…of a licensed piloted spaceship this morning. Henry Vanderbilt, head of the Space Access Society, reports that Burt wasted no time in using his new launch license. Early reports of 105,000 feet and a thirty-five second burn time, with a safe landing.

More details when I find some–there’s nothing at the Scaled site yet.

And speaking of Henry Vanderbilt, it’s less than a couple weeks until the annual Space Access Conference in Scottsdale, AZ. For anyone interested in the emerging launch industry, this is a must-go event, and this year’s should be particularly interesting with all of the X-Prize activity heating up.

[Update at 1:25 PM PDT]

That altitude is about twenty miles, or about a third of the distance required to win the X-Prize. I wonder how many more flights they plan to do envelope expansion before they do full altitude?

Also, Jim Benson should be pleased that he’s now demonstrated two successful flights of the hybrid engine. Between this, and their new Air Force contract, SpaceDev seems to be on a roll.

[Update at 2:20 PM PDT]

Space.com has the story now. The first flight went supersonic. This one apparently went to Mach 2.

Burt Rutan has gotten his launch license for the SpaceShipOne. That was pretty fast, considering that last summer he was refusing to apply for one. The most reliable place to track this kind of stuff is over at the X-Prize blog, where they have links to other stories.

Jim Oberg forwards an amusing variation on the Nigerian email scam:

Date: Sat Apr 3, 2004 3:20:10 PM US/Eastern
Subject: Nigerian Astronaut Wants To Come Home
Dr. Bakare Tunde
Astronautics Project Manager
National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA)
Plot 555 Misau Street
PMB 437 Garki, Abuja, FCT
NIGERIA

Dear Mr. Sir,

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE-STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humor, but wants to come home.

In the 14-years since he has been on the station, he has accumulated flight pay and interest amounting to almost $ 15,000,000 American Dollars. This is held in a trust at the Lagos National Savings and Trust Association. If we can obtain access to this money, we can place a down payment with the Russian Space Authorities for a Soyuz return flight to bring him back to Earth. I am told this will cost $3,000,000 American Dollars. In order to access the his trust fund we need your assistance.

Consequently, my colleagues and I are willing to transfer the total amount to your account for subsequent disbursement, since we as civil servants are prohibited by the Code of Conduct Bureau (Civil Service Laws) from opening and/ or operating foreign accounts in our names.

Needless to say, the trust reposed on you at this juncture is enormous. In return, we have agreed to offer you 20 percent of the transferred sum, while 10 percent shall be set aside for incidental expenses (internal and external) between the parties in the course of the transaction. You will be mandated to remit the balance 70 percent to other accounts in due course.

Kindly expedite action as we are behind schedule to enable us include downpayment in this financial quarter.

Please acknowledge the receipt of this message via my direct number 234 (0) 9-234-2220 only.

Yours Sincerely,

Dr. Bakare Tunde
Astronautics Project Manager
tip@nasrda.gov.ng

http://www.nasrda.gov.ng/

The web site appears to be genuine. It makes no mention of stranded astronauts.

Paul Spudis (a member of the Aldridge Commission) defends the president’s plans to return to the moon.

Paul Spudis (a member of the Aldridge Commission) defends the president’s plans to return to the moon.

Paul Spudis (a member of the Aldridge Commission) defends the president’s plans to return to the moon.

Here’s an X-Prize blog that barely made it out of the starting gates.

Meanwhile, this one has some news–SpaceShipOne has been doing more test flights in the past week.

Please read: NASA FLY-OFF UNDER STUDY

Excerpt from UPI: WASHINGTON, April 1 (UPI) — “NASA may borrow a development approach from the U.S. Air Force and seek to build multiple prototypes of its proposed new moon landing craft, and then test competing designs against one another in a celestial version of an airplane designers’ fly-off.”

This is potentially very exciting news. It will be to NASA’s advantage– budget-wise and politically — to adopt such a competitive bid/prototype process. – Jim McDade

…to terraform Mars?

It depends. It depends on your basis of ethics, and it depends on whether or not there’s life there now, and its nature. I wrote about this last summer.

Gerard Van der Leun has some thoughts on saving Hubble.