For a reputed US$15 million, Mark Shuttleworth recently booked his place as the world’s second space tourist: he plans to fly to the Russian part of the International Space Station (ISS), currently being assembled in orbit. Shuttleworth, a 27-year old multi-millionaire from South Africa, is now in training at Russia’s ‘Star City'. His flight is scheduled for April 2002.

The reusable VTOL rocket developed and first flown in 1999 at the Institute for Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) in Japan has been upgraded and reflown successfully.

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:

Under the title "Money Could Buy Next Giant Leap In Space, Aldrin Says", Reuters' Dayan Candappa reported a meeting between Buzz Aldrin and Arthur C Clarke in which they agreed that space tourism is IT.

Space tv AG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the German television production company Brainpool of Cologne, is reported to have made reservations for 7 flights in the Russian 'Soyuz' launch vehicle between 2002 and 2008 to allow selected people to visit the Russian sector of the International Space Station.

On October 27 the British government published its reply to the recent tenth Report of its Select Committee on Trade and Industry which had recommended an independent review of launch vehicle investment policy, including the issue of passenger travel. This was the first time that any country's space policy has been challenged on this issue at such a high politicial level - and the Blair government's response illustrates well the bitter resistance of the existing 'space industry' to long-overdue change - because it totally ignores the central economic issue raised by the Select Committee!

NASA has recently admitted that the X-34 project, touted with the X-33 as the route to reducing launch costs, is at an impasse. Readers will remember that in 1995, as a result of the great success of the DC-X reusable rocket funded by the Defence Department, NASA announced its own RLV program - with the X-33 and X-34 reusable rockets as its centre-pieces. Both were to start a series of progressive demonstration flights in 1999, leading on to low-cost launch vehicles.

Three months after US Transportation Secretary Slater became the first Cabinet-rank official to use the "T Word", the 10th report of the British government's Trade and Industry Committee also discussed space tourism and recommended:

On June 15, LunaCorp announced that Radioshack had become its first corporate sponsor. Lunacorp has been working for more than 10 years to put together a commercial lunar rover project, from which real-time 360-degree video would be transmitted back to viewers on Earth, and which would even allow selected guests to drive its rover from motion-simulators through two-way communications links.

In a little-reported speech to the US Space Foundation in Colorado Springs on April 4, US Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, who is responsible for roads, shipping, railways, aviation and commercial space, made the following statements about space tourism: