A report by Stephen Clark on Sea Launch: Sea Launch follows a unique but successful path to space - Spaceflight Now - July 8, 2008
===
Mr. X speculates on a Dragon flight around the Moon: Ticket to the Moon - Chair Force Engineer - July.8.08
===
Working on lunar habitat design must be fun: Lunar Living: The quest to return to the moon ignites new hope and vision at the 50-year-old space agency - Smithsonian Magazine - July 2008

On Tuesday T. Boone Pickens introduced the "Pickens Plan' to reduce oil imports to the US :
/-- Oilman Pickens Promotes the Wind - ENS
/-- T. Boone Pickens: A man with an energy plan - CNET News.com

The Plan would accelerate the installation of wind turbines in the Midwest with the goal of generating 20% of the country's electricity via wind. As noted here - T. Boone Pickens: Wind For Electricity And Natural Gas For Cars - FuturePundit - one major hurdle, among several, with the plan would be the need to build more long distance electric power transmission lines to reach the more populated and more industrialized areas. This will be difficult since people all along the routes will fight having the lines and towers in their backyards.

Occasionally in discussions of Space Based Solar Power, the topic of microwave relay satellites comes up as a way to move power around. For example, in this paper, Reinventing the Solar Power Satellite (2004) Geoffrey Landis talks about using relay sats for distributing power to different parts of the globe from a single Solarsat. So it should be similarly possible for relay satellites to move power from the Midwest to where it's needed.

Rather than giant relay sats in GEO, it might be preferable to place a constellation of relatively small ones in LEO since this would allow the beams to be much more narrow. Perhaps the switching techniques developed for Iridium/Globalstar could be built upon. Smaller beams might also lessen NIMBY resistance to transmitter/receiving sites.

There are the usual problems with beams hitting planes, birds, etc. but maybe the intensities could be kept in a safe range. Anyway, seems like another reason to do a Earth-LEO power transmission demo.

A press release in the mail from Rocketplane:

Rocketplane Global Announces the Expansion of its Charter Flight Business Model with Space Weddings

Oklahoma City, OK. July 7, 2008. The highly successful rollout event in Tokyo last week of the Space Wedding Charter Flight business by First Advantage and Rocketplane Japan has attracted public interest from all around the world. Rocketplane Global is pleased to announce that specialty Charter Flights including space wedding ceremonies are now available to customers all over the world who would like to have the ultimate “high-end” Celebrity Wedding.

The special wedding charter flight package offered by First Advantage and Rocketplane Japan includes the actual wedding ceremony in space for the bride, groom and three guests, the space marriage license and certificates, an original wedding dress, full picture and video coverage of the wedding flight and a live broadcast of the ceremony to the ground, premium hotels and transportation, an original website developed for the wedding customers, and a premium concierge service hot line. Additional options include a space theme honeymoon in Hawaii with chartered jet transportation and a complete VIP lodging and activities package and private tour of the observatories on Mauna Kea.

Rob Coppinger gives the latest on Orion landing system development: Orion assessment details for a return to land landing - Hyperbola.
===
Robert Pearlman reviews a new series starting on the Science Channel that focuses on the Apollo program hardware: In the Shadow of the Moon... Machines - collectSPACE.
===
Space Fellowship talks with the Nebula entry in the N-Prize competition: UK Team "Nebula" Talk to the Space Fellowship about Entering the N-Prize - The Space Fellowship.

Franklin Chang-Diaz of Ad Astra Rocket gives some info on the status of the VASIMR project: Will the Future of Space Travel Be Driven by Entepreneurs or Nations? - Daily Galaxy
===
Speaking of advanced propulsion concepts, I'll note again that Paul Allen and others have invested ~$40M in a company called Tri Alpha Energy, co-founded by Norman Rostoker, a well-known pioneer in plasma and fusion and a professor emeritus at UC Irvine. The company is very secretive but it is believed to be developing the Colliding Beam Fusion Reactor (CBFR) concept invented by Rostoker. This paper describes the basic system and how it could be used for spacecraft propulsion: Colliding Beam Fusion Reactor Space Propulsion System, Cheung et al, 2004 (pdf)

Only ten chances left to see a (somewhat) reusable NASA spaceplane launched to orbit: NASA Sets Launch Dates for Remaining Space Shuttle Missions - NASA - July.7.08.

Maybe one or two extra flights will be mandated by Congress:
/-- NASA sets schedule for remaining shuttle flights - Spaceflight Now
/-- Space shuttle will retire 4 months ahead of schedule: NASA sets last flight for May 31, 2010 - Houston Chronicle - July.7.08
===
The status of the Apollo lunar rocks: The Keepers of the Moon - NY Times
===
Some space law and policy links: Library: A Round-up of Reading - Res Communis

Following a successful CDR, P&W gets money to build a prototoype solar thermal propulsion engine as part of the High Delta-V Experiment (HiDVE) project sponsored by DARPA: Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne Gets Contract Expansion - Hartford Business - July.6.08 (via spacetoday.net). The goal is to provide nanosats (~15kg) with a "low-mass, low-volume, high delta-V" propulsion system.
===
Rob Coppinger offers further comment on the DIRECT vs Ares issue: The Constellation conundrum - Hyperbola

Rob Coppinger posts notes from the recent presentation by Elon Musk at the Royal Aeroonatical Society: Musk: $80 million to go to the Moon - Hyperbola
===
Rand Simberg comments on the long wait for suborbital spaceflight: Hofstadter's Law - Transterrestrial Musings
===
Seems not so long ago that there was a lot of controversy in the aerospace world as to whether small satellites had any real utility at all. Here is a profile of a company that has contributed greatly to proving that smallsats can in fact be very useful: DIY satellites take smaller and smaller steps for mankind: Surrey team launches fridge-sized modules and helps keep Britain in the space race - The Guardian

The Space Review this week begins with an article by Jeff Foust on the delays in the debut of manned suborbital spaceflight services: Where’s my rocketship?. (I discussed this here. I still have a month for some suborbital space vehicle firm out there to save me some money. ;-) )

Taylor Dinerman discusses proposed changes in French military space policy: French military space policy: more of the same. Dwayne Day provides a review, with lots of photos, of the recent NASA exhibition on the National Mall: The folklife of space. He also posts a story with an alternative scenario of the history and future of NASA lunar exploration: It can easily be accomplished with a computer.

Jeff Foust gives brief reviews of Bang! The Complete History of the Universe by Brian May, Patrick Moore, and Chris Lintott and of Floating to Space: The Airship to Orbit Program by John M. Powell.
===
The schedule for The Space Show this week includes a talk with Dr. William Gaubatz next Sunday about the DC-X Reunion in New Mexico, August 17 - 19. Today David will talk with Patricia Hynes about the Personal Spaceflight Conference in Las Cruces, NM this October.

On Tuesday William Simon and Matt Everingham will discuss the upcoming 2008 NASA Regolith Excavation Challenge. On Wednesday, Will Watson and several of the speakers and participants in the New Space 2008 Conference will discuss news and topics that will be presented at the meeting.

On Friday, Eva-Jane Lark will discuss the financing of space exploration and various historical parallels.

Newt Gingrich discusses space prizes, especially large ones (+$1B tax free), and other ideas for reinvigorating space development in this video: Space Foundation Speech - June.12.08 (via RocketsAndSuch)

Rob Coppinger posts audio recordings of the presentation by Elon Musk at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London on July 3rd: AUDIO: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speech and Q&A session - Hyperbola - July.4.08
===
Space Fellowship talks with Steve Bennett: Starchaser's Steve Bennett Talks to the Space Fellowship about the UK's Largest Ever Space Rocket "Nova 2" - The Space Fellowship - July.4.08
===
More about the Russians who have purchased tickets for rides on SpaceShipTwo: Suborbital space flights attract thousands of people willing to pay 200,000 dollars a ticket - Pravda.Ru - July.4.08 (via spacetoday.net).

Rob Coppinger comments on the release of a NASA analysis of the DIRECT proposal: I agree with NASA's Doug Cooke, DIRECT can't replace Constellation - Hyperbola - July.4.08.

See the comments there for some feedback from DIRECT co-developer Chuck Longton and other supporters of the concept. Rob also reprints Longton's main points here: DIRECT strike back - Hyperbola - July.4.08.

Longton says in this post on the NASASpaceflight.com forum, the DIRECT group will release a paper in a week or so that responds in detail to the NASA study.

BTW: I should emphasize that I'm no fan of NASA building any new expendable (or just mostly expendable) launcher. However, if they are going to do that anyway, I think building a single uneconomic new launcher is better than building two.

The June issue of the AIAA Aerospace America magazine includes the following article by Leonard David: Spaceports: Fields of dreams - With the era of space tourism getting under way in earnest,ambitious plans for commercial spaceports are beginning to take shape in the U.S. and around the world. As these facilities spring up, there is some concern that the market may not be large enough to justify and sustain them. Yet optimists in the industry are moving forward with these plans, asserting that despite today’s economic difficulties, growth in the commercial space sector is inevitable (pdf).

There is also this article: Europe Speeds Up Hypersonics Research: With programs such as LAPCAT and ATLLAS, Europeans are joining forces to make hypersonic civil transport a reality (pdf) (via Rocketeers.co.uk).

Off to a family reunion on my wife's side. So no postings till late today.

Happy July 4th!

Space Prizes points to this article on the Rocket Racing League and the upcoming exhibition at the Oshkosh air show: Rocket Racing League primed for blast off - NetworkedWorld.com - July.2.08.

See also Rocket Racing League to Unveil Competition Aircraft, More at AirVenture - AirVenture - June.26.08.

The flight activities at EAA AirVenture will begin on July 29 with a single-ship demonstration to open the afternoon air show. On August 1-2, the first full demonstrations of the Rocket Racing League concept are planned, using large outdoor screens to showcase how competitors will fly a “raceway in the sky” via in-panel and 3-D helmet displays during actual competition. All of the flights will also highlight the innovations in aircraft and engine technology that makes this new competition possible.