The space shuttle era could get a new lease on life under a bill filed today by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

The measure would delay the shuttle’s planned retirement in 2010 until NASA is confident that a replacement spacecraft is ready or that the shuttle and its massive payload bay is no longer needed to keep the International Space Station afloat through 2020.

The 37-page bill also authorizes an additional $1.3 billion in NASA spending next year above President Barack Obama’s request of $19 billion. The extra money would help prepare NASA for as many as two additional shuttle flights per year after 2010, as well as fund new spacecraft development.

“This must not be an ‘either or’ proposition where we are forced to choose between continuing to fly the shuttle to service the station and maintain our independence in reaching space, or investing in the next generation of space vehicle. We can and must do both,” Hutchison said in a statement.

The Chief doesn’t always appreciate Sen. Hutchinson’s brand of semi-conservatism, but in this case she’s spot-on:

…the Hutchison measure emphasizes the need for NASA to have a government-run system that could lift astronauts into space. The new bill also calls for the “continuation or modification” of programs initiated under the Constellation program.

“While commercial transportation systems may contribute valuable services, it is in the United States’ national interest to maintain a government operated space transportation system for crew and cargo delivery to low-Earth orbit and beyond,” it notes.

The private spaceflight efforts need to encouraged, and have administrative hurdles lowered. At the same time, as noted above, a continuing ability for the US to directly access the orbital high-ground is absolutely critical as a matter of national security…the space station be damned!

A travel entrepreneur who introduced hundreds of thousands of Americans to European travel in the 1960’s has taken luxury travel to new heights – the edge of space.

Jules Klar, founder of Phoenix, AZ-based RocketShip Tours, has announced that his company will immediately begin selling rides to the edge of space for $95,000 per flight. Participants will fly aboard the Lynx, a two-seat suborbital vehicle being built by California-based XCOR Aerospace.

The future is now.

Anyone got an extra $95K to sponsor the Chief for a great report? Ha ha.

The Chief continues to relish anything that gives us a greater presence in space.

Sir Richard Branson’s dreams of operating the world’s first commercial spaceline will move a step closer today when he unveils his new space rocket.

The billionaire will present White Knight Two to the world in the searing heat of the Mojave Desert – ahead of the first proper flight which is expected as early as next year.

White Knight Two will be the mothership, on which a much smaller spaceship will sit until it is projected into sub-orbital space flight at a certain altitude.

Designs for both White Knight Two, which is the world’s largest aircraft made entirely from carbon composite, and the smaller SpaceShip Two were unveiled in New York in January.

What’s the point? It’s like anything else…the more you use something (in this case space flight), the better you get at it. As far as the broader national strategic security view is concerned, there’s NOTHING like being present on the higher ground!

DUH!

People are in space. And, regardless of what the Chief, or anyone else thinks about morality and propriety…based on human experience, this headline is as big a no-brainer as the Time magazine cover that proclaimed a number of years ago in effect: “Men and Women: The’re Really Different!”

Buzz Aldrin: Invest in Nasa to beat the Chinese to Mars

Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon, has issued a stark warning that America must invest now in the space agency Nasa, or surrender leadership of space exploration to Russia and China. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Aldrin revealed that he intends to lobby Barack Obama and John McCain, the two US presidential candidates, in an effort to ensure they find sufficient funds for Nasa’s goal to establish a permanent base on the Moon and then send a manned mission to Mars.

This would be really BAD in so many ways…Russia and China literally holding the high ground?

Mr Aldrin, 78, said: “To me it’s abysmal that it has come to this: after 50 years of Nasa, and after putting about $100 billion into the space station, we can’t get our own astronauts to our space station without relying on the Russians.”

Really!

He said his message to the next president is this: “Retain the vision for space exploration. If we turn our backs on the vision again, we’re going to have to live in a secondary position in human space flight for the rest of the century.”

Any bets on this getting the attention of either of the major presidential candidates? No?

Didn’t think so. How sad.

‘You know, as an actor, the things to do here are to play at the National, open at the West End, do a BBC film that’s so good it’s really a quality movie – and be in Doctor Who?!” says Michael Brandon, the American actor and committed anglophile who gave us Jerry Springer on stage and Dempsey of Dempsey and Makepeace on TV. He’s not joking: a guest role in the new, regenerated Doctor Who, the fourth series of which begins tomorrow, has become, if not quite the holy grail of the thespian world, then certainly an acting badge of honour.

Interesting. The Chief really liked the Doctor…it seems he isn’t alone.

A small California aerospace company today unveiled a new suborbital spaceship that will provide affordable front-seat rides to the edge of space for the millions of people who want to buy a ticket.

The company, XCOR Aerospace, of Mojave, CA, announced that its two-seat Lynx suborbital spaceship will carry people or payloads to where they will experience weightlessness and see the stars above and the Earth and its atmosphere below. This will launch XCOR into the emerging space tourism market, estimated at over a half-billion dollars.

The Lynx will offer affordable access to space for individuals, researchers and educators,” said XCOR CEO Jeff Greason. “Future versions of Lynx will offer ever-improving capabilities for scientific and engineering research and commercial applications.

The spaceship, roughly the size of a small private airplane, will first take off in 2010 and will be capable of flying several times each day.

First, Sir Richard Branson’s budding Virgin Galactic suborbital servide, and now this…Great!

Competition for the space tourism market! Maybe someday it’ll be cheap enough that even the Chief will be able to afford a trip to space!

A squat beachball sized toad dubbed ‘the frog from Hell’ has been found in Madagascar, where it it once may have snacked on baby dinosaurs and other small animals. The 70 million year-old fossil frog is likened by researchers to a “slightly squashed beach-ball” and has been nicknamed Beelzebufo.

OK you might say…just another weird fossil critter. One can only be glad that these guys aren’t still running (hopping?) around.

But then the artist’s rendition of the appearance started a whole new line of thought:

Anyone else notice the clear familial resemblance to Jabba the Hutt?

This particular bit of ad placement seems akin to say…David Duke running a campaign spot on Black Entertainment Television.

Based on Obama’s stated priorities, one has to wonder:  how much investment he would be willing to commit to any serious space efforts, given the Euro/Ingsoc  direction of most of his campaign rhetoric?

The best bet is not much!  Hopefully most of the readers there, who presumably have some interest in space development, realize this – and that B.H.O.’s ad placement there is little more than a money sink, and a true act of moonbattery bereft of situational awareness.

The Chief has previously noted with interest, Sir Richard Branson has been developing plans, and more to the point, technology to press ahead with Virgin Galactic – a venture into private suborbital spaceflight.

The SpaceShipTwo spacecraft and its WhiteKnightTwo carrier will begin initial tests this summer to shakedown the novel spaceflight system designed by aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan and his firm Scaled Composites. “2008 really will be the year of the spaceship,” said British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, who unveiled a 1/16th-scale model of the new spacecraft here at the American Museum of Natural History. “We’re truly excited about our new system and what our new system will be able to do.”

The idea seems to be proceeding nicely.

While the initial round of tests is slated for sometime this summer and the first spaceflights pegged for 2009, Whitehorn stressed that safety is paramount. “We’re in a race with nobody, apart from a race with safety,” Whitehorn said.

Rutan said he is targeting a safety factor akin to that of the earlier airliners of the 1920s, which should still be 100 times better than the safety of today’s manned spacecraft used by large governments today. “Don’t believe anyone who tells you that the safety level of new spacecraft is as safe as a modern airliner,” Rutan said.

I STILL think it’s way cool – given the money, I would fly in it in a second! It also seems good enough for the FAA:

Patricia Grace Smith, the FAA’s associate administrator for commercial space transportation, lauded the commitment of Virgin Galactic and Scaled to safety after SpaceShipTwo’s unveiling. “It is the entrepreneurial spirit that will take this country forward,” Smith said. “This is going to catch like a wild fire we have never seen.”

Hear, hear!