Patterns

It takes little discernment to see when certain patterns are emerging in NewSpace.

Just as reaffirmations recently of ESA's Spaceplane plans from 2005, the confident expansion of Virgin Galactic to Spaceport Sweden and further affirmation of Richard Branson's intentions to launch suborbital tourism very soon, by way of Scaled Composites' SpaceShip Two from Spaceport America, it's dawning upon even casual observers that, barring catastrophe, a new generation of Alan Shepherds will soon be claiming credit for traveling higher than 100 kilometers to experience freefall, and a relatively brief period of "zero gravity."

The days of the "vomit comet" may be coming to an end, except for those unable to pay the first hefty fares, for a suborbital arc. Personal space travel, such as it is, may soon become ordinary, and for hundreds of thousands.

ESA's Hermes may lead to the beginning of a permanent presence of that agency in Russia and cooperative development of Klipr, which may be a small commercial Orbiter and soon world's avenue to ISS, as successor to Progress-M, and before Orion is launched by NASA.

Meanwhile, the past few weeks have seen more than one nation sending out word canvassing interest in their astronaut corps. First, the U.K., after a long period of austerity, has had their own floating of the idea turn up 50,000 preliminary applications, and NASA is still accepting applications. Now JAXA has made the news.

AFP reports: Japan on Tuesday began recruiting astronauts for the first time in a decade in the wake of a successful mission to carry Japan's maiden space laboratory to the International Space Station.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will pick three candidates using screening procedures such as aptitude tests, medical checks and interviews.

JAXA said it would announce its selections in February 2009.

The successful candidates will take various training programmes at NASA for two years before being certified as astronauts.

Three out of 864 applicants passed astronaut certification during the agency's last recruitment in 1998 and 1999.

Japan has an increasingly ambitious space programme. The US space shuttle Endeavour returned on March 26 after beginning to set up Japan's first space laboratory, "Kibo."

With its installation, Japan gains a foothold on the International Space Station alongside the United States, Russia and Europe.

(ESA also indicates Japan may partner with that agency and the Russians on Klipr, perhaps explaining why JAXA gave up plans for its own space plane some time ago.)

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