Space tourism – astroengine.com

No Bucks for NASA Without Buck Rogers

Guest article by Nina Lincoff

An interview with Jeff Foust, Kathryn Thornton and Ian O’Neill.

SpaceX Falcon 9 on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral (SpaceX)

On Feb. 24, 2009, a quarter of a billion dollars fell into the Antarctic Ocean.

NASA’s recently completed Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), failed 12 and a half minutes into flight when its upper rocket stage didn’t separate.

The $270 million satellite never made it into space. It did make quite a splash though, filmed for the world to see.

In today’s economic climate, NASA does not need failures like OCO. On Feb. 26, the Obama administration allocated $18.7 billion to NASA in the 2010 budget. “Although that is only half a percent of the total U.S. budget,” says aerospace analyst and founder of the blog spacepolitics.com Dr. Jeff Foust, “to a person like you or me, it’s a lot of money to spend on an agency with problems.”
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A Behind-the-Scenes Glimpse of the XCOR Press Conference

The faces of the New Space Game: XCOR press conference, Dec. 2nd (© Space Lifestyle Magazine/Angela Kyle/Ian O'Neill)

In my second assignment for Space Lifestyle Magazine, I was sent to the plush Beverly Hilton (in Beverly Hills, CA) to sit in on a grand announcement by XCOR Aerospace. Having seen the operations behind another space commercialization company (SpaceX) I was keen to see how the two companies differed. Firstly, comparing XCOR with SpaceX would be like comparing apples with pears; they belong to the same family (i.e. fruit), but they taste entirely different.

For starters, SpaceX is focused on launching payloads into orbit. XCOR is a space tourism venture (with it’s closest competitor being Virgin Galactic). They do however, have some common ground: both build their own rockets and both have a very enthusiastic outlook for this emerging industry.

Tuesday was XCOR’s day, so my wife Debra, colleague Angela Kyle and myself were all treated to a great meeting in the Beverly Hilton (a location more commonly associated with Hollywood stars than spaceships) where XCOR communicated their vision to the world…
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The Final Full-Frontal: Virgin Galactic Declines $1 Million Space Sex Tape Offer

It had to happen some time - the first zero-G space sex tape may appear in the near future (Misha Gravenor)

Soon, space tourism companies such as Virgin Galactic will be flying several flights per day on sub-orbital joyrides. It is expected that this will be quickly followed by orbital “space hotels” where high-paying space sightseers can spend long periods looking down on the Earth (a venture being quickly developed by Las Vegas entrepreneur Robert Bigelow; there’s an unmanned space hotel prototype currently in orbit). It’s only a matter of time before space tourism becomes commonplace, opening a massive host of scientific and recreational possibilities.

Wherever humans go, sex quickly follows, and although we don’t fully comprehend the implications of sexual pursuits in zero-G, there’s certainly a lot of people on Earth who will want to experience the 100-mile high club for themselves. Although space agencies have flirted with space sex research, the act is generally frowned upon (although the Russian study into “human docking procedures” sounded interesting). Although we are limited in our space sex understanding, the porn industry is quickly catching on, wanting to create the world’s first space porn video, making a huge offer to Virgin Galactic ahead of their first flight at the end of 2009…
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