Space Future has been on something of a hiatus of late. With the concept of Space Tourism steadily increasing in acceptance, and the advances of commercial space, much of our purpose could be said to be achieved. But this industry is still nascent, and there's much to do. So...watch this space.
Today, April 15, 2010, at the Kennedy Space Center, President Obama revealed his plans for the future of NASA's space program: he's putting NASA on a new course.
Jim Benson, 63, founder of SpaceDev, the first publicly traded space company, died October 10, 2008, from a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor, with which he was diagnosed in 2007.
According to this Register article, China plans to send astronauts to the moon in the year 2024. The article says the Chinese government is actively looking for Helium-3, a source of fuel abundant on the moon that may replace oil and gas.
The X-Prize has been renamed the Ansari X-Prize after two Iranians, Anousheh and Amir Ansari, contributed an unspecified—but probably spectacular—sum to the X-Prize Foundation.
Maxwell
Hunter, one of the America's most experienced rocket designers, died on November 10 at the age of 79, joining the sadly long list of people who should have been able to visit space for themselves.
Nasa was recently ranked the 4th worst-managed US government organisation by the Senate Government Affairs Committee. It was particularly criticised for the incompetence it showed in:
Major Promoter of Space Tourism Increases Visibility
The Space Transportation Association based in Washington DC is one of the organisations putting most effort into changing official attitudes to space tourism, having been responsible for such historic steps as initiating and realising the historic NASA/STA joint study: General Public Space Travel and Tourism and holding the first space tourism conference in the USA (see below).