Captain Kirk is finally going into space for real. Along with 7000 other people. If those numbers are right, then that’s about one and a half billion dollars in pledges. Not bad for a planned investment of a couple hundred million on Branson’s part.

So much for the giggle factor about space tourism.

Here’s one Enterprise captain who probably won’t be going, though. And he spouts the usual idiocy:

In an interview with BBC World Service radio, Stewart said he backed unmanned missions such as Nasa’s Mars rover Opportunity and the UK’s Beagle 2 mission.

But he said he did not believe the human race was ready to begin thinking about beaming down on other planets.

“As I get older my unease at the time and the money that has to be spent on projects putting human beings back to the moon, and on to another planet, is so enormous,” he said.

“And it would take up so many resources, which I personally feel should be directed at our own planet.”

Interviewed by the World Update programme, he added: “Humankind has just not simply become sufficiently evolved to now leave this planet, take itself out to space and began establishing more of us out there.

“I would like to see us get this place right first before we have the arrogance to put significantly flawed civilisations out on to other planets – even though they may be utterly uninhabited.”

I wonder when he’ll think that we’re sufficiently evolved? Perhaps after we’ve become socialists, as apparently the federation had become by the time of The Next Generation.

David Chandler (who interviewed me a few years ago for a similar article) has a piece in the Boston Globe that provides a good overview of the fledgling commercial space passenger industry, with a suitable cautionary note at the end:

All of this growing interest and activity could still be thwarted, though.

Last week, a bill that had been painstakingly negotiated in Congress for more than a year was suddenly about to be amended at the last minute. Instead of helping to enable the new space tourism business, as intended, a new provision would have required safety standards comparable to a mature industry like the airlines. The bill is still in backroom negotiations and might be salvaged in the lame-duck congressional session.

It would certainly be ironic, said Boston-based aerospace engineer and consultant Charles Lurio, that if, as enthusiasts gather next month to celebrate the human and engineering triumph in Mojave, the industry it might have spawned was being strangled in the halls of Washington.

Henry Vanderbilt at the Space Access Society has more on the ongoing legislative crisis. An important point:

Don’t assume because you didn’t read this until a week or two after we sent it out that it’s no longer urgent. The window for effective action
on this will likely be open well into November. Stay tuned for further word; we’ll report as soon as we know anything. Meanwhile – fax and call!

This columnist at the Daily Cal likes the idea of rides in space, but he’s (irrationally and ignorantly) worried about the military implications:

But just as the discovery of oil in the Middle East set the stage for decades of conflict, the prospect of energy resources in space could drive its militarization. Because of its technological advantage, the United States has a clear shot at becoming the first

I found a dumb letter to the editor in my new hometown paper this morning (scroll down):

Use money for space travel to develop alternate fuels

Commercial space travel is a dubious and dangerous prospect for mankind (“Private rocket wins $10 million prize,” Oct. 5). It is bad enough that governments are devoting scarce resources to space travel while there should be an intensive program to develop nonpolluting energy sources. All would benefit if a replacement were found for nonrenewable fuels.

Commercial space travel as well as governmental space programs will benefit only the very few and the very rich. Each venture pollutes and helps to destroy the upper layers of Earth’s protective atmosphere. The few who will partake in space travel will leave the rest of God’s creation choking on rocket fumes.

RABBI NASON GOLDSTEIN

Royal Palm Beach

Even ignoring the scientific ignorance about “rocket fumes” (it’s quite possible and even likely that most rocket exhaust in the future will be di-hydrogen monoxide, or a combination of that and CO2), the good rabbi manages to combine the fallacy of false choice (the notion that money not spent on space will be spent on alternative fuels, particularly absurd in the case of private space travel), ignorance of economics (all innovations initially benefit the wealthy, who provide the initial markets needed to drive down the price to those less so), and the mistaken notion that there will be “few” going into space, and that there is no benefit to anyone doing so.

That’s what The Independent says:

The man behind the lunar mission was Dr John Wilkins, scientist, theologian and brother-in-law of Oliver Cromwell. In 1640, as a young man of 26, Dr Wilkins wrote a detailed description of the machinery needed to communicate and even trade with beings from another world…

…Although earlier philosophers and poets had written about visiting the Moon, the writings of Dr Wilkins were in an altogether different league, Professor Chapman believes. Wilkins lived inwhat he describes as the “honeymoon period” of scientific discovery, between the astronomical revelations of Galileo and Copernicus, who showed a universe with other, possibly habitable worlds, and the later realisation that much of space was a vacuum and therefore impassable

Even if true, it seems improbable that it would have been successful–he was a little dodgy on his physics:

According to Dr Wilkins, the gravitational and magnetic pull of the Earth extended for only 20 miles into the sky. If it were possible to get airborne and pass beyond this point, it would be easy to continue on a journey to the Moon. Inspired by the discovery of other continents and the great sea voyages of explorers such as Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, Wilkins conceived an equally ambitious plan to explore space.

I’ll be curious to see if this story stands up to peer review. If so, it’s an interesting new and unknown chapter in the history of man’s dreams of spaceflight.

[Via Jim Oberg]

Keith Cowing has obtained a copy of the draft legislation in the Senate that contains the poison pill. Jeff Foust has the latest description of what’s going on, including an analysis of the text.

And for those who say that this won’t kill the industry, that it would just move it off shore, Taylor Dinerman points out that if so, it won’t be done by Americans, due to ITAR restrictions.

All in all, it’s very important to both fix this legislation, and get it passed, as soon as possible, if we want to continue to build on the momentum provided by last week’s successful Ansari X-Prize win.

Only four days after we lost Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper, Max Faget (pronounced French-style, “Fah-zhay”), the man who designed his capsule, has died.

[Update on Monday morning]

Here’s a profile of the man by Jim Oberg from almost ten years ago.

That’s what Michael Mealing is doing at the Space Frontier Conference. You’ll particularly want to read his description of Jim Muncy’s talk about the new launch legislation.

“…the poison meat is in the Senate sausage machine so we’re going to stop, clean out the machine, and start over…”

The Air Force has come out with a new badge.

That’s the subject of this column by Mark Whittington.