If you like the idea of ordinary folks in space, check out this poster, rendered by Mark Shuttleworth during his visit to the International Space Station.

A few comments by Jim Benson from SpaceDev made me realize I hadn’t mentioned the propulsion prospects for SpaceShipOne. I think Scaled is considering a hybrid rocket engine, which uses a combination of solid and liquid fuel techniques. Specifically, they’re using a rubber solid fuel and nitrous oxide liquid oxidizer.

SpaceDev, one of the companies competing to provide the rocket, is a local (San Diego) company I’ve been admiring from afar for a while. With government-funded spaceflight facing a hostile climate, it’s good to know that someone in the private sector is taking on the challenge.

Thanks, Jim!

I don’t know why, but it’s heartening to know that some research worms survived the Columbia disaster.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, has started a private space development company called Blue Origin. It’s nice to see all this interest in private space exporation, especially by folks with money to spend. Oddly enough, Neal Stephenson is being listed as one of the advisors. I say “oddly enough” because all of his sci-fi stories (to date, at least) have been set firmly on Earth. He has his own reasons for joining, though.

Of all places, MSNBC has a good article with specifics on SpaceShipOne’s flying characteristics. It really looks like they’ve put a lot of thought into it, down to using the same flight controls for the carrier ship and rocketplane so that maneuvers can be practiced in either.