On October 24 the US House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics held a hearing to examine the viability of microwave energy from space. They discussed the need to direct NASA to study SPS, since it is not working on this project, despite its promise to provide an economic return on taxpayers' huge investment in space. For a fuller report see http://www.nss.org/alerts/capsules/capsule17.html

The Final Report of the joint study carried out since 1995 by NASA and the Space Transportation Association (STA) in Washington DC is due to be published in January, according to Thomas F Rogers, the President of STA.

A new grant has been provided by the Japanese Ministry of Education to enable the team of Professor Hideo Matsuoka, Professor Makoto Nagatomo and Dr Patrick Collins to continue their field research selecting rectenna sites for the " SPS 2000" Project in equatorial countries. The SPS 2000 satellite is being planned to transmit 10 MW of solar-generated microwave energy from an altitude of 1100 km above the equator to a number of rectennas within +/- 3 degrees latitude.

At the general assembly of the World Tourism Organization held in Istanbul in late October, a report was presented called "Tourism 2020 Vision" containing forecasts about the future of international tourism until 2020. Overall they foresee continuing rapid growth - today's 600 million international passengers growing to 1,600 million, and international tourism revenues growing from $423 billion in 1996 to $2 trillion in 2020.

About 100 attendees from around the world came to Montreal for the first SPS meeting since SPS '91 in Paris. Since then 6 more years of rapid economic growth in many countries has demonstrated the ever-growing demand for electricity, and recent work on low-cost reusable launch vehicles (from the DC-X to X-33) has improved the prospects for reducing SPS costs.

At the opening ceremony of the Annual Congress of the International Astronautical Federation ( IAF, the leading international body representing the "space industry" world-wide), the President of the IAF is one of the people to make a speech. This year, the 48th Congress was held in Turin, and on October 6th Karl Doetsch, the current President, made a speech on this year's Congress theme "Developing Business from Space", which included the following comments:

US Law requires NASA to encourage the commercialization of space activities as much as it can - but it's doing the opposite, apparently.

Senator John Glenn's interest in traveling to space again has already sparked controversy as to whether taxpayers should pay or not. It's been argued that research into ageing would justify such a flight.

AWST reports that Sen. John Glenn (D.-Ohio), the first American to orbit the Earth (in 1961), has a "..burning desire to go back to space..." NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin is reported to be considering his request to fly again. Glenn is 76 years old, and he would become the oldest person to visit space.

It is very unlikely that there will be any health problems due to his age, provided that he's in normal health - since going to orbit and living in zero G is not stressful. However, NASA is not allowed to carry people other than professional staff related to the work of each mission on board the space shuttle, and it seems unlikely that US taxpayers will wish to pay for his trip. Now if some company was only offering tourist flights... -SFJ