Virgin Galactic to Offer Space Cruise through Aurora Borealis

Shaun sends in an article that I think anyone with a pulse would find exciting! From the Daily Galaxy online, I see that Virgin Galactic is not sitting on their laurels by any means. Richard Branson has been busy thinking up new ways to get people excited about private space tourism. He’s offering to fly anyone who can afford the trip, into the world’s biggest lightshow, the Aurora Borealis. Even though the New Mexico Virgin Galactic Spaceport isn't scheduled for completion until 2010, Branson is already planning his next project, an Arctic launchpad located in the far north of Sweden in the small town of Kiruna. Trips through the solar wind light show, though spectacular, have been deemed perfectly safe to those inside a spacecraft. Cost was not mentioned in the article but I suspect that we are still looking at a 20k plus price tag.

Do you know the way to.....GLIESE?

GLIESE 581c has got to be the ultimate tourist destination. It is the first rocky planet beyond our solar system with anything like a pleasant climate. Imagine How mind-blowing would it be just to stroll along its beaches - surely it must have beaches - or watch the planet's red-dwarf sun setting in a scarlet blaze over the alien landscape. There's just one little problem - Gliese 581c is 20 light years away - over a million times the distance from Earth to the sun. Even at half the speed of light you'd spend the best part of 50 years cooped up in a smelly space capsule.

Shaun Saunders has sent in an article from New Scientist online magazine that explores some of the most interesting and practical methods that could make a trip to the stars closer.

Space Hotel opening by 2012

BARCELONA (Reuters) - "Galactic Suite", the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes. Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay. During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post

Billionaire blasts off for space station

While Martha Stewart watched on.....

A Russian rocket carrying Charles Simonyi and two cosmonauts soaring into orbit on a two-day journey to the international space station.

the American billionaire who helped develop Microsoft Word roared into the night skies over Kazakhstan on Saturday. The Soyuz TMA-10 capsule lifted off at 11:31 p.m. local time (1:31 p.m. ET) and it is scheduled to rendezvous with the station Monday. Simonyi, a 58-year-old native of Hungary, paid $25 million for the 13-day trip, the fifth such paying “space tourist,” or “spaceflight participant,” as officials prefer to call them.

Submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

Space tourism to be fashion's final frontier

You've booked your seat on the spaceship and passed the medical -- but what to wear for that flight into the final frontier?.

Orbital Outfitters has the answer. The new Los Angeles-based companyy promises to dress the first space tourists and crew members in style.

"When someone puts on an IS3 (sub-orbital space suit), they will be protected by the best technology we cam muster, yet they will look like they've stepped off the set of a science fiction movie," said Orbital Outfitters president Rick Tumlinson.

"With billionaires funding the new space companies and passengers paying up to $200,000 for a ride, safety is important. We intend to also make it chic," Tumlinson said.