Space Revolution News for 5-5-08 (Updated)

It might disjointed, and not quite up to snuff, but Space Revolution News is back, and hopefully, it will be weekly (next week we'll see).

So join me over the fold for all the good details.  

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News Worth Knowing
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Space.com did a very write-up about TGV rockets and how they've grown and changed.  I've mentioned TGV's target market in the past, and its my suspicion that when cheap sub-orbital arrives, it will quickly fill a number of niche markets (like this), and will be very important behind the scenes, but only when cheap orbital access arrives, suddenly it will be clear to everyone the potential of space investment.  
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Spaceflight and high school - Out in Texas, a group of high school students are doing really excellent work with rockets.  I can't offer up much, because I didn't have a group like this, but a friend of mine did, and cfk has repeatedly told me about how their school is doing.  Update  From cfk - while they didn't make the mile high flight, they did pretty good and it sound like they learned a lot.  Anyway, good luck to the students.
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Now, I know privatization is a bad word, usually, around here, but privatization is exactly what space needs.  Unfortunately, it appears certain members of congress don't get that.  Now, understand, there is a lot of waste in the industry, and much of it, I would argue, is in the form of the current ESAS plan.  But we are investigating a contract that, right now, is worth only "00,000 and yet, there are much bigger contracts that should be investigated, especially within ESAS.  I know that many people have been concerned about the about the revolving door that is going on at nasa, and big Aerospace.  That is what really needs investigating.
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The Colorado State Legislature recognized the importance of the 8th Continent Project.  Congrads goes out to them.  
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WhiteKnight 2 will overfly the 2008 International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS).  I hope I can go - I promise pictures (assuming I can get the money).
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More evidence that Europe is also joining the Space Revolution - In addition to EADS, you also have companies like orbspace and Project Enterprise.  There are also projects like Thales Alenia's proposed spaceplane (I thinnk Thales Alenia is part of a larger older company, but Im not quite certain).  While we haven't quite reached the point of critical mass, more and more its clear that we will soon have the critical mass, and in multiple countries.  Jon Goff felt the need to welcome them to the club.
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And along with Europe, Big Aerospace, specifically Lockheed Martin see that its probably wise to invest in, and work with, NewSpace, and the NewSpace philosphy.  
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Some of the people at MIT think that its time to reconsider space based solar power.  I tend to agree, but Rand Simberg doesn't.  
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Bloomberg recently did a profile of Elon Musk, and spent a good deal of time on his current 3 companies - Tesla, SolarCity, and of course, SpaceX.  

Speaking of SpaceX, they recently received a space launch contract with Nasa, that has the potential to be worth $1 billion dollars, over the next 2 years.  SpaceX expects it's primary vehicle to be the Falcon 9, rather than the Falcon 1.  Anyway, congratulations goes out to them for this success.  

Along with the new contract, construction (and some demolition) is moving forward at Complex 40, where SpaceX will launch from in Florida.  
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From Spacehab, and the State of Florida, comes the first VERTICAL bio-tech corridor.  Last year, at the Space Investment Summit, Spacehab's CEO Tom Pickens the 3rd talked about bio-tech and nano-tech and space, and now it looks like they are moving forward.  
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Dennis Wingo has a good article on VSE, and a Spacefairing nation.  Good stuff.
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CNN reported about space and the election.  What did they report?The Chinese are coming, The Chinese are coming.  
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Rand Simberg does a pretty good job Laying out where the candidates stand on space policy.
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Don't know if the front pagers are talking about it, but Tom Feeney is a major target for Florida Democrats.  
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Speaking of election news, Lampson has been promised chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee’s space subcommittee, assuming he wins re-election.  
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Dr. George Nield is now the director of the FAA-AST.  He was acting head, after Patrica Grace Smith retired, earlier this year, and has been installed as the permanent replacement.  In addition, they also have a new Chief engineer, Mike Kelly.
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If you were watching Conan O'Brein on friday, yes, that was a space pirate you saw.

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Vehicle Sightings  
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Might this be the test flight vehicle for the the Russian/European Soyuz replacement?
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While I haven't been covering it really, a lot has been happening over at Unreasonable Rocket.

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The Engine Report
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BonNova has a new, long duration engine design and tested

Pretty cool guys.  Hope to see you flying at the Lunar Lander Challenge.
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Spaceport Tours
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Of course the big news here was the passage of the spaceport tax for SpacePort America.  The most amazing thing frankly is the number of people who voted for it - From the Las Cruces Sun News

By the numbers

For: 2,046 (65.75 percent)

Against: 1,066 (34.25 percent)

Number of registered voters: 7,388

Number of votes cast: 3,112 or 42.12 percent

There does, however, remain things to be done - SpacePort America needs to have Virgin Galactic sign the lease, so it can become an anchor tenant, finish the work on its FAA spaceport license, which means completing the environmental impact statement, form the tax district which will include Seirra and Dona Anna, and have Otero county vote on its tax increase.

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Space Law Minutiae
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Micheal Gold, corporate counsel for Bigelow Aerospace gave an interview with Res Communis.  He discussed a number of issues, and spent a good amount of time talking about ITAR.  
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If you want an indepth apprasal of ownership claims off planet, Alan Wasser and Douglas Jobes have written extensively about it.  And they aren't the only ones - Loretta Whitesides also has some thoughts on lunar zoning laws
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Governmental Spaceflight corner
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More discussion on what actually constitutes Operationally Responsive Space.  Operationally Responsive space, for those who don't know, is the concept that space can respond to situations on the ground, during combat operations.  
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Continuing its march towards a manned space program, the Indian Space Research Organization will ask the Indian Congress to approve a human spaceflight mission by around 2014-2015.  

The one thing I will be interested in - there is a move towards a lot of things coming on line, and I have to wonder what the IRSO will take advantage of.  Maybe they'll lease out a Bigelow Module, provided they can take their own ride
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The Hubble mission to repair and update is being delayed
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While this has been talked about a little bit at Dailykos, Alan Boyle gives a very good detailed story about what happened with the soyuz capsule during the decent, and how bad it got, and what went wrong.  James Oberg also talked about it.
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Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency was at the 15th AIAA international space planes, hypersonic systems and technologies conference, and it detailed some of the work that was a follow on a reusable sub-orbital vehicle.  If memory serves me correct, their original plan was a reusable sounding rocket.  Pretty good size sounding rocket, from the looks of it.
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Because this is over a multi-week period, I am not including the Space Review - that will restart next week.