China, a country with over 4500 years of recorded history, gave the world, gunpowder, paper, compasses, movable type, and even the seismological detector. Now China has one more bullet point to its list of achievements: It’s the third country to have docked two spacecraft in orbit.

Space is a dirty place. Over 16,000 pieces of debris over 10 cm wide have been left behind since Sputnik took to the skies in 1957. And now the Swiss want to do something about it. Scientists with the Swiss Space Center at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, are developing a “janitor” satellite, known as CleanSpace One, to make space tidier.

SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket today from Cape Canaveral and reached Earth orbit, according to an article in Business Week.

Here on Earth, the problem of trash has become an eco-minded opportunity for recycling and reuse. But in space, trash is nothing but a problem. Debris in low Earth orbit ( LEO), such as rocket slag and defunct satellites, are becoming a congestion hazard.

Energiya, the go-to manufacturer for the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos), is planning to build a six-person craft, which will have room for three space tourists.

New York City is home of the Empire State Building, the New York Yankees, Central Park, and the office of the Space Future Journal. And if Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Congressperson Jerrold Nadler have their way, New York will have a new bullet point on the list of local destinations: a space shuttle.

UPDATE, 11:51 pm

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.