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.

By Alan Breakstone

Zogby/Futron/Nasa Market Study Confirms Space Tourism Popularity

From a conversation with Professor Yoshifumi Inatani

EVENT: A Panel Discussion

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.

AFRICAN IN SPACE

This week is turning out to be very newsworthy for the space tourism industry. First, the world's second paying space passenger is set to fly on Thursday, April 25. Mark Shuttleworth, a South African dotcom multi-millionaire, is ready for launch on a Vostok rocket from the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakstan. Colonel Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko is the commander of the Taxi-3 mission, also was a member of the first crew on the International Space Station Expedition-1 mission. Lieutenant Colonel Roberto Vittori, from Rome, Italy, completes the team. He has over 2000 hours experience in over 40 different aircraft. Mark Shuttleworth has excellent companions for his trip to the ISS. Keep posted at the First African in Space website:

In an illustrated article “Learning to Fly, Strip, and Vomit on a 727”, Penn Jillette gives a wonderfully zany description of the thrill of floating in weightlessness here. (It also describes how, until aviation authorities finally certify companies to offer these services through commercial ticket sales, it’s possible to ‘get round’ regulations by becoming a ‘company employee’, as the author did along with Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, among others.)