Here comes another player in the sub-orbital space flight market with the collaboration between Florida based company Xtraordinary Adventures and Rocketship Tours.

Reservations can now be made on the Lynx, XCOR Aerospace´s newest rocket propelled suborbital craft, for the princely (and lowest to date) sum of $95,000 - $7,000 cheaper than with Space Adventure and $100,000 less than Virgin Galactic.


Paying your deposit of $20,000 gets you a four day training course to prepare you, including experiencing hypoxia in an altitude chamber, an aerobic flight, and classroom training - pay the balance and away you can go from 2012. 


Still a very expensive and relatively short 'roller-coaster ride' to the edge of Space, but for the thrill seekers and adrenalin junkies out there with a pocketful of spare cash, I am sure it will be a must!

Encouraged by the success of two recent space missions, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is set to launch a further mission to Mercury in 2014 using a spacecraft covered in mirrors - the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO).

The theory goes that the mirrors will help reflect the intense heat of the sun, with the mirrors remaining at a temperature of about 160C (320F), and the inner body of the craft holding the observation equipment being kept to below 60C (140F) – hopefully enabling the MMO to survive. 

The craft will stand around 6ft high and will be powered in part by solar energy collected by panels wrapped around a main body that will constantly rotate to prevent any one side becoming too hot.

Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun although not the hottest. Because of its proximity to the sun it lacks an atmosphere as this was 'burned off' long ago,  leaving an empty wasteland of rock with a similar surface to the Earth’s moon. There is nothing to hold in solar radiation and so it just flies out into space. 

Next planet along Venus, however, is a different story altogether. The atmosphere there is mainly composed of carbon dioxide (the primary green house gas) which acts like a one-way door for the solar heat - solar heat enters, but cannot leave again and thus, an oven is created.  

The launch of a new satellite to track space debris was delayed again last week due to continuing software problems. The $500 million Space Based Space Surveillance satellite (SBSS) to be launched by the US airforce,  is set to continually monitor the ‘traffic’ –i.e satellites and rubbish, around the Earth, something that is currently done via ground based radar which can only be used on clear nights.

It is estimated that there are at the moment about 1,000 working satellites and about 20,000 pieces of debris orbiting the Earth, including such things as nuts and bolts, jettisoned spacecraft parts, tools lost on spacewalks and solid fuel fragments. Mankind seems to leave litter where ever he goes!

Although most of the debris in space is relatively small, the danger lies in the fact that it is travelling fast. Below altitudes of 2,000 km, the average relative impact speed is 36,000kmph or 21,600 mph, and so at this velocity any collision can be dangerous. For example, it is calculated that a 1mm metal chip could do as much damage as a .22 calibre bullet, whereas a piece the size of a tennis ball could be as effective as using dynamite – perhaps penetrating and seriously damaging any spacecraft.

All being well, a revised launch date should be set in about a month’s time after further testing of the software has taken place, and the new SBSS satellite will then take its place 627kms above the earth to begin its litter patrol.

Don’t you just hate politics?!

Call me naïve by all means but wouldn’t you rather see the great name of NASA making good headlines, instead of being wrapped up in a tale of he said – she said?

In brief summary, Charles Bolden, NASA Admininstrator, in an interview for Al-Jazeera last month said that President Obama himself had charged NASA with the job of ‘reaching out to the muslim world’.

Subsequently, a spokesperson for the White House confirmed that indeed, President Obama wishes to see the U.S. space agency engaging with “the world's best scientists” and to "partner with countries around the world like Russia and Japan, as well as collaboration with Israel and with many Muslim-majority countries".

 However, by Monday this week the tune had changed somewhat with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs categorically stating that “reaching out to Muslims is not the task of NASA’ and that Mr Bolden’s statement was incorrect.

Who said what, to whom, and with whose permission really seems to be a secondary issue here don’t you think? Does it not in fact just paint a sad picture of a space policy in disarray?

 NASA, its scientists, researchers and workforce over the years have been responsible for many amazing breakthroughs in space technology and science, much of which benefits the ordinary person on the street in ways that are not even realized. I personally was inspired enough by Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon on 21st July 1969 to stay up all night to see it in Brazil, aged nearly 6!

There is so much more out there in space, and even greater things to yet be discovered – I can only hope that NASA will continue to be a part of it all and return to making world headlines for all the right reasons. 

With USA space shuttles going into retirement next year 2011, this leaves Russia as the only country currently capable of delivering crews to the International Space Station via their Soyuz capsules. Although the Russians have proven to be very reliable and thus far have a good safety record, this places a huge workload on their shoulders, so is it not always a good idea to have a Plan B just in case?

According to Russian space officials, Chinese spaceships meet all safety requirements and could fly to the ISS.

"I think Chinese spaceships would play an important role as a backup for the Russian vessels Soyuz and Progress in case of some unforeseen situations," said Anatoli Perminov, head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos, recently. 

Perminov also repeated an earlier claim that five space agencies currently involved in running the ISS had invited China to become involved and were awaiting a reply on this proposal.

NASA has however issued a statement saying that China has not been formally asked to join the 15-nation program, but that ‘discussions were taking place about joint space efforts’.

Could it not be time to put aside the old rivalries and distrust and to globalize space research and travel?  

European space probe Rosetta has had a ‘close encounter’ with the biggest asteroid ever visited by a spacecraft in an attempt to find out more about what the asteroid is made of.

The European Space Agency (ESA) craft named Rosetta, designed to chase comets, flew within 1,900 miles of the 83 mile wide asteroid Lutetia to get some close-up pictures of the surface. Scientists have puzzled over the composition of Lutetia (the Latin name for Paris) since it was discovered some 150 years ago, and their aim is to work out whether the asteroid, which is currently more than 282 million miles from Earth, is either made of rock and carbon or is a metallic one.

Hopefully this new information gained by Rosetta during its fly-by will provide scientists with new information about the composition of giant asteroids and how the solar system formed.

More importantly, they also hope to gain a new perspective on the potential threat such asteroids may pose to the Earth in the future, and thus develop strategies that might be able to divert them from a collision course.

Find out more by taking a look at the ESA website.

Everyone knew it was only a matter of time, and thus as expected, an announcement was made this week by United Space Alliance, NASA's primary contractor for the space shuttle, that 15% of its 8,100 strong shuttle workforce will be laid-off on 1st October this year.

No surprises there huh, and how long till the knife is wielded again I wonder?!

NASA currently plans to launch the shuttle Discovery in November to deliver critical supplies and equipment to the International Space Station, and the final flight using the shuttle Endeavour is scheduled for launch in February 2011.

The cost of both these flights are covered by the program's current budget plus a congressional pledge for an extra $600 million – but unless a miracle happens, the mothballs beckon for the space shuttle program, and so It could be time for the remaining workers to brush up CV’s and dig out their best interview suits!

The first full-sky image from Europe's Planck telescope has just been released.

The satellite, costing 600 million Euros, was launched in 2009 by the European Space Agency with the aim of mapping the cosmic microwave background radiation, also known as the ‘afterglow of creation’ because it was the first light produced when matter began to form after the Big Bang took place around 13.7 billion years ago.

The image was produced from the satellite's first full-scan of the entire sky and shows what is visible to instruments that are sensitive to light at very long wavelengths. Dominating the picture are large parts of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The bright horizontal line running across the middle of the image is the galaxy's main disc and where the Sun and Earth are. Also can be seen huge bursts of cold dust that reach thousands of light-years above and below the galactic plane. 

Scientists will now spend many years analysing the image to better understand how the Universe came to look the way it does.