Tourism

When Spaceport America makes international news, it's often in conjunction with names like "Richard Branson," "Virgin Galactic," and "Ashton Kutcher." That celebrity shine is hard to ignore, but it's not the only thing happening at the spaceport.

Virgin Galactic has already sold 520 tickets for its suborbital space tourism flights, expected to start in late 2013. I'm standing in front of the epically named Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space. It's a massive building that blends into the New Mexico desert from one side and reflects Spaceport America's 10,000-foot runway from the other.

A uniquely New Mexico venture I'm a part owner of the spaceport that is sprouting up out of the Jornada del Muerto (remember the Trinity Site location). As a tax-paying New Mexican, some of my state dues have gone to the $209 million price tag for this facility's first two phases of construction.… Read more

The one percent may feel under siege these days, but at least there's one consolation to having hundreds of millions of dollars to burn: The opportunity to take a trip around the moon.

According to the Smithsonian magazine Air & Space, anyone with a spare $150 million laying may have the opportunity to hop aboard a future lunar flight.

To be sure, it's not going to be United Airlines ferrying the super rich to the moon. Rather, it is likely to be Space Adventures, the private company that for the last ten years has been taking mega-rich passengers on trips to the International Space Station. … Read more

SEATTLE--Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan have teamed up on a new winged rocket that would be carried aloft by a gargantuan twin-fuselage mothership and then dropped from 30,000 feet for the climb to orbit, they announced today.

The new rocket will be funded by Allen through a new company known as Stratolaunch Systems and built by Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, of Hawthorne, Calif.

The 1.2-million-pound six-engine carrier aircraft, with a wingspan of 385 feet, will be built by Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., a company founded by Rutan and now owned by … Read more

With the shuttle program retired, NASA is turning to Virgin Galactic to hitch rides to the edge of space.

Richard Branson's private venture, which aims to be the first commercial space carrier, said it has signed a deal to give the agency up to three charter flights on SpaceShipTwo. The contract could be worth as much as $4.5 million.

The space plane, whose assembly hangar at the Mojave Air and Space Port was unveiled last month, will carry at least one science mission with a flight test engineer to monitor experiments. … Read more

MOJAVE, Calif.--"We build spaceships."

That's the motto--perhaps the coolest ever?--of The Spaceship Company, the partnership between Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, builder of the X-Prize-winning SpaceShip One and its younger sister ship, SpaceShip Two.

And on Monday, The Spaceship Company (TSC) formally opened what it calls FAITH, the final assembly facility for SpaceShip Two and the aircraft on which it piggybacks, WhiteKnight Two. At the celebration, Virgin Galactic showed off, for the first time at a public event, a replica of SpaceShipOne, as well as the actual WhiteKnightOne, SpaceShipTwo, and WhiteKnightTwo (… Read more

On April 28, 2001, the world of exploration changed forever.

On that day 10 years ago, Dennis Tito, a wealthy engineer who had recently turned 60, broke one of the most sacred barriers in exploration: he became the first private citizen to go to space.

Blasting off on that Saturday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard Russian rocket--Soyuz TM-32--Tito was on his way to a place only professional astronauts and military- or government-sponsored personnel had been able to go before.

Tito was the launch client for a new company called Space Adventures that was founded in 1998. Led by chairman Eric Anderson, the company set out to change one of the most fundamental dynamics of space travel and make it possible for the first time for private citizens to experience life beyond Earth.

This was not possible in the United States. NASA was not interested in taking tourists aboard the Space Shuttle--and never has been--explained Space.com senior writer Clara Moskowitz. And so those like Tito who wanted to make like an astronaut had no choice but to go the Space Adventures route--which meant traveling to Russia for weeks of training and an eventual trip aboard one of that country's Soyuz rockets. … Read more

Fancy a ride to the International Space Station? Boeing will offer space tourism flights in low Earth orbit aboard its Crew Space Transportation-100 (CST-100) spacecraft, expected to be operational by 2015, the company said Wednesday.

Boeing says it has agreed to market the flights through Space Adventures, which has already flown seven private individuals to the International Space Station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Extra seats on the CST-100 will be available to private individuals, companies and nongovernmental organizations.

The CST-100 can carry seven people on missions up to 100 kilometers (62 miles) above the Earth's surface. It will deploy … Read more

Tourists can now tour the breath-taking Swiss Alps without hurting the environment.

Scandinavian EV maker, Think today announced it has teamed up with its Swiss distribution partner, M-Way, to bring a fleet of 60 Think City cars to eco-tourists.

For about $57, or 60 Swiss francs, a day, tourists will be able to rent a Think City car through Alpmobil. Unfortunately the Web site is only available in German, but it can be easily translated by using Google's translation tool. It works, I tried it.

"This trial program fits perfectly with Alpmobil's philosophy, and we are proud … Read more

Australia, once a country of rather basic mien, has made great strides in the direction of culture. It makes wine that can mostly be ingested without indigestion. It even occasionally qualifies for the World Cup.

However, I wonder whether a newly noticed Australian cultural wrinkle might set the country back in the perceptions of many international travelers.

The national barometer, the Sydney Morning Herald, is alerting visitors to Australia that their laptops, and indeed the rest of their luggage, might now be searched for porn.

It seems to have taken the Australian Sex Party, which does much sterling work--including promoting green sex toys--to first notice a change to those little cards that aliens must sign before entering one of the jewels of Pacific Rim exploration.

Since September of last year, visitors have been required to answer whether they are carrying "pornography" on their person, place, or thing. This seems a something of a hoary question, as my dim knowledge of such things suggests that some pornography is, indeed, legal.

Perhaps some will be changing their travel plans when they hear that Australian customs officials confirmed to the Herald that they do now have the power to peek inside your laptop, iPhone, or even iPad and check whether you might have some naughty images or, even better, movies.

Others will be relieved that the customs officials declared that they will apply "tact and discretion." Which, presumably would mean no loud exclamations including the words "Cor!" "Blimey!" and "Sheila!"… Read more