Frederick  ”C. J.”  Sturckow, a four time space shuttle commander and pilot, has become the first from NASA’s astronaut corps to join Virgin Galactic as a test pilot for SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft operations, the emerging commercial suborbital passenger launch service announced Tuesday. Sturckow and Michael “Sooch” Masucci, a former U.S. Air Force test [...]

SpaceShipTwo progress is being made in the skies over the Mojave Air and Space Port in California – successful demonstration on April 12th of key components of the system. SpaceShipTwo carried out a “Cold Flow” flight. The test objectives were achieved, and the craft is advancing towards its first powered flight. In this latest milestone, [...]

The Final Journey of the Saturn V by Andrew R. Thomas and Paul N. Thomarios; Ringtaw Books/Univ. of Akron Press; $24.95 (hard cover); 2012. This is a behind-the-scenes account of preserving an impressive piece of America’s space heritage. To literally boost President Kennedy’s 1961 vision of putting a man on the Moon, the huge, 26 [...]

2001: The Lost Science by Adam K. Johnson; Apogee Prime; Burlington Ontario, Canada; $49.95 (soft cover); 2012. This large format book adds yet more atmospherics to that already larger-than-life 1968 science fiction movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. What has been teased out of the Frederick Ordway III collection from [...]

China’s latest, milestone making, space voyage is underway. The June 16th liftoff of the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft placed into Earth orbit a three-person crew that included China’s first female space traveler. China’s astronauts for the flight are: Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and Liu Yang – China’s first female astronaut. She is 33 years old, married [...]