"There is real competition out there, and we’re going to have to really fight for maintaining a lead position in this industry,” said Space Florida's Frank DiBello. In comparing the Cape Canaveral Spaceport with Virginia's Wallops Island, Bigelow's Mike Gold had this to say: “Wallops is just right; you’ve got everything you need in terms of legal and regulatory readiness, but it’s not so developed” that the company would encounter a lot of delays."
Those comments came three years after a high-profile local event in which Robert Bigelow said he’d like to manufacture commercial space stations on the Space Coast, potentially employing up to 2,000 people. The station modules would launch here, and crews would follow. “The absolute, ultimate, most important action, I think, that the state of Florida can take, beginning now, is to secure launch facilities to be used exclusively by the new commercial space industry, and to provide all possible political support,” Bigelow said then.
Meanwhile, the near-term prize the Shiloh site hopes to attract — launch company SpaceX — has strengthened its interests in a competing site on Texas’ Gulf Coast. Through its Dogleg Park LLC subsidiary, SpaceX this year has bought 28 new lots surrounding the proposed complex at Boca Chica Beach, bringing its holdings to 88 lots totaling roughly 36 acres, in addition to 56.5 acres it has leased. (2/22)
Would You Pay $45,000 for Waypoint2Space Space Tourist Training? (Source: Fusion)
Prices for commercial space flights will start dropping as it becomes more commonplace, but that’s still some time away. For the average American who dreamed of space, but has zero chance of being an astronaut, there are few options. Waypoint2Space's mission is to “focus on training the tourist that would need to go up, said founder Kevin Heath. "The space market is all about tourism and commercial launches; nobody was looking at the tourist training.”
Waypoint2Space calls itself “astronaut training” for tourists, and is set to open this summer, teaching future space tourists how to handle space environments. It costs $45,000 for one week of "level one" training (he offers three levels). Based out of Houston, Waypoint2Space rents offices from NASA in the Johnson Space Center. All training however, is scheduled to take place at an offsite facility which is still being furnished.
But on Waypoint2Space’s website it currently says, “We are proud to be leading the evolution of Commercial Spaceflight Training through our collaboration with NASA centers." But so far, no such agreements have been signed with NASA. “We’re two weeks away with signing a deal from them,” Heath said. (2/21)
India's Crew Module Flight by May-June (Source: New Indian Express)
India is inching closer to launch its ambitious human space mission with the first experimental unmanned flight of the crew module on the newly developed Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark III in May-June from Sriharikota, said Dr K Radhakrishnan, chairman ISRO and secretary, Department of Space. The GSLV-MK-III is being developed as a heavy-lift vehicle capable of placing satellites weighing up to 5,000 kg in geosynchronous orbit. (2/23)
NASA's Moon Dust Spacecraft Beams New Lunar Photos (Source: Huffington Post)
NASA's newest moon probe has beamed its view of the lunar surface back to Earth for the first time. The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer spacecraft (called LADEE for short) beamed the new moon photos — which NASA released Feb. 13 — to ground controllers on Earth earlier this month. The new images show stars and a pockmarked lunar landscape. Click here. (2/22)
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