Aerospaceguide.net: Newsletter 37, Sunday 8th, August, 2004

Hi Everyone,

In this newsletter you will find a new space poll, pages on
SpaceShipOne and Cassini, new books, space news on Space Race 2 and
more.

GET READY FOR YOUR CHRISTMAS SPACE SHOPPING

* Use Aerospaceguide.net discount codes:

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http://www.aerospaceguide.net/spaceshop/index.html

SPACE POLL

The question is: "Who will win the X-Prize Competition?"

Choices:

1. SpaceShipOne.
2. da Vinci Project's Wild Fire Mark VI.
3. Perhaps one of the other competitors.
4. Don't Know.
5. Never heard of the X-Prize Competition.

To vote now, click on the following link:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aerospaceguide/polls

WHAT's NEW?

* SpaceShipOne
http://www.aerospaceguide.net/spaceplanes/spaceshipone.html

SpaceShipOne made history in June 2004 by being the first manned
private spaceflight with Mike Melvill as the first private astronaut
to space.

* Space News Links
http://www.aerospaceguide.net/spacenews/index.html

- Added links to European Space Agency News, JPL News,
SpaceWeather.com and Spacearchive.info which has Vandenberg AFB
Launch Schedule info.

- You can access this page from the homepage by clicking on links and
then space news.

* Books
http://aerospaceguide.net/spacebook/index.html

Two new additions:

1. New Moon Rising: The Making Of America's New Space Vision And The
Remaking Of NASA and

2. The Depths of Space: The Story of the Pioneer Interplanetary
Probes.

* Star Wars Dvd
http://www.aerospaceguide.net/starwars/dvd.html

The Star Wars Trilogy Dvd will be releasd in September. At the time
of writing this newsletter, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk is offering
40% discount. Wow! Amazon.ca is offering 20% discount.

* Cassini-Huygens spacecraft
http://www.aerospaceguide.net/spacecraft/cassinispacecraft.html

Cassini-Huygens spacecraft was the first spacecraft to orbit Planet
Saturn on 1 July 2004. The spacecraft includes the Cassini Orbiter
and Huygens Probe. Cassini will spend four years transmitting back
information about Saturn and its moons and rings.

* Books on Telescopes
http://aerospaceguide.net/spacebooks/telescopes.html

This page has a range of Books on Telescopes: from how to make a
telescope book to books related to space telscopes like the Hubble.

SPACE NEWS IN BRIEF

* SPACE RACE 2 has commenced. Who will win the Ansari X-Prize
Competition?

The Ansari X-Prize competition will award a prize of 10 million USA
Dollars to the first company that can launch a human piloted craft
above 100 km (where space officially begins) twice in a two-week
period.

- 1. SpaceShipOne

Burt Rutan, head of the Mojave, California-based Scaled Composites
has given its 60 day notice and that it will be making an attempt to
win the Ansari X-Prize competition on September 29 from the Mojave
Spaceport, and then repeating the feat no later than October 13.

- 2. da Vinci Project

On August 5th 2004 the Canadian da Vinci Project Team unveilled its
Wild Fire Mark VI spacecraft. It also notified the Ansari X-Prize of
its intention to launch its rocket on October 2nd, 2004.

The da Vinci Project is competing with Burt Rutan's craft, and 23
other teams, to win the $10m (£5.7m) prize. Canadian astronaut Brian
Feeney plans to blast off from Kindersley, Saskatchewan, Canada on
October 2.

The da Vinci team's craft is designed to be launched from a reusable,
drifting helium balloon from an altitude of 80,000ft (24.4km). If
successful, it will be Canada's first manned space launch.

* The actor who played Scotty (James M Doohan, 84) in the original
Star Trek TV series and films has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's
disease. Doohan has also suffered for some time from Parkinson's
disease, diabetes and fibrosis, the latter due to chemical exposure
during the Second World War when he was a soldier in the Canadian
military.

* The next Star Wars movie will be called Star Wars: Episode III
Revenge of the Sith and is scheduled for release in the cinemas on
May 19, 2005.

* Tan Ce 2 (TC-2) was launched by the Chinese on 25 July 2004 aboard
a Long March 2C rocket. It is the second of two Double Star
satellites. The Double Star Program is a joint effort between the
European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese National Space
Administration (CASA). They will study Earth's magnetosphere.

* Messenger(Mercury Surface Space Environment Geochemistry and
Ranging) Spacecraft was successfully launched on August 2, 2004.

* The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) instrument on the
Hubble Space Telescope stopped working on the 3rd of August. It is
one of the four astronomical instruments on the Hubble Space
Telescope. The other three instruments continue to operate normally.

The STIS is in suspended mode. Mission managers think there is a
malfunction in a power converter. It is not known if the glitch can
be fixed. The spectrograph was installed during the second Hubble
servicing mission, in 1997. It was designed to operate for five
years. NASA says it has met or exceeded all its scientific
requirements.

See you in the next newsletter in October/November.

Regards,
Vic Stathopoulos
Web Master

Aerospaceguide.net
http://www.aerospaceguide.net
Space Projects and Info

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