by Dr. Patrick Collins

by Dr. Patrick Collins

By Dr. Patrick Collins

As the test flight program of Scaled Composites Inc's sub-orbital, passenger-carrying rocketplane "SpaceShipOne" progresses steadily, it performed its second gliding flight on August 27. Described on Scaled Composites' web-site the flight successfuly achieved all its objectives, which are listed as:

Scandinavian Connection To Space (SCTS) has recently been established in Sweden to promote the realisation of space tourism. Like a number of other companies, SCTS will act as an agent for space tourism-related services as they become available, while also working to raise finance to help it to happen. The principal, Paul Eklund, says to keep an eye on their web-site for announcements in the near future.

Sadly, Lance Bass will not fly on the upcoming Soyuz “taxi flight,” as reported earlier. However, he is continuing his training, so the possibility remains open that he could fly next year. Bass has been tethered by a lack of necessary funding; his backers could not provide the $20 million in time.

XCOR Aerospace, the rocket development company, partnered with Space Adventures, the US space tourism travel agency, has recently announced its new “Xerus” project to develop a sub-orbital rocket-plane capable of making passenger flights to an altitude of 100 km.

Both Aviation Week magazine (July 22, p 53) and Space News (July 22, p4) report that the Russian Aviation and Space Agency has announced its intention to fly Lance Bass on board the late October "Taxi flight" to the space station. The July 12 announcement leaves less than six months until his flight, which does not keep the letter of the Russians’ agreement with their international partners in the space station project. However, the other countries are said to be okay with this, since they recognise the financial benefit that the Russian space agency gets from its paying customers.

Zogby/Futron/Nasa Market Study Confirms Space Tourism Popularity

To commemorate the first anniversary of the historic first space tourist flight by Dennis Tito, the Space Tourism Society held its first annual awards presentation ceremony on April 27 at the Santa Monica Community College Concert Theatre, Santa Monica. Featuring a speech and video presentation by Dennis Tito, and speeches by other leading figures in the growing field of space tourism, the evening included the presentation of the 2002 Space Tourism Pioneer "ORBIT" Awards to (in alphabetical order) David Ashford, Bob Citron, Patrick Collins, Peter Diamandis, William Gaubatz, David Gump, Jason Klassi, Chuck Lauer, Tom Rogers (lifetime award) and John Spencer.