Armadillo Aerospace was an aerospace startup company based in Mesquite, Texas. Its initial goal was to build a crewed suborbital spacecraft capable of space tourism, and it had also stated long-term ambitions of orbital spaceflight. The company was founded by John Carmack, former co-founder and chief technical officer of id Software.
The Ansari X Prize was a space competition in which the X Prize Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modeled after early 20th-century aviation prizes, and aimed to spur development of low-cost spaceflight.
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for the field of aerospace engineering. The AIAA is the U.S. representative on the International Astronautical Federation and the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences. In 2015, it had more than 30,000 members among aerospace professionals worldwide.
Private spaceflight is spaceflight or the development of spaceflight technology that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency.
Bigelow Aerospace is an American space technology startup company which manufactures and develops expandable space station modules. Bigelow Aerospace was founded by Robert Bigelow in 1998, and is based in North Las Vegas, Nevada. It is funded in large part by the profit Bigelow gained through his ownership of the hotel chain, Budget Suites of America.
Anousheh Ansari is an Iranian American engineer and co-founder and chairwoman of Prodea Systems. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI). The Ansari family is also the title sponsor of the Ansari X Prize. On September 18, 2006, a few days after her 40th birthday, she became the first Iranian ever in space. Ansari was the fourth overall self-funded space tourist, and the first self-funded woman to fly to the International Space Station. Her memoir, My Dream of Stars, co-written with Homer Hickam, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2010. In her TEDxTehran talk, she defined the journey of her dreams coming true.
America's Space Prize was a US$50 million space competition in orbital spaceflight established and funded in 2004 by hotel entrepreneur Robert Bigelow. The prize would have been awarded to the first US-based privately funded team to design and build a reusable manned capsule capable of flying 5 astronauts to a Bigelow Aerospace inflatable space module. The criteria also required the capsule be recovered and flown again in 60 days. The prize expired January 10, 2010, without a winner or any test flights attempted. The teams were required to have been based in the United States.
Space Transport Corporation, or STC, was a company based in Forks, Washington whose goal was to commercialize space. The company was founded in 2002 by Eric Meier and Philip Storm. The company planned to provide small payload launch and space tourism services. The company liquidated its assets in February 2005 and was completely defunct by late 2006.
The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge (NG-LLC) was a competition funded by NASA's Centennial Challenges program. The competition offered a series of prizes for teams that launch a vertical takeoff/vertical landing (VTVL) rocket that achieved the total delta-v needed for a vehicle to move between the surface of the Moon and its orbit. The multi-level competition was conducted by the X PRIZE Foundation, with sponsorship from the Northrop Grumman Corporation who ran the ongoing competition. The prize purses were paid by NASA. It was held annually at the X PRIZE Cup, making its debut at the 2006 Wirefly X PRIZE Cup in October, 2006, until 2009 when the prize purse was awarded to Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace.
The X Prize Cup is a two-day air and space exposition which was the result of a partnership between the X Prize Foundation and the State of New Mexico that began in 2004 when the Ansari X-Prize was held. This led to plans to build the world's first true rocket festival. Three X-Prize Cups have been held: in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Each X Prize Cup hosts different events and demonstrations, such as rocket-powered bicycles, rocket jet packs; but particularly notable are the Lunar Lander Challenge and the Space Elevator Games. 85,000 visitors attended the 2007 X Prize Cup. Although there was no X Prize Cup in 2009, there was a Lunar Lander Challenge.
NASASpaceflight.com is a news website and forum which launched in 2005, covering crewed and uncrewed spaceflight and aerospace engineering news. The site focuses on the technical and engineering aspects of the United States space program, but also covers spaceflight activities of private companies and other space agencies around the world. It has been referenced by various news outlets on spaceflight-specific news, such as MSNBC and The New York Times, among others. NASASpaceflight also produces videos and live streams of rocket launches online, with a special focus on developments at SpaceX's Starbase facility. NSF is owned and operated by managing editor Chris Bergin and content is produced by a team of spaceflight reporters, journalists, contributors, editors, photographers, and videographers across the United States and other countries.
CU Spaceflight is a student-run society at Cambridge University. It is founded with the aim of achieving access to space, with minimal financial expenses. The society is supported by the Cambridge-MIT Institute.
The N-Prize is an inducement prize contest intended to "encourage creativity, originality and inventiveness in the face of severe odds and impossible financial restrictions" and thus stimulate innovation directed towards obtaining cheap access to space. The competition was launched in 2008 by Cambridge biologist Paul H. Dear, and is intended specifically to spur amateur involvement in spaceflight as it is "aimed at amateurs, enthusiasts, would-be boffins and foolhardy optimists."
Lori Beth Garver is the former Deputy Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She was nominated on May 24, 2009, by President Barack Obama, along with Charles Bolden as NASA Administrator. She was confirmed by the United States Senate by unanimous consent on July 15, 2009. She left the position in September 2013 to become General Manager of the Air Line Pilots Association.
Hakuto (ハクト) or formerly White Label Space (ホワイトレーベルスペース) was a team formed in early 2008 by a group of experienced space professionals inspired by the challenge of the Google Lunar X PRIZE to develop a robotic Moon exploration mission.
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is a private spaceflight industry group, incorporated as an industry association for the purposes of establishing ever higher levels of safety for the commercial human spaceflight industry, sharing best practices and expertise, and promoting the growth of the industry worldwide. Issues that the Commercial Spaceflight Federation work on include, but are not limited to, airspace issues, FAA regulations and permits, industry safety standards, public outreach, and public advocacy for the commercial space sector.
Space Tourists is a feature-length documentary of the Swiss director Christian Frei. The film had its premiere at the Zurich Film Festival in 2009 and has won the "World Cinema Directing Award" at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010.
Eric C. Anderson is an American entrepreneur and aerospace engineer. He is the co-founder and chairman of Space Adventures Ltd., the first commercial spaceflight company, which has arranged for eight missions for privately funded individuals to the International Space Station since 2001. Anderson is widely credited as having established the market for commercial spaceflight. He is also a founding partner of Space Angels Network, CEO of Intentional Software Corporation, co-founder and chairman of Planetary Power, Inc., co-founder and co-chairman of Planetary Resources and chairman of Personal.com and Booster Fuels.
Dawn Brooke Owens was an American pilot and space policy expert. She worked with NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the White House. The Brooke Owens Fellowship was established in 2017 to honour the considerable contributions Owens made to the American space industry.
William Pomerantz is Vice President of Special Projects at Virgin Orbit. He was part of the team that created Virgin Orbit while working at Virgin Galactic. He is the co-founder of the Brooke Owens Fellowship and a trustee of the United States Students for the Exploration and Development of Space organisation.
