Free Republic

Ever since the Obama administration’s rollout of its space policy two and a half years ago, conventional ideological wisdom has been turned on its head. An administration that had seemed eager to increase government involvement in everything from auto companies to health care proposed a more competitive, privatized approach to spaceflight, and people claiming to be conservatives blasted it, demanding that the traditional (and failing) NASA monopoly continue. Jim Muncy, a former aide on space policy to California congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R.), put it cleverly: “Democrats don’t think that capitalism works within the atmosphere, and Republicans apparently don’t think it...

Summer 2004 The Path Not Taken Rand Simberg n June 21, 2004, with thousands in attendance in the small southern California desert town of Mojave, a sexagenarian test pilot performed the first trip to space in a privately-built spacecraft. SpaceShipOne, as it is called, cost less than $30 million and was funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Occurring seventeen months after the loss of the shuttle Columbia put America’s manned space program on hiatus, the SpaceShipOne flight received a surprising amount of publicity. The achievement, while impressive, was also limited: SpaceShipOne’s flight was only a suborbital test, roughly the equivalent...

AFTER the destruction of America’s Columbia space shuttle three years ago, the final frontier was in danger of becoming a frontier too far. The shuttle programme began to be wound down, aspirations for the International Space Station were scaled back and scientific projects such as the Hubble telescope were decommissioned. However, beyond the shuttle, space is a booming market and, for the first time, much of the drive is coming from the private sector. The multibillion-dollar satellite business continues to be very important to companies including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and EADS, which builds the Ariane rocket. Russia, China and Japan...

Space tourism is less than three years away, Sir Richard Branson has claimed. There are already 13,500 potential passengers for the £100,000 ($190,000) "Virgin Galactic spaceliner" trip, Sir Richard told the BBC. The entrepreneur is having five "spaceliners" built in the US by the team which launched the SpaceShipOne rocket plane last year.

One small step for space tourism... If plans for a new range of suborbital vehicles get off the drawing board, then holidays in space could get off the ground In the past year, a lot has changed in the field of human spaceflight. In January, President George Bush brushed aside the fact that America's entire space-shuttle fleet was grounded when he announced grandiose plans to put people back on the moon, and then to launch a manned mission to Mars. In June, Burt Rutan, an American aeronautical engineer, showed that human spaceflight was no longer the preserve of governments by...

In a move that shows commercial space exploration is not just possible, but probable, the United States House of Representatives just passed the SPACE Act in order to lay down some general guidelines in case you want to, you know, start a mining operation in space. While private charters like Virgin Galactic, and colonization missions to Mars by the likes of SpaceX are all the rage these days, the bill would suggest that enough private organizations have an interest in mining valuable resources from space that the need for legislation is necessary. Bear in mind, not a single private company...

The pilot who survived the SpaceShipTwo crash says that his parachute deployed automatically after he was extracted from the vehicle while it broke up. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board began interviewing the pilot, Peter Siebold, on Friday, following the ship's crash late last month. He was discharged from the hospital last Monday after being treated for injuries to his shoulder. The NTSB says that Siebold's accounts are consistent with what it's learned from other sources of data, such as video, in its ongoing investigation.

Early analysis suggests that a violent structural failure rather than an engine explosion may have caused the crash of Virgin Galactic LLC’s experimental rocket ship Friday, according to safety experts and one person familiar with details of the investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board’s probe of the accident is just beginning and it could change direction, these people said. But based on video footage and preliminary data analysis, they said, investigators are focusing on aerodynamic forces that could have caused the dramatic in-flight rupture of the craft, which killed one pilot and seriously injured the other. Because some engine malfunctions...

... He said: "We would love to finish what we started some years ago and I think pretty well all our astronauts would love us to finish and would love to go into space. "I think millions of people in the world would one day love the chance to go to space and this is the start of a long programme."

Virgin Galactic is reporting that there has been an "in-flight anomaly" aboard SpaceShip Two. There are unconfirmed reports that one of the two pilots is dead.

You may recall that back in the early years of the Age of Obama NASA decided to go in a new direction. No longer satisfied with their mission to explore space, they decided to pursue the much sexier goal of promoting Muslim self esteem - because nothing is as important as self esteem.Since NASA was exiting the rocket business in order to set up a public relations agency, they subcontracted the outer space division to private investors handpicked by bureaucrats. Alas, CHANGE is difficult and the NASA switch proved to be no exception; our outsourced space program has recently experienced...

Participating in the press conference were executives Kevin Mickey, CEO of Scaled Composites, George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic and Stu Witt, chief executive of Mojave Air and Space Port. They emphasized that the nylon-based rocket fuel and engine had been thoroughly tested on the ground and they were confident of its readiness for in-flight testing. ... Two minutes into the powered flight would have permitted considerable time for SpaceShipTwo to gain altitude and speed. The pilots were not wearing pressure suits, only masks providing supplemental oxygen. At 50,000 feet and more, conditions are equivalent to space, and fluids in...

Virgin Galactic said its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane suffered an "in-flight anomaly" during a powered test flight on Friday that resulted in the loss of the aircraft. #SpaceShipTwo has experienced an in-flight anomaly. Additional info and statement forthcoming. — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) October

As several new private ventures to take people on trips to space come closer to becoming reality, California lawmakers are racing other states to woo the new space companies with cushy incentives. They are debating a bill now in Sacramento that would insulate manufacturers of spaceships and parts suppliers from liability should travelers get injured or killed on a voyage, except in cases such as gross negligence or intentional wrongdoing. Last year, the state enacted a law that shields space tourism companies such as Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic from similar lawsuits. “We’re still in the fledgling part of space...

British billionaire Richard Branson’s commercial space venture Virgin Galactic got one step closer to carrying tourists into space when a test pilot cracked the sound barrier over the Mojave desert. For the first time, the company's SpaceShipTwo, engaged its rocket motor and sped to Mach 1.2 and reached 56,000 feet in altitude. The flight is the latest -- and largest -- milestone in Virgin Galactic's testing of technology it hopes to use to carry scores of paying customers into space multiple times a day. “The first powered flight of Virgin Spaceship Enterprise was without any doubt our single most important...

British billionaire Richard Branson said Monday his venture to launch paying tourists into space has netted its 500th customer, and it's none other than Ashton Kutcher. Branson made the announcement on his blog, saying he gave the actor a quick call to congratulate him. "He is as thrilled as we are at the prospect of being among the first to cross the final frontier (and back!) with us and to experience the magic of space for himself," Branson wrote. A representative for Kutcher did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Kutcher is among dozens of Hollywood types, international entrepreneurs,...

As a former NASA executive, I am saddened by the media response to Newt Gingrich's proposal that we return to the moon. The mockery and ridicule does America a great disservice. Space exploration and development is an important national issue. It's not only possible and necessary to safeguard our future—it can be a lot cheaper than anybody dreams.

Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of Richard Branson's Virgin Group, is planning to test-fly its first spaceship beyond the Earth's atmosphere this year, with commercial suborbital passenger service to follow in 2013 or 2014, company officials have announced. Nearly 500 customers have signed up for rides on SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger, two-pilot spaceship being built and tested by Scaled Composites, an aerospace company founded by aircraft designer Burt Rutan and now owned by Northrop Grumman. The suborbital flights, which cost 200,000 dollars per person, are designed to reach an altitude of about 68 miles, giving fliers a few minutes to experience zero...

MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) -- A company working to send tourists on suborbital flights says it has tested its spacecraft with a crew for the first time. Virgin Galactic says the craft remained attached to a specially designed airplane throughout a six-hour flight over California's Mojave desert Thursday....

SpaceShipTwo (SS2) and its mothership, VMS Eve (WhiteKnightTwo) herald a new era in commercial space flight with daily space tourism flights set to commence from Spaceport America in New Mexico after test program and all required US government licens Virgin Founder, Sir Richard Branson and SpaceshipOne (SS1) designer, Burt Rutan, today reveal SS2 to the public for the first time since construction of the world’s first manned commercial spaceship began in 2007. SS2 has been designed to take many thousands of private astronauts into space after test programming and all required U.S. government licensing has been completed. The unveiling represents...