UPDATE, 11:51 pm

“I think you will agree that WhiteKnightTwo, or 'EVE' as we will be able to officially call her soon, is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary aviation vehicles ever developed.”

In the book by Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, our hero finds a golden ticket in a candy bar wrapper.

On July 28, 2008, Virgin Galactic will be rolling out WhiteKnight2 in the Mojave desert.

Flight International's Rob Coppinger reports that Starchaser is building a new manned rocket.

“Git’n ‘er done!” must be the operating phrase around the shops at Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan’s company that successfully built and flew the world’s first private aircraft to the edge of space. This craft, SpaceShipOne, reached the fringe and claimed the Ansari X-Prize while the other competitors watched from the stands or on their TV sets.

The Space Adventures orbital spaceflight program is the only way for non-astronauts to visit the International Space Station ( ISS). Now, Space Adventures had brokered a deal that increases the number of spaceflight participants.

EADS Astrium, Europe's aerospace conglomerate, is once again toying with the possibility of building a European piloted spacecraft. Europe's rocket scientists have tried to interest their politicians in funding piloted space projects in the past, most notably the Hermes and Saenger spaceplanes. But as spending on these programs climbed, the politicians eventually balked at completing them.

by Alan Breakstone

by Carol Pinchefsky