September 11 News Items

RpK Lawsuit Puts Space Tourism Work in Limbo (Source: Chicago Tribune)
The Oak Brook luxury vacation firm contracted to market and reserve flights on a planned suborbital space plane has filed a $3.4 million lawsuit against its partner, Rocketplane Kistler (RpK), that it claims has stopped all work on the project. Abercrombie & Kent says it spent $1 million drawing up a marketing plan for the zero-gravity plane only to see Rocketplane Kistler's corporate board move in April to abandon the project, according to a lawsuit.

RpK's George French denied that the company has abandoned the project. "That's not the case at all," he said. "We've been moving forward." He said the company, which now hopes to have its first commercial flight in 2010, would unveil more advanced engineering details about the XP this fall. Last summer, Cindy Cashman and Mitch Walling decided to reserve $250,000 tickets with the idea that they'd be the first two humans married in space. "I'm very concerned," said Cashman, "I put a large down payment in and I want to get it back."

Company Short of Financing, Partners for Singapore Spaceport (Source: Intl. Herald Tribune)
More than a year after the project was first announced, Space Adventures Ltd. said Tuesday it was still seeking local partners and financing for a Singapore-based spaceport to launch suborbital tourism flights. The company said in February last year it was forming a venture with a Singapore-based consortium to build a $115 million facility in the Southeast Asian city-state.

"It's not a done deal. We have a plan, we don't have financing, there's not enough local support," said Eric Anderson, president of Space Adventures, on the sidelines of a business conference in Singapore. He said the company was also looking at a number of other Asian locations for its spaceport, including China, Japan and Korea, but remained confident of the Singapore project's success. He did not provide a timeframe for the project.

Japan Postpones Launch of Lunar Orbiter to Friday (Source: The Star)
Japan's space agency has postponed the launch of its long-delayed lunar orbiter until later this week because of anticipated bad weather. The largest lunar mission since the U.S. Apollo program will be launched on Friday. The probe will be launched on Tanegashima, the remote island where JAXA's spaceport is located.

Rocketplane Kistler Press On Despite COTS Notice (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) was officially notified by NASA that they had failed to complete two COTS milestones. Sources from both NASA and RpK have confirmed that the letter does NOT represent a final decision by NASA to terminate the company's COTS contract. Meanwhile, RpK are pressing on with the a new configuration of their suborbital Rocketplane XP - to be unveiled at the X Prize Cup.

The letter is a formal pre-requisite to termination of NASA's $207 million contract with RpK, with 30 days notice. However, it appears extremely unlikely that the company can raise the money required in time to cure the breach. In addition to the financing shortfall, the letter cited RpK's failure to fully complete a Critical Design Review of the Pressurized Cargo Module design due to an apparent lack of funding to complete the work. The company did complete a Preliminary Design Review of the module.

NASA Actions May Have Shook Investor Confidence in RpK (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
NASA may have partially shaken the confidence of potential COTS investors earlier this year by extending its Roscosmos contract in April. The contract modification pays $719 million for Russian ISS resupply and crew rotation services for three additional years through 2011 - after the COTS vehicles were originally hoped to take over at least the cargo resupply role.

Recent fund-raising may also have been complicated by the release of the NASA COTS Phase II Request for Information (RFI) last month. The RFI was not expected until next year, and the early information request occurs when SpaceX and RpK are still in a relatively early stage of development. The RFI provides an opportunity for new competition to declare an interest in COTS 2 before the COTS 1 winners are, figuratively and literally, off the launch pad.

Glenn Center Plans to Upgrade Facilities (Source: Zanesville Times Recorder)
The NASA Glenn Research Center plans to replace and upgrade facilities and laboratories as it helps to design a new space vehicle. The projects include demolishing aging buildings and replacing them with environmentally friendly ones. NASA headquarters has approved the plan. It includes a proposal to lease unused land and NASA Glenn facilities in Cleveland and near Sandusky for regional economic development. The center has about 2,500 employees and contract workers.

Engage the Antimatter Drive (Source: New Scientist)
Gliese 581c has got to be the ultimate tourist destination. Discovered in April this year, it is the first rocky planet beyond our solar system with anything like a pleasant climate. How mind-blowing would it be just to stroll along its beaches - surely it must have beaches - or watch the planet's red-dwarf sun setting in a scarlet blaze over the alien landscape. There's just one little problem to consider before you rush to book your ticket. Gliese 581c is 20 light years away - over a million times the distance from Earth to the sun. There is no question that conventional chemical rockets aren't up to the task. Visit http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19526201.900-engage-the-antimatter-drive.html to read about alternative propulsion methods.

Posh Space Center, Big Carbon Footprint (Source: Spiegel)
The world's first private spaceport in New Mexico may be an environmentally friendly piece of architecture, but the carbon footprint left behind by the rockets taking tourists into orbit will be enormous. The terminal building and its hangars are expected to cost about $31 million and construction is expected to begin in 2008, with completion by 2010. The designers also appear to be cutting no corners when it comes to making the passive building as environmentally friendly as possible. Power will be generated with solar panels and even water will be recycled. But all the fuss about conservation comes across as a bit empty considering the enormous fuel consumption and carbon footprint of each rocket that will launch from the private spaceport, taking space tourists into orbit for $200,000 a pop.