All Aboard: Space-Tour Bandwagon
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Two business moguls announce plans to capitalize on the current hubbub over private spaceflight. Also: Speculation increases on whether SpaceShipOne will carry passengers on its second prize-attempt flight.... and more. By Dan Brekke.
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Tycho:   The foe revealed, Armadeaddon is now almost complete.  Monday will see the promised epilogue, so at this point you have very nearly survived the ordeal.  We have endeavored these past weeks to reward the true "enthusiast," that man or woman who, brow heavy, has faced such cruel abuse at our hand for the last seven years.  It is apparently our policy to honor such dedication one every decade.    Since it was announced a couple days ago, the revelation that MS would be actively courting the hardcore boardgame player is something I've thought about almost constantly.  It may be that you weren't aware there was such a thing as a hardcore player of boardgames if your last experience with the context was playing Sorry! with your sister when you were eight.  Things have progressed.   There's a million experiences in this space I could use to lure you in, but one company in particular - Days of Wonder has already decided to make electronic variants of their tabletop crack, so they occupy a twilight space between the worlds.  I hope they see an opportunity to take their (already completed!) games over to the 360, or that Microsoft offers them a locked case containing an unspecified amount of untraceable U.S. Currency, because I'd love to see this prescient move by MS turn into a new era.   Days of Wonder makes a game called Shadows Over Camelot that could quickly become a dangerous obsession, obscuring biological realities with a single-minded focus on grails.  Well, grail I guess.  There's just the one.    But it's a completely cooperative boardgame, so every player is working toward the same goals - fighting back invasions, questing, all of it.  Except there might be a traitor in the group, determined by a hidden draw, who tries to derail the effort.  He's not always there, but the potentiality of that nefarious force can create unbelievable social tension.    The gaming table's fixed coordinate in space is its asset and its obstacle - managing space and time is actually the primary challenge of any gaming group, as opposed to banishing necromancers, though that also ranks up there.  Boardgames are so rich in design that, when one of these gets dropped in front of them on Live, I think many gamers will be shocked at their sophistication.    My thumbs hurt.  (CW)TB out.
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I applaud Burt Rutan and the SpaceShipOne team for their miraculous achievement of winning the Ansari X Prize. As an astronaut, I understand well the challenges they faced in reaching suborbital space.
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Burt Rutan, a maverick aviator with Elvis-like sideburns, spread his futuristic vision last week of space travel no longer dominated by the government but by daring engineers such as himself.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Nearly 40 astronauts on Friday became the first to ride aboard a NASA tourist attraction that recreates a ride aboard the space shuttle.
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Astronauts have long known that space travel is a good way to diet. The excitement of launch. Thrilling vistas seen from Earth orbit. Floating weightless. Maybe a touch of motion sickness. Who can eat at a time like that?
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A commercial spaceliner and a Woodstock-like space festival are the next planned steps in what has been called a &quot;personal space flight revolution.
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Hoping to build on the momentum sparked by SpaceShipOne&#39;s dash into space, supporters of opening the heavens to civilians are turning the winner-take
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By Brian McIver  THE world's superpowers have always dominated the space race.  But with companies and agencies all rushing to attract tourists and commercial passengers to the heavens, Europe and Britain are now leading the way.
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By Keith McLeod  A RUNRIG CD which survived the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster is to go on display in an exhibition about the band.  Astronaut Laurel Clark, 41, played their album Stamping Ground in orbit days before all seven crew were killed when the shuttle broke up on re-entry.
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By Martin Merzer and Phil Long, The Miami Herald  Jun. 3--CAPE CANAVERAL -- It's a whole different kind of launch countdown: More than eight years and . . . still counting for many NASA astronauts who have done everything except, you know, fly in space.
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WHAT&#39;s the prize beneath the cap of that soft drink bottle? A trip into space. It may sound far-fetched - if not a little crass â-ut the commercialisation of the final frontier began in earnest yesterday
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There may be something almost nostalgic in our celebration of a âheroic explorer.â
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Major Domestos rocket required Salmonella likes it in orbit, and not just for the view.â¦
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The first paying female space tourist said Friday she felt a little queasy on her rocket ride to the international space station but she since has been enjoying every minute of her cosmic trip.
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They were the first to leave the mothership. Now Howard Stern is joining their orbit. What's life like for shock jocks in the zero-gravity atmosphere of satellite radio?
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One way trip, no refunds Caution: this could be a one way trip. This is what would-be space tourists will have to be warned before they set off on sub-orbital jaunts, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has said.â¦