April 7 News Items

Soyuz Launches to Space Station with American Tourist (Source: SpaceToday.net)
A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russian cosmonauts and an American space tourist lifted off Saturday from the Baikonur spaceport on a mission to the International Space Station. The Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft lifted off on schedule at 1:31 pm EDT and entered low Earth orbit nine minutes later. On board the Soyuz are two Russian cosmonauts, Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov, and Hungarian-born American businessman Charles Simonyi, the fifth commercial passenger to fly on a Soyuz mission to the ISS. The Soyuz is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Monday afternoon. Simonyi will remain at the ISS for over a week.

Bigelow Reveals Space Business Plan (Source: Aviation Week)
Bigelow Aerospace intends by 2015 to have three large multi-module outposts in Earth orbit to serve different user communities. The major new inflatable space module initiatives could turn North Las Vegas into one of the larger space infrastructure development centers in the world. Bigelow facilities there are being readied for a major floorspace expansion. Bigelow says his engineers predict that 800 paying crewmembers could fly to Bigelow outposts over the next 10 years.

As many as 12-14 commercial launch vehicles could fly cargo and crew to the initial outpost in its initial year of manned operations -- as early as about 2012, he says. If Genesis II is launched successfully, Bigelow will have two modules aloft. The company's spectacular Las Vegas control room with 18 large wall mounted screens and several console positions is every bit as impressive as the International Space Station control room at the NASA Johnson Space Center. The space hardware and impressive control center means that Bigelow -- means business.

Some commercial crew launch and resupply missions would fly from Cape Canaveral to service Bigelow outposts and the International Space Station. The flights could be a major new growth area for the Cape, using new systems that would take advantage of the shuttle workforce as shuttle missions halt going into 2011. But Russian launches or flights from other new commercial launch facilities are part of the plan that Bigelow will brief at Colorado Springs this week. COTS competitors SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler will be heavily involved, as could other launcher/spacecraft concepts, including Russian Soyuz and, eventually, Chinese Shenzhou missions.

The paying crews for Bigelow modules would not be "tourists" going on 20 min. suborbital jaunts. But a wide range of Bigelow module users, going all the way to orbit --and back -- but staying a while to accomplish something in between. "It's not about space hotels," Bigelow says emphatically. He is increasingly frustrated at media reporting that his space facilities are "space hotels", because on Earth he is the president of the Budget Suites hotel chain. "We have been identified as the space hotel folks and that's not the case -- that really never has been the case." Click here to view the article.