Kennedy Space Center in Fla. opens Vehicle Assembly Building to tours for 1st time since '78

The Associated Press

1:20 p.m. CDT, October 31, 2011

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Heads up, space fans.

Visitors to NASA's Kennedy Space Center now have the opportunity to see inside the colossal Vehicle Assembly Building, off-limits throughout the 30-year shuttle program.

Public bus tours last stopped at the VAB in 1978. They're resuming Nov. 1. The cost is an extra $25 per adult and $19 per child — on top of the usual admission charge.

The 525-foot-tall VAB was built to hold the Saturn V rocket that sent men to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It's where every space shuttle was attached to its external fuel tank and booster rockets, before flight.

Atlantis closed out the shuttle program in July, with the 135th mission.

NASA officials stress that the VAB tour stop is temporary — it will cease when the VAB is used once again to stack rockets for launch. The space agency is aiming to send astronauts to an asteroid and Mars in the decades ahead.

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Virgin Galactic space tourist drops bid to fly like an astronaut

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Venture capitalist Alan Walton has trekked to the North Pole, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and skydived over Mount Everest. A hop into space to enjoy a few minutes of weightlessness would have been the ultimate adventure.

After waiting seven years to fly aboard Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic spaceline, Walton gave up on the dream and asked for a $200,000 ticket refund on his 75th birthday this past spring.

Walton, who was among the first 100 customers to sign up, is not as spry as he used to be, and he's concerned about the project delays.

"This was a decision I wish I didn't have to make," he said recently. But "it was time."

Promises of space travel for the masses reached a euphoric pitch in 2004 when the experimental SpaceShipOne air-launched over the Mojave Desert and became the first privately financed, manned spacecraft to dash into space. It won the $10 million Ansari X Prize on Oct. 4, 2004, for accomplishing the feat twice in two weeks.

The flights were hailed by space enthusiasts as a leap toward opening the final frontier to civilians.

Virgin Galactic, which licensed the SpaceShipOne technology, began taking reservations before a commercial version was even built. Branson predicted back then that the maiden passenger flight would take off in 2007.

Other private rocketeers hunkered down in their hangars and sketched out designs to compete with Virgin Galactic. Soon a cottage industry rose. While there's been progress made — most are in the testing stage — there's still no launch date.

"It's tough," said Erika Wagner of the X Prize Foundation, which sponsored the 2004 contest. "We've seen slower progress than a lot of people would have liked."

Human spaceflight so far has been restricted to governments and a handful of wealthy thrill-seekers who have plunked down millions of dollars to hitch rides aboard Russian rockets to the International Space Station, which circles the Earth 250 miles high.

Instead of flying all the way to orbit, current space tourism efforts are focused on suborbital trips using vehicles designed to rocket up to the edge of space then immediately descend rather than circle the Earth. Virgin Galactic promises flights to altitudes of at least 62 miles with a few minutes of weightlessness. Cost per head ranges from $100,000 to $200,000 — far cheaper than the trips to orbit but still pricey.

Besides Virgin Galactic, other players include XCOR Aerospace headed by rocketeer Jeff Greason; Armadillo Aerospace founded by computer game programmer John Carmack; and Blue Origin headed by Amazon.com chief executive Jeff Bezos.

The companies are privately held and do not answer to shareholders. As a result, details about progress are hard to come by. Scaled Composites, which designed SpaceShipOne and is building a passenger version for Virgin Galactic, is publicity-shy, but posts results of test flights on its website.

Blue Origin is the most tight-lipped. The company didn't disclose a recent accident until a week after it happened. Even now, details about what failed during the test flight are sketchy.

Except for Blue Origin, the space tourism players are separate from those vying to build space taxis to the International Space Station under a NASA contract.

John Gedmark, executive director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, a trade group that represents suborbital and orbital space companies, is pleased with the testing despite the longer-than-expected time frame to get off the ground.

"Everything in aerospace always takes longer that you originally think," he said.

Scaled Composites, considered by many in the industry as the front-runner, has been conducting glide tests in the Mojave Desert since last year. The project suffered a setback in 2007 after a deadly explosion during testing to develop the propellant flow system for the hybrid rocket motor.

Virgin Galactic chief executive George Whitesides said he expected powered test flights to begin sometime next year. Commercial service will start up after the company gets a license from the Federal Aviation Administration, he said.

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Space Needle contest aims to send person into suborbital space

SEATTLE (AP) — Organizers want to go beyond Earth to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Seattle's iconic Space Needle.

On Monday, they announced a multi-tiered contest to send a member of the public on a short ride into space using a company from the burgeoning space travel industry.

"The private business of taking people to space is right in front of us," said Ron Sevart, president and CEO of the Pacific Northwest landmark. "It felt so natural for us to build a contest around that."

He said the idea came after event organizers explored the circumstances around the opening of the Space Needle in 1962.

The Space Needle — with its hourglass tower and a top that resembles a flying saucer — embodied the era.

"It was an optimistic time, a forward-looking time, right in the middle of the space race," Sevart said.

To mark the occasion and help celebrate the future of space travel, the Space Needle brought in a pioneer.

Buzz Aldrin, the second astronaut to step on the moon, spoke at the formal contest announcement, recounting his Apollo mission and detailing his vision of the future.

The Space Needle's contest is another step toward fulfilling his vision of the space program from more than 50 years ago, he said.

"Private industry is going to gradually assume some of the things that government has been able to do only previously," Aldrin predicted. "The ability to continue exploring space is going to be dependent on private citizens engaging in the business of taking people into space."

Aldrin was joined by Sevart; Eric Anderson, chairman of Space Adventures, a Virginia-based private space travel company; and Richard Garriott, one of a handful of private citizens who have spent time on the International Space Station.

"It's an opportunity for the average person to have chance to do something very few people have ever done," said Anderson, whose company has sent seven people into space, hitching rides on Russian rockets.

The trip to space offered through the contest would be a suborbital shot, with about six minutes of zero gravity. The total flight, from takeoff to landing, would last about 30 minutes, with the pilot-less rocket taking two passengers to a height of about 62 miles. Training for the flight would take about two days, Anderson said.

More details will come later as Space Adventures — along withTexas-based Armadillo Aerospace — develop vessels. The cost of the grand prize is about $110,000. Anderson said he estimates the first flight will take off in about two years.

"The most impressive takeaway that I had on the International Space Station was seeing Earth from space, it was truly life changing," said Garriott, a computer engineer who has invested in private space travel, and spent 12 days circling Earth.

The contest — dubbed Space Race 2012 — will have several stages. People interested can sign up to enter at the Space Needle's website through the end of December.

The minimum age for contestants is 18. Sevart is expecting millions of entries.

After the entry period, a computer will randomly choose 1,000 people who will be asked to submit a one-minute video. Following the video, the public, via a vote, will whittle down the number of contestants.

A fitness challenge will be set up for the top vote-getters before a panel makes a final selection.

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