SpaceShipOne may have been first and the winner of the prize money, but the main goal of the X-Prize competition was to develop commercially viable vehicles for the business of space.

SpaceX has just completed a successful test firing of their main rocket motor (with picture!). A more detailed update is promised after the weekend.

Posted by: Ted at 12:53 PM | category: Space Program
No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 65 words, total size 1 kb.

Space.com is asking you to vote on the best Hubble images. From this page, click on any image to go to a slideshow that allows you to rate each image on a 1-5 scale. There are some amazing and beautiful choices.

Posted by: Ted at 11:38 AM | category: Space Program
Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 51 words, total size 1 kb.

A wickedcool look at other planets, courtesy of Space.com.

Posted by: Ted at 11:51 AM | category: Space Program
Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 19 words, total size 1 kb.

Alan E. Brain plays synergist to show that a derelict early version of the Star Wars Death Star might be orbiting Saturn.

Seriously! Well, kinda. Go check it out.

Posted by: Ted at 02:51 PM | category: Space Program
Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 37 words, total size 1 kb.

Over at Transterrestrial Musings, Rand Simberg has been giving updates on the Space Access Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

Teasers and snippets:

Three kinds of space people:

Saganites: "Space is big, billions of stars, isn't God's creation incredible...DON'T TOUCH IT."

Von Braunians: "We vill go boldly into space, and you vill watch on television, and you vill enjoy it." That's the current space program.

O'Neillians: "We will build the tools, go into space, and use its resources to expand humanity and freedom into the cosmos."

About Chuck Lauer of Rocketplane, Limited's talk:

Chuck actually gets quite emotional when describing the feeling of going into the hangar and seeing all the people working, earning a living, finally living the dream that he and Mitchell started working on a decade ago.

There's so much more. As they say, go read the whole thing. Scroll on down through the articles (or start at the bottom and read up) as it covers multiple posts.

Posted by: Ted at 11:52 AM | category: Space Program
Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 169 words, total size 1 kb.