SPACEX LAUNCHES DRAGON TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

SMN REPORT:

News that the US company SpaceX successfully launched its Dragon space capsule, which is now on course for a test rendezvous with the ISS International Space Station makes us smile. And of course, it opens the door to the model-making wish-list.

STARDATE 2012 - SPACE SHUTTLE 'ENTERPRISE' FLYING IN TO NEW YORK’S USS INTREPID MUSEUM

Mat Irvine weekend read:

In 2012 a new addition will join the famed USS Intrepid Museum Complex at Pier 86, New York City. The new display star will be the ALT (Approach and Landing Tests) Space Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise, (above) due to fly from Washington DC to JFK International Airport on the back of NASA’s Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

VIRGIN GALACTIC SPACESHIP RELEASED IN TWO SCALES

SMN report:

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic seems to be on track to become the world's first commercial spaceline, with a passenger-carrying spaceship, the VSS Enterprise, carried by a twin-fuselage mothership, VMS Eve. Both vehicles were developed by California-based Scaled Composites, headed by the veteran designer Burt Rutan. Eventually there will be two motherships and five spaceships in the Virgin Galactic space fleet.