but it gives me an excuse to fill out the list with one more company.

t/Space
t/Space (or Transformational Space) was founded specifically to facilitate NASA's needs concerning the President's Vision in Space Exploration. Already, they have competed and become finalists in NASA's COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) program to determine who will provide International Space Station transportation services when the space shuttle is retired. Also, they were one of eight winners in NASA's "Concept Exploration and Refinement" competition to advise them on the best method of getting back to the moon and going on to Mars. They are currently in the process of designing a "Crew Transfer Vehicle" (CXV) to get people to low earth orbit, and potentially the International Space Station. Also, the t/Space website states that the CXV will aid in "opening the public to space for the first time" which suggests space tourism uses.

By my count, those three additions bring the list up to a whopping 31 companies that will potentially be involved in facilitating space tourism! I'm having trouble finding any more though, so maybe I've found most of them? Maybe?

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Space Adventures LTD

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a few days; I had this weird cold that hasn't been bad enough to keep me from working, but has been just annoying enough to keep me from doing much else. We still seem to be short on any interesting space tourism news, so I'll profile the next company on my list, Space Adventures Ltd.

Space Adventures is currently the only space tourism company actively getting tourists into space. It was founded in 1998 with the express goal of facilitating commercial human space travel. They accomplished that goal in 2001 when, in cooperation with the Russian Space Agency, Roskosmos, they sent Dennis Tito, the first space tourist, to the International Space Station.

These initial space flights cost $20,000,000, and consisted of six months of cosmonaut training, followed by launch on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft (usually along with a NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut), topped off with a six-day stay on board the International Space Station. To date, there have been five of these space tourists, and two more are expected this year.

The price for one of these space flights has now risen to $30-40,000,000. However, they have recently added a spacewalk option to their list of services. For about an extra $15,000,000 and an extra month of training, tourists will be able to go on a 1.5 hour spacewalk and spend an extra two days aboard the station.

Those are not the only services they currently offer. Space Adventures also offers zero-gravity parabolic plane flights for about $5500, or $8000 if you want to go with an astronaut. Also, they will take you through cosmonaut training for anywhere between $8000-$60,000 depending on how in-depth you want the training to be.

Space Adventures also has some huge future plans. They are currently in the process of designing and creating a sub-orbital spacecraft of their own called the Explorer. They plan on offering sub-orbital flights on the Explorer from spaceports currently in the works in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. The flights are planned to cost a mere $102,000, the current lowest announced price for spaceflight by any company.

Along with their suborbital flights, Space Adventures is currently planning a circumlunar flight, tentatively called Deep Space Explorations Alpha. The announced date of this flight is 2009, although that date was announced a couple of years ago, and there has been little specific news on these plans since. This flight is planned to take two tourists on a journey around the far side of the moon and back to Earth. The two available seats are on sale for $100,000,000 each. So far, there haven't been any announced takers.

So that's about it! As of now, Space Adventures is definitely the most successful space tourism company out there. I look forward to seeing what the future holds, and whether their plans pan out.

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