The Amateur Future of Space Travel
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How NASA turned to Americaâs basement brainstormers, workbench concocters and garage tinkerers to revive the space program.
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Description: We consider what might be ahead for the future of private space travel. Will the SpaceShipOne flight kick off a new era of space development?
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NASA is reviewing a list of&nbsp;fission-powered missions  that could pre-empt&nbsp;the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) effort now being  eyed for space travel no sooner than 2015.
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Tycho: You might have heard that NASA was trying to gin up an MMO. We just received a mail from a human being involved in the project, someone who wants to make sure they collect the best ideas from the best people. Naturally, she thought of the readership here. Her mail follows:I know how incredibly unpleasant this could end up being if we don'thave the right minds behind it, and would just like the chance to get itin front of as many potentially talented people as possible. Would youguys consider posting a sentence on this in the news section soon?"The purpose of this RFI is to solicit information from organizationswith proven immersive synthetic environments expertise who areinterested in potentially forming a MMO platform development partnershipwith NASA. We are currently targeting releasing a Request for Proposalin March 2008."Here's a couple of run-downs in English from people outside NASA:http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/nasa-seeks-inpu.htmlhttp://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/would-you-play.html#previouspostAnd the NASA sites:http://procurement.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/synopsis.cgi?acqid=128415http://ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/mmo/submit.htmlNASA gets surprisingly tiny amounts of money (about $17B/yr) to go tofreakin' space and do a whole lot of discovering of varioushumanity-impacting things. And a lot of people just don't know theamount of awesomeness we do for that. We're working on many things totry and communicate to people better about what we do (that's part ofour forming mandates, actually), and this is one initiative.And I think it would be cool if it wasn't a big mess, or even just an"eh" thing. I'd like to see it be *good*.For the space program, guys?Oh, but darling: you had us at immersive synthetic environments.(CW)TB
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Thrill seekers are plunking down six figures to ride rockets that haven't even been built yet, and a new airline called Virgin Galactic promises to be up and soaring in the next three years. Still, the budding space tourism faces a myriad of safety concerns &#151; in the sky and on the ground &#151; that must be resolved before any paying passenger takes off.
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Space scientists offer thoughts, both practical and far-fetched, for what to do if thereâs a space rock out there with our planetâs number on it.
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Sir Richard Branson has kick-started a new space race, with plans to start tourist trips to the edge of the atmosphere. But are we ready for holidays at the final frontier?
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Science & environment: The countdown is on for the first regular space tourists to rocket into space
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Satellite radio has a more promising future than you think.
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A flurry of space tourism milestones and announcements in recent days signals that human spaceflight is shifting from governments to the private sector, space experts say.
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Anyone who    wants to follow in the shoes of Burt Rutan and win the next big space prize    will have to build a spacecraft capable of taking a crew of no fewer than five    people to an altitude of 400 kilometers and complete two orbits of the Earth    at that altitude. Then they have to repeat that accomplishment within 60 days.
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SpaceShipOne pioneer Burt Rutan gives a glimpse of what fare-paying passengers can expect when they take their ride into space.
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If an extraterrestrial civilization wanted to maximize its chances of being discovered by another civilization, the best bet may not ride on radio waves.    Rutgers -- Were E.T...
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If the military realizes its vision, the next space shuttle may be a real killer. By John Lasker.
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Scientists discuss their preferred targets for the next "flagship" mission to another world.
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Also: Congress OKs private spaceflight bill. [News.com Extra]
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IT PROMISES to be a scene worthy of a science fiction spectacular. A space probe carrying primordial material scooped from outer space starts to plunge towards our planet. But before it can strike, a helicopter flown by a Hollywood stunt ...