California wildfire seen from Genesis

This just in from Bigelow Aerospace: the company's Genesis I satellite shot this view of Los Angeles and the Channel Islands last Friday, when wildfires threatened resort communities on Catalina Island.

You can see the smoke plume emanating from the island at the lower right of the photo. Click to see a bigger view.

Bigelow Aerospace is currently the only NewSpace company in orbit, with another launch planned for later this month. Genesis I and Genesis II are trial balloons--really--for the first commercial space stations. Both the test satellites and the full-scale stations are designed to be inflated from a compressed state when they reach orbit, thus saving space on launch and allowing for larger stations than is possible with conventional rigid designs.

Rocketeers reading at the National Air & Space Museum

It's a dream come true for me--the chance to talk and sign books at the permanent home of SpaceShipOne. I'll be at the National Air & Space Museum's gift shop on the National Mall on the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, July 20, from 3 to 5 p.m.

This is a pre-release event in tandem with the NewSpace 2007 conference, where the book will go on sale for the first time.

Next day, I'm to moderate a panel discussion with some of the rocketeers featured in my book at the conference. The details for that are still being worked out, so stay tuned.

Finally, on July 20, I'll read from the book and sign at the Air & Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport. That museum features a Burt Rutan-designed VariEze, the airplane that launched Rutan's career. The VariEze led directly to Rutan's design for SpaceShipOne, and that's one of the things I'll talk about.

You can keep tabs on these and my other upcoming appearances at my website: www.michaelbelfiore.com.

Rocketeers launching at NewSpace 2007

It's official: my forthcoming book, Rocketeers, will launch at the Space Frontier Foundation's NewSpace 2007 conference. The conference runs July 18-21 in Washington, DC, more than a week before the book's release to stores. Conference-goers will have the first opportunity to buy the book.

The Space Frontier Foundation is one of the premier organizations boosting commercial spaceflight, so this is the perfect place for my book launch.

The lineup of conference speakers so far includes Apollo moonwalker Edgar Mitchell, Ed White, author of the influential book The Overview Effect, Virgin Galactic chief pilot Alex Tai, Rocketplane Kistler Passenger Number One Reda Anderson, the FAA official in charge of commercial spaceflight, Patti Grace Smith, and lots of other prominent folks in this burgeoning industry.

Smithsonian Books will donate pre-release copies of my book to the Space Frontier Foundation, which means that 100 percent of the proceeds from sales of the book will support the foundation. I'll be doing signings at the conference and participating in other activities still to be finalized.

The supply of books at the conference will be limited, so midway through the conference, on Friday, July 20, I'll be doing a reading and signing at the National Air & Space Museum, just a couple of Metro stops away. Stay tuned for more on that.

Rocketeers excerpt

I have an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Rocketeers, up at the newly revamped michaelbelfiore.com.

Check it out and let me know what you think (yes, that's Tim Pickens riding his rocket bike). Let me know what you think of the new site too.