Jeff has been involved in aerospace journalism since the mid 1990s. Prior to joining Aviation Week, Jeff served as managing editor of Launchspace magazine and the International Space Industry Report. He has been the editor and chief of Aviation Week's Aerospace Daily & Defense Report since 2007 and has been a regular contributor to Aviation Week magazine. He received his B.A. from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
Undersecretary of the Air Force Ronald Sega is "hopeful" that the Defense Department's formal recommendation on the proposed United Launch Alliance (ULA) merger will be given to the Federal Trade Commission within a month. FTC then will make the final decision on ULA, which would merge production of Lockheed Martin's Atlas and Boeing's Delta rocket fleets while still maintaining two distinct families of vehicles. DOD's recommendation is expected to play a crucial role in FTC's ruling.
The House Science Committee is likely to hold a hearing on NASA's restructured aeronautics program, according to Chief of Staff David Goldston, amid concerns over the agency's shrinking aeronautics budget request. NASA's FY '07 request for aeronautics is $724 million, an 18 percent decrease from the FY '06 budget. The topline includes $447.2 million for fundamental aeronautics, $102.2 million for aviation safety, $120 million for airspace systems and $55 million to preserve the agency's wind tunnels.
Space Adventures, which markets commercial space tourism trips to the International Space Station (ISS) using Russian Soyuz vehicles, hopes eventually to mount missions to the lunar surface using a variant of the Russian Soyuz TMA spacecraft. The company announced last year that it plans to offer trips that will orbit the moon using a lunar-rated Soyuz starting in 2009 or 2010, at a ticket price of $100 million per seat on the two-seat vehicle (DAILY, Aug. 12, 2005).
