An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal promotes NASA ceding low earth orbit to commercial companies. This matches the recommendations of the Augustine Commission and, no doubt, the genuine opinions of the former astronauts who wrote the opinion piece.
In many cases, this position also matches the interests of the commercial aerospace companies that employ [...]

Thinking about getting people to the moon, in an earlier post, I discussed the Space Adventures offer to send a space tourist around the moon in a Soyuz for $200 million.
There have been no takers. But who else could get anyone near the moon anytime soon?
And that made me think of SpaceX. Their space system—the [...]

Despite claims that the current space tourist, Charles Simonyi, would be the last one for years, there may be another paid space traveler as soon as September.
That’s the word from Space Adventures, the company which handles orbital flight to the International Space Station via the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Had been selling “empty” seats
Until now, Space Adventures [...]

Billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi, age 60, has had his wings clipped by his 28 year old Swedish wife. His second space flight, which will begin March 26th, will be his last. He’s spent about $60 million on his two flights—and now he’s got responsibilities at home.
Planned before engagement
Mrs. Simonyi agreed to let her husband [...]

The crew of the International Space Station is scheduled to increase from 3 to 6. And, at that point, there may be no “rooms at the inn” for space tourists who pay upwards of $20 million for a visit.
Your Seat Is Taken
And the Russian Space Agency suggests that, after this year, there may be no [...]

Virgin Galactic and Space Adventures, the two first space tourism firms, now have company.
Rocketship Tours of Phoenix, Arizona will be selling flights to the edge of space aboard a craft being built by XCOR Aerospace. And the flight is a comparatively cheap $95,000. But there’s a catch.
Not Quite Into Space
The flights will go to a [...]