A week is certainly a long time in crewed spaceflight! Following Richard Branson’s trip to “the edge of space” on Sunday 11 July, Jeff Bezos went one step further on July 20. He made a short journey to space, in the first crewed flight of his Blue Origin rocket ship, New Shepard. As the spacecraft… Continue reading Congratulations Blue Origin!
Great news from Virgin Galactic on Sunday. Although according to the widely used definition, their spacecraft didn’t quite get into space. Most international authorities define that space begins at an altitude of 100 km (the Karman line), whereas VSS Unity reached an altitude of 86 km, but a fantastic achievement nevertheless !!. For those who… Continue reading Congratulations Virgin Galactic
Happy New Year to all my readers and followers. Many of you will be aware of the recent test flight of the Virgin Space Ship Unity. On 13 December 2018 it reached an altitude of 82.7 km and was widely reported in the media, for example the BBC news website, as reaching ‘the edge of… Continue reading Where does space begin?
I was very pleased to hear a couple of weeks ago that the UK government plans to introduce a piece of legislation called the Modern Transport Bill. This may not sound very exciting, but behind the uninspiring name is the intention to ultimately establish the UK's first commercial spaceports, from which space tourists as well as scientists… Continue reading Spaceport UK?
On 24 October 2014 a senior Google vice president 57 year old Alan Eustace (shown below) broke the world altitude record by jumping from a balloon from an altitude of 135,890 feet (41.4 km). When he was interviewed, after he had safely landed, he said: "..It was beautiful. You could see the darkness of space... " This made me… Continue reading Space the Final Frontier- but where does it begin?
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