(Or should I title this post Spanish Flybys in light of the events this week in Valencia, Spain? Updates on that next week. Meanwhile...)
In addressing an e-mail query I passed along to Peter Pettibone of Hogan & Hartson regarding legal representation of private spaceflight explorers who traveled to ISS, Peter responds: Yes, he represented Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth and Greg Olsen in their negotiations; no he did not serve as counsel to Anousheh Ansari. Peter called Ms. Ansari's trip "a great milestone."
To commemorate First Monday in October, I have checked the docket and can now confirm for the Space Law Probe record: In the US Supreme Court's the new term, there are no space law cases on the docket.
Catch up with last week's Congressional hearings on Orion via Space.com.
Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee: I may have mentioned this in an earlier post, but here is the agenda for the upcoming COMSTAC (full committee) meeting at FAA headquarters in Washington, DC, Oct. 25.
Clark Lindsey has ULA approval roundups here, here and here.
When is a dinosaur a mammal? Rand Simberg ponders developments at Lockheed Martin.
Down at the ever-cool Rocket Dungeon, Dick Stafford has updates on the new BATFE "62.5 gram" rule (goes into effect Oct. 10) and that sizzling APCP propellant case (next court date, Oct. 17).
Sam Dinkin's new blog is Decisive Win. Sound about right ;)
This blog is not Space Medicine Probe, but here is a noteworthy item: NASA Watch reports on the first zero-G surgery. We now await news of the first commercial litigation case conducted in weightlessness.
From a bunch of blogs around space tinsel town (HobbySpace, Transterrestrial Musings, Spaceports, Private Spaceflight, others) a great holiday gift idea.
Sadly, it's official: Michael Belfiore's much-anticipated upcoming book is titled, Rocketeers: How a visionary band of business leaders, engineers and pilots is boldly privatizing space. NOT "Rocketeers: How a visionary band of business leaders, engineers, pilots and lawyers is boldly privatizing space." Oh well ;).
Congratulations to John C. Mather of NASA Goddard and George F. Smoot of the UC Berkeley on winning the 2006 Nobel Prize in physics for their research with the COBE satellite which supported big bang theory (i.e., "their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation").
Popular Mechanics honors spaceship designer Burt Rutan. (Happy 2nd anniversary of the X Prize win!)
Speaking of exciting science news, I know teleportation is a hot development. But on some 3D worlds we do it all the time.
Have a super weekend, and happy World Space Week!
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Image: Big bang background radiation, via COBE
// posted by Jesse Londin @
4:43 PM