-
Watch Out Virgin Galactic and Space Adventures: Here
Comes Xtraordinary Adventures with Dr. Feng Hsu and XCOR's Lynx
Boca Raton, FL (Vocus/PRWEB) February 22, 2011
Leading NASA space flight safety, risk, reliability and management
expert, Dr. Feng Hsu, is now collaborating on risk assessment and
management for suborbital space flight. Xtraordinary Adventures,
a Florida space travel agency, just announced that it will offer
the opportunity for all future participants to register for suborbital
space travel with personal risk collaboration from Dr Hsu.
Mitchell J. Schultz, space tourism specialist
and managing director of Xtraordinary Adventures, recently published
several articles about the possiblities of a mishap in early private
space flight, and issued a list of 1,000 of the most successful athletes,
businesspeople, models, comedians, authors, movie, TV and music personalities
that should become more aware now of taking a suborbital space flight.
“All these super personalities have a following
and peers who will go wild when they hear that their STAR is going
on a space trip," Schultz said. “With Dr Hsu's risk assessment
of all vehicles and companies available for suborbital space flight,
Xtraordinary Adventures can make this available for all who wish to
know more. Regardless of which vehicle they wish to fly in, this is
their opportunity to be listed and forever recognized as one of the
earliest civilian space pioneers."
Within the last five years, more than 500 worldwide
adventures have already pre-registered for a suborbital space flight.
SpaceShipTwo and Lynx are scheduled to be test flown this summer in
Mojave, California. Costs remain between $95,000 and $200,000 and all
future participants must be qualified and pre-instructed on flight
expectations.
It has been almost 50 years since man's first space
flight, that of Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, and with the success
in 2004 of SpaceShipOne, several private space companies are vying
capture of the major market for this once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
Due to the timeliness of expanded space travel opportunities,
it is important to carefully assess both the risks and benefits this
new experience offers. The challenge is here for those who dare to
take it on. In the words of Dr. Wernher Von Braun, father of human
space flight, "I reach for the stars."
Dr. Feng Hsu, Ph. D.
Dr. Feng Hsu is a U.S. expert with several decades of experience in
the field of Risk Analysis, Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) assessment
for complex engineering systems. Formerly a staff research engineer
at world renowned Brookhaven National Laboratory, Dr. Hsu has worked
extensively on reliability, probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) and
management theory and methodology research for nuclear reactor safety
since the 1980s. He became senior staff engineer/scientist and joined
NASA’s SAIC team in the Shuttle & Exploration Analysis
Department at Johnson Space Center in Houston in 2000. Dr. Hsu was
the lead engineering analyst and project manager working as technical
expert in the space center on NASA’s key program areas, such
as PRA, SMA for the Space Shuttle, International Space Station as
well as the risk-informed design assessment for the new generation
space launch and crew exploration vehicle systems. Dr. Hsu has published
extensively and co-authored several books by CG Publishing and Aerospace
Technology Working Group. For his work, Dr. Hsu has also won numerous
research and service awards from NASA, among others. After several
years as head of Integrated Risk Managemnt at NASA’s Goddard
Space Flight Center, Dr. Hsu has decided to take on greater challnges
to support the private space industry and is now senior vice president
of Systems Engineering and Risk Management for Space Energy, and
is fully dedicated to the development of a space solar power satellite
demo project for delivering safe, permanently renewable, environmentally
friendly and economically feasible space solar power for sustainable
development of mankind.
Xtraordinary Adventures (http://www.XtraordinaryAdventures.com)
Xtraordinary Adventures, LLC is a two-and-a-half-year-old Florida Limited
Liability Company operating from Boca Raton, Florida, and is reaching
out worldwide to extend an opportunity to interested space enthusiasts
and adventurers desirous of meeting with others of similar interests
and for registration assistance a for high adventure rocket propelled
spaceship thrill-ride into suborbital space on XCOR’s Lynx.
Xtraordinary Adventures is dedicated to providing current,
factual information, innovative ideas, interesting products, gifts,
trip mementos and quality service to enable discriminating participants
in finding answers to satisfy their quest for space knowledge and memorable
space-related experience opportunities. To this end, we are continually
challenged to explore different paths in bringing this excitement and
education in our unique style.
The founder of Xtraordinary Adventures, LLC is Mitchell
J. Schultz, innovator, world traveler, visionary and recognized leader
in the world of alternate finance, travel and media. He has also been
active in charitable programs and fundraising for more than 40 years.
Schultz is a certified SPACE TOURISM SPECIALIST and graduate of Space
Tourism University 2010. To secure your reservation and for more information,
he can be reached at (800) 358-0655 or MJS(at)XtraordinaryAdventures(dot)com.
XCOR Aerospace (http://www.XCOR.com)
XCOR Aerospace Corporation, founded in 1999, is focused on the research,
development and production of safe, reliable, reusable launch vehicles,
rocket engines and rocket propulsion systems being developed from its
headquarters at the Mojave Air & Space Port in Mojave, California.
CEO Jeff Greason served on the U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee.
In just 12 years, the firm has developed and built
11 different rocket engines and built and flown two manned rocket-powered
aircraft. XCOR is now in the phased development of its next generation
vehicle, the suborbital Reusable Launch Vehicle, Lynx. In addition
to taking a pilot, initially former NASA Shuttle Commander Col. Rick
Searfoss and one spaceflight participant to the edge of space. The
vehicle will also provide affordable launch services to academic, scientific,
engineering, and observation-related markets
Space Tourism May Mean One Giant Leap for Researchers
Lou BeachBy KENNETH CHANG
Published: February 28, 2011
If all goes as planned, within a
couple of years, tourists will be rocketing into space aboard a Virgin
Galactic space plane — paying $200,000 for about four minutes
of weightlessness — before coming back down for a landing on
a New Mexico runway.
Sitting in the next seat could be a scientist working on a
research experiment. Science, perhaps even more than tourism, could turn
out to be big business for Virgin and other companies that are aiming
to provide short rides above the 62-mile altitude that marks the official
entry into outer space, eventually on a daily basis.
A $200,000 ticket is prohibitively expensive except
for a small slice of the wealthy, but compared with the millions of
dollars that government agencies like NASA typically spend to get experiments
into space, “it’s
revolutionary,” said S. Alan Stern, an associate vice president
of the Southwest Research Institute’s space sciences and engineering
division in Boulder, Colo.
He is a spirited evangelist for the science possibilities of what
is known in aerospace circles as suborbital travel. Just as important
as the lower cost, scientists will be able to get their experiments
to space more quickly and more often, Dr. Stern said.
“We’re really at the edge of something transformational,” he
added.
Dr. Stern’s institute announced Monday that it has signed a
contract and paid the deposit to send two of its scientists up in Virgin’s
SpaceShipTwo vehicle. Southwest also intends to buy six more seats — $1.6
million in tickets over all.
That follows an announcement on Thursday that Southwest
is buying six seats from another suborbital company, XCOR Aerospace
of Mojave, Calif., which has been charging $95,000 a seat for tourists.
XCOR’s
Lynx space plane carries just two people — the pilot and the
paying passenger — so each flight will carry an experiment and
an institute scientist.
“We have built, on our own dime, three payloads,” Dr.
Stern said. “We’re buying tickets, before there is a government
program from suborbital providers, for our own people to fly with those
experiments.”
One of the Southwest experiments will look at how loose soil and rocks
like those that cover asteroids behave. Another will fly an ultraviolet
telescope that flew on the space shuttle Discovery in 1997. The third
is a biomedical harness to measure heartbeat, blood pressure and other
physical parameters of the scientist during flight.
When the experiments will get to space has not been set. Neither company
has yet announced when commercial flights will begin, but eventually
SpaceShipTwo could fly once or twice a day, and the Lynx is designed
for up to four flights a day.
Virgin has already performed unpowered glide tests for the six-passenger
SpaceShipTwo at Spaceport America in New Mexico and will begin powered
ones soon. XCOR may begin flight tests of the Lynx later this year.
Two other companies — Blue Origin, created by Jeff Bezos, founder
of Amazon.com, and Armadillo Aerospace — are also developing
spacecraft for the tourist business. Another company, Masten Space
Systems Inc., is developing a suborbital vehicle that will carry only
payloads, not people.
Even if only some of these companies succeed, the prospect is that
in a few years, hundreds of suborbital flights could be taking off
every year. Dr. Stern predicted that even though a single flight would
offer only a few minutes of weightlessness, the cumulative time of
the suborbital experiments could quickly overtake that of the International
Space Station, which has been in orbit for more than a decade.
NASA will be flying automated scientific payloads on Masten and Armadillo
rockets this year, and the agency will provide more opportunities for
researchers in future years, although it has not offered to buy seats
for people to accompany their experiments.
For scientists, that could finally provide them ready access to space.
“It’s almost impossible to get research on the space station
at the moment,” said Mark Shelhamer, a professor at the Johns
Hopkins University medical school who would like to study people’s
balance and other motor sensory abilities before and after suborbital
flights.
On Earth, gravity is the dominant force, and many
common processes — the
way that water boils, for instance, and that a flame burns — behave
much differently without it. But many of the theories describing how
physics should work in weightlessness have not been tested in detail.
XCOR Announces Global Network of Research and Educational Mission Payload
Integrators for Lynx Suborbital Spaceplane
ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- At the commencement of
the 2011 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) being
held in Orlando, Florida, XCOR Aerospace announced its initial team of
suborbital payload integration specialists who will begin taking orders
and facilitating experiment development and integration for commercial,
educational and government suborbital research missions aboard XCOR's
Lynx reusable suborbital launch vehicle. Capable of up to four flights
per day, the Lynx is expected to provide three to four minutes of micro-gravity
and/or exposure to the harsh environment of space and the opportunity
to investigate largely unknown regions of our upper atmosphere critical
to environmental studies.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110228/LA55504)
These pioneering payload integrators represent both large, established
companies and start-up space entities run by seasoned executives and
fresh new entrepreneurs from places like Asia, Europe, North America,
and South Africa. XCOR will be adding additional specialist firms to
the network in the coming months.
The first group of XCOR Lynx payload integration specialist firms include
the following (in alphabetical order): the African Space Institute of
Durban, South Africa; Cosmica Spacelines of Toulouse, France; NanoRacks
of Lexington, Kentucky and Washington, D.C.; the Southwest Research Institute
(SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado; Space Chariots in Oxon, England; Space Experience
Curacao of the Netherlands and the Caribbean island of Curacao; Spaceflight
Services in Tukwila, Washington, Valencia, California, and Huntsville,
Alabama; and Yecheon Astro Space Center, Yecheon, South Korea.
"This is a win-win for all of us," said Jeff Greason, XCOR
CEO. "XCOR will focus on what we do best, which is build and operate
rocket powered vehicles, while our payload integration specialists will
do what they do best, which is work closely with scientists and researchers
and use their collective expertise to prepare payload missions to do
real work in space."
Dr. Alan Stern, Associate Vice President at SwRI,
the former NASA Associate Administrator for Science and the Chairman
of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation's Suborbital Researchers Group,
noted "We are extremely
excited about the capabilities that Lynx will bring to our many research
clients at SwRI, so much so that we've already procured six flights for
our own pathfinder and discovery missions to better understand how we
can best serve our clients. As a trained researcher and test engineer,
I can't wait to fly with my experiments on Lynx and ring out the processes
and procedures that will help our clients succeed, and help our Institute
stay at the forefront of the 21st century."
Each of the announced entities has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) or contractual relationship with XCOR Aerospace creating a robust
initial network of sales and payload integration specialist firms for
the science, engineering, and education missions that will be flown on
XCOR's Lynx suborbital reusable launch vehicle. Some see Lynx as a strong
compliment to their existing business models or as a tool to develop
critical national science and education capabilities or inspire new ways
of thinking and execution of space based research.
Jeff Manber, a seasoned space executive who runs
NanoRacks, LLC, already has research platforms on the International
Space Station (ISS) being used for commercial and educational research
in the CubeSat form factor. Jeff noted "Having over 50 payloads
from multiple nations already booked for the U.S. National Lab, we
expect XCOR's platform to be a solid first step for many of our customers
to validate experiments that will go on to the Space Station. The ability
to fly, test, learn, then adjust payloads on the ground and re-fly
is extremely useful when perfecting a payload. You don't have to be
a rocket scientist to understand XCOR's value proposition."
Brad Inggs, Founder and President of the African
Space Institute noted "In
South Africa, we are constantly on the lookout for innovative ways to
build up the emerging commercial space industry and provide related educational
opportunities to our community, so being a payload integrator for the
XCOR Lynx platform not only offers a leap forward allowing affordable
access to space for African payloads but also allows us to further generate
local skills and jobs in the region."
Garrett Smith, Founder and President of Cosmica
Spacelines of Toulouse, France equates the partnership with XCOR as
a cornerstone for greater ventures into space and touches on the enabling
aspects of XCOR's Lynx. He notes, "Through building a strong community
of not only individual enthusiasts but corporate futurists, Cosmica
Visionaries will lead Europe and the world towards a progressive future.
XCOR will provide us with the capability to offer safe, reliable travel
to the edge of space and beyond for the good of humanity."
The XCOR payload integration specialist firms will support a variety
of scientific, educational and engineering objectives including: atmospheric
science, physics, microgravity research, planetary science, earth observation,
life sciences, education and public outreach, and many others. Some firms
such as NanoRacks already have capabilities on orbit at the ISS and will
use Lynx as a qualification platform, others are teamed with launch services
providers who have other on orbit resources like new commercial cargo
and crew systems who will be using Lynx for pre-cursor missions.
Jason Andrews, President of Andrews Space and Spaceflight
Services commented, "We
are working with experimenters and scientists who will be using the SpaceX
unpressurized Dragon Lab capsule for standalone on-orbit research and
transport of experiments to the ISS, so having the ability to test in
the vacuum of space with XCOR's Lynx platform prior to sending something
up on a Falcon 9 is a very powerful tool for our customers."
General Ben Droste (retired) is the former Chief
of Staff for the Netherlands Air Force, lead the pre-curser to the
Netherlands Space Office (the NASA equivalent), and is the current
Chief Executive Officer of Netherlands-based Space Experience Curacao.
General Droste noted, "The Netherlands
has a long history of pioneering ventures in general and in particular
with micro-gravity research and atmospheric studies, so as we prepare
to take on our own wet lease of a Lynx vehicle for flights in Curacao,
we will also be laying the groundwork and seeding the market for future
suborbital research funded by private industry, government and groups
like the European Space Agency (ESA)."
Each payload integration specialist firm will help facilitate and provision
flight services on the Lynx by ensuring end users understand the packaging,
environmental, safety, operational flight profile(s) and interface (physical,
electrical and data) requirements of the Lynx for both automated experiments
not requiring user intervention during flight, and those experiments
when the scientist accompanies the payload to the edge of space. The
integrators will provide a variety of additional value added services
depending on their individual service offering and customer needs, including,
but not limited to fabrication, test and qualification of experiments
for the Lynx environment.
XCOR will be responsible for: (1) developing and periodically updating
the Lynx interface control document, payload user's guide and other payload
related processes and procedures in consultation with the payload integration
specialists, end customers and regulators; (2) operating an annual Lynx
payload user's group conference to solicit feedback and promulgate best
practices across the payload integrators network and user community;
(3) addressing any specific non-standard needs identified by payload
integration specialists and their customers such as special flight trajectories
or unique vehicle integration needs; (4) any special licensing or regulatory
actions pertaining to the flight; and (5) with the integration specialist
and customer, performing a final safety and pre-flight review meeting
before the mission is flown and a de-briefing of the mission after flight.
Dr. Jae-Song Jo, Director of the Yecheon Astro
Space Center noted, "We
are impressed with the professionalism and excellent processes we've
seen from XCOR and know that clients who demand precision and responsiveness
will be well served. As we prepare for our own wet lease operations in
the future, the early experience we gain by bringing South Korean and
Asian science experiments to the US will only enhance that level of professionalism
and establish us as a premier operator in Asia."
On flight day, XCOR will receive payloads from the integration specialist
(and/or customer), place it into one of the four cargo carrying locations
on the Lynx, fly the payload on the mutually agreed upon trajectory,
and return the payload to the researcher or payload integrator (as directed)
within minutes of touchdown. From temporary airport-side storage or labs
all the way to space and back to a runway-side lab is projected take
under 30 minutes on a nominal flight with Lynx - a step function improvement
over any capability available today and a strong compliment to other
available systems.
Ray Bainbridge, CEO of UK-based Space Chariots,
noted the synergies he sees between Lynx and terrestrial reduced gravity
(drop tower and aircraft parabolic flights) and sounding rocket research
when he said, "we
offer low cost design, manufacture and reduced gravity test facilities
as well as sounding rocket launches for academic research and the emerging
private space industry, so having the ability to use Lynx as our suborbital
reusable vehicle platform provides us with a full range of solutions
for our customer requirements."
Depending upon customer needs, the Lynx can carry
as small as a 1kg (or smaller) payload as a "ride share" or "secondary payload",
and up to a 650kg large "primary" mission payload. Payloads
may be carried as ride share or primary payloads in the Lynx pressurized
cabin or be exposed to the unpressurized and harsh conditions of space.
In the future, small nanosatellites may also be launched from the Lynx
vehicle using an expendable upper stage launcher of XCOR design allowing
innovative low earth orbit satellite applications, constellations, and
the testing of new and advanced technologies to be used on larger satellites
and manned flight vehicles.
Andrew Nelson, XCOR's Chief Operating Officer added, "with
the lowest cost of operations in the marketplace, ability to fly multiple
times daily from sites around the world using our affordable 'wet lease'
customer model, and our global reach with these trail blazing space entrepreneurs,
Lynx is poised to become the de facto standard in suborbital reusable
launch vehicle payloads for scientific, education and engineering purposes,
and create high paying technical job clusters not only in the US, but
everywhere Lynx operates."
XCOR Aerospace is a California corporation located in Mojave, California.
The company is in the business of developing and producing safe, reliable
and reusable rocket powered vehicles, propulsion systems, advanced non-flammable
composites and other enabling technologies. XCOR is currently working
with aerospace prime contractors and government customers on major propulsion
systems, and concurrently building the Lynx, a piloted, two seat, fully
reusable, liquid rocket powered vehicle that takes off and lands horizontally.
The Lynx production models (designated Lynx Mark II) are designed to
be robust, multi-commercial mission vehicles capable of flying to 100+
km in altitude up to four times per day and are being offered on a wet
lease basis. Research, engineering, and educational communities interested
in using the Lynx should contact Mike Massee or Andrew Nelson at XCOR
directly regarding scientific, earth observation, materials science,
upper-atmospheric weather research, micro-gravity experiments and other
potential uses at www.xcor.com and
XCOR will connect you to your nearest payload integrator specialist firm
serving the Lynx community, or contact them directly. These include:
African Space Institute - www.africansi.org
Cosmica Spacelines - www.cosmicaspacelines.com
NanoRacks, LLC - www.nanoracksllc.com
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) - www.swri.org
Space Chariots - www.space-chariots.com
Space Experience Curacao - www.spaceexperiencecuracao.com
Spaceflight Services - www.spaceflightservices.com
Yecheon Astro Space Center - www.portsky.net
SOURCE XCOR Aerospace
24th National Space Symposium Unfolding in Colorado
Springs April 7-10
(SCN Boca Raton, March 26th, 2008)
This years focus is “Our
Expanding Universe – 50 Years of Space Exploration.”
According to the Space Foundation (www.spacefoundation.org) “more
than 7,500 registrants, guests, speakers, exhibitors, and media from
across the United States and many foreign countries are expected to
attend the 24th National Space Symposium. Participants, who represent
both the history and future of this $220 billion industry, include
senior executive leadership from NASA, NOAA, and other civil space
and government agencies; the commercial space and satellite broadcasting
industry; the Department of Defense and military space commands; space
entrepreneurs; universities and academia; and senior representatives
from the global space industry.”
Space Cruise News plans to be there
and will report of its experience. This is a great opportunity for all
space enthusiasts to preview the phenomenal current growth and meet some
of the responsible groups that make it all possible. Both government
and private sectors are well represented.
Prominent speakers include Dr Neil deGrasse
Tyson, Space Technology Hall of Fame, Dr George C Nield, Acting Associate
Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (FAA), Dean Cheng,
China Specialist, Professor Hajime Inoue, Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency, Col Eileen M Collins, USAF (Retired), Lt. Gen. William L Shelton,
USAF, Gen. C Robert Kehler, USAF, Hon Michael W Wynne, Secretary
of the Air Force, Lt Gen Michael A Hamel, USAF, Lt Gen Kevin T Campbell,
Space and Missle Defense Command, US Army, Gen Victor E Renuart, Jr,
USAF, Lt Gen Frank G Klotz, USAF, James F Albaugh of Boeing,
Eliot G Pulham, CEO of Space Foundation, Hon Wayne Allard and Mark
Udall of the US Senate, Heather Wilson of the US House of Representatives
and others as yet unannounced. This is an excellent opportunity to
interact, make new contacts and network with others in the industry.
The event will take place at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs
April 7th through April 10th.
Many noted space authors, like James Oberg who
wrote “The
New Race For Space” over 20 years ago was way ahead of his time.
There will also be an opportunity to meet Anousheh Ansari, the world's
first women astronaut and first female private space explorer, who
experienced over a week at the International Space Station and flew
on the Russian Soyuz TMA Spacecraft in September 2006. In her words“By reaching
this dream I’ve had since childhood, I hope to tangibly demonstrate
to young people all over the world that there is no limit to what they
can accomplish.”
Contact: Mitchell J Schultz, Editor
Space Cruise News
MJS@SpaceCruiseNews.com
TRUMP SPACE HOTELS-A Trip Worth Every Dollar!
(SCN Boca Raton, March 11th, 2008)
Exclusive First from Space Cruse News>>>
Are
Trump and Bigalow making a deal?........It may be TRUMP Space Hotels
opening in early 2012. It is rumored that two more billionaires, Robert
Bigalow, head of Bigalow Aerospace, developers of the world's first space
habitat and Donald J Trump, Real Estate impresario, are close to a deal
that will put the TRUMP name on Bigalow's Genesis I and II and perhaps
III and more that will host the weary space traveler for the night. Bigalow
launched two inflatable space habitats, the last one on June 28th, 2007,
that are floating in orbit. With space Bingo and other unearthly things
to do while aboard this human habitat, guests can observe the universe,
dine, take a leak and play games at around $25,000 per night from upwards
of 150 miles orbiting around the Earth. They can probably even spot some
floating space debris from their window.
The deal, as we understand, would have Trump license Bigalow for an undisclosed
amount of cash plus a percentage based on annual revenue. All travelers would
indemnify Trump accepting all risks. Lots of details to be worked out but it
sound pretty spacey to us!
As space tourism plans are taking root with companies like Virgin Galactic, Benson
Aerospace, RocketPlane, Blue Origin, Space Adventures, Space Access, PlanetSpace
and others, where else would you feel comfortable and in style other than at
a TRUMP Space Hotel. We're sure Hilton and maybe Holiday Inn or maybe Space INNS
will soon be competing. What else is the 'DONALD' up to next? Maybe He'll soon
plan to build on the moon? Where ever his name is the value of this real estate
will surely go up!
We are told that Mr Trump has been a space enthusiast and supporter for quite
some time and even plans to visit his space hotel and take his family along for
a real out of this world vacation. At least the guy has guts, I guess if he goes
so goes the world of adventure space travelers. With Richard Branson taking his
family on Virgin Galactic, it won't be long before they all meet up at Trumps
Space Hotel for dinner and a pow wow! Would you go into space, if you could afford
a ticket, probably at a $1,000,000 per person or more? Orbital flights currently
go for $30M with Space Adventures through the Russians and they are sold out
at least until 2010. Only the space Shuttle could make the trip but NASA isn't
up for charter. By 2012 several others as mentioned above should be able to make
the flight to the hotel.
|
