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Dear Space Community, Welcome to the Dip. UK | Thousands keen for space flight. More than 7,000 people have said they will pay to fly into space in one of entrepreneur Richard Branson's space ships - which have yet to be built. The space adventurers had pledged a total of £805m to go 110km (70 miles) above the Earth, Sir Richard said. The 54-year-old has put £74m into his Virgin Galactic plan, adding to the £115,000 each passenger will have to pay for the expected take-off in 2008.

They will experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. Sir Richard said he was overwhelmed by the response. "We are extremely pleased because it just means in a sense that the gamble we took seems to have paid off," he said. "We have committed $100m (£60m) and we have had a tremendous take-up. All indicators are that the risk was worth taking.

"Market research suggested that there were that sort of number of people willing to agree to that sort of price. " The first flight will be reserved for Sir Richard and his family. Celebrity passengers. Science/Nature | Space tourist returns to Earth. US space tourist Gregory Olsen has returned to Earth after 10 days on the International Space Station. The Russian Soyuz capsule carrying the millionaire businessman, and two other crew, touched down in Kazakhstan in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The ticket price was not disclosed, but it is believed the electronic sensors expert paid up to $21m (£12m). He is the third private citizen to have visited the station after Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth. 'Safe return' The Soyuz covered the approximately 400km (250 miles) from the station to Earth in about three and a half hours, entering the atmosphere at 0019 GMT and landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan. Four search planes and 17 helicopters were dispatched to meet the spacecraft once radio and visual contact were established.

"The Soyuz completed a soft landing," a flight controller at mission control outside Moscow said. Mr Olsen was joined in his Soyuz capsule by Russian Commander Sergei Krikalev and US Flight Engineer John Phillips. Science/Nature | Human spaceflight goes commercial. We are about to witness a revolution in human spaceflight. Launching people into space has until now been the almost exclusive preserve of superpower governments. But, according to industry experts and entrepreneurs, the commercial exploitation of space is about to open a new frontier for mass tourism. For one of the pioneers of this revolution, Burt Rutan of the Californian company Scaled Composites, it reminds him of the imaginings of his youth. "Everyone dreamed of travelling in space during the Sixties.

For most, the dream faded. The US space shuttle, America's only route for humans into space in the last 25 years, was so ambitious and complex that it became prohibitively expensive and, with two fatal accidents, unreliable. Nasa and the US Air Force tried several projects to produce space planes, from the first X-15 to the latest X-43. Looking to longevity The spirit of the X-planes, however, lived on in private enterprise. 'Shuttlecock' innovation SpaceShipOne had several innovations. Science/Nature | Branson unveils Virgin spaceship. The "spaceships" are designed to carry a maximum of eight people Sir Richard Branson has unveiled a mock-up of the rocket-powered vehicle that will carry clients into space through his Virgin Galactic business. The Virgin spaceships are designed to carry six passengers and two pilots to an altitude of about 140km on a sub-orbital space flight.

Tickets on a Virgin Galactic flight are expected to cost £100,000 ($190,000). The mock-up of the spacecraft was unveiled at the Javits exhibition centre in New York on Thursday. The Virgin craft are based on the design of SpaceShipOne, built by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan, which became the first privately built vehicle to reach space in 2004. SpaceShipOne made three flights to altitudes just greater than 100km - the edge of the Earth's atmosphere - claiming the prestigious Ansari X-Prize. Public access The rocket plane was first carried to a launch altitude of 15km (50,000ft) by an aircraft, or mothership, called White Knight. Science/Nature | Virgin unveils spaceship designs. Virgin Galactic has released the final design of the launch system that will take fare-paying passengers into space. It is based on the X-Prize-winning SpaceShipOne concept - a rocket ship that is lifted initially by a carrier plane before blasting skywards.

The Virgin system is essentially a refinement, but has been increased in size to take eight people at a time on a sub-orbital trip, starting in 2010. Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson said the space business had huge potential. "I think it's very important that we make a genuine commercial success of this project," he told a news conference in New York. "If we do, I believe we'll unlock a wall of private sector money into both space launch systems and space technology. "This could rival the scale of investment in the mobile phone and internet technologies after they were unlocked from their military origins and thrown open to the private sector.

" The 'experience' SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is about 60% complete, Virgin Galactic says. Science/Nature | 'Space hotel' test craft launched. An experimental spacecraft designed to test the viability of a hotel in space has been successfully sent into orbit. Genesis II is an inflatable module designed and launched by Bigelow Aerospace, a private company founded by an American hotel tycoon. The inflatable and flexible core of the spacecraft expands to form a bigger structure after launch. Billionaire Robert Bigelow hopes to use inflatable technology to construct a manned space station by 2015.

Inflatable spacecraft are attractive because they take up less space on their launch vehicle than solid components and therefore cost less to place into orbit. Genesis II was launched onboard a Russian rocket, and successfully separated from its launch vehicle 14 minutes after lift-off, engineers said. Communications were established with the craft after a short delay, before the module beamed back a series of images of its expanding solar panels. Officials said the craft was functioning well, with communications and air pressure as expected. Science/Nature | SpaceShipOne rockets to success. The rocket plane SpaceShipOne has shot to an altitude of more than 100km for the second time inside a week to claim the $10m Ansari X-Prize.

The stubby vehicle raced straight up into the sky over the Mojave Desert in California, US, with test pilot Brian Binnie at the controls. The plane did not roll like it had done on previous flights and set a new record for sub-orbital flight. The X-Prize was initiated to galvanise private space travel. It has been administered by the Missouri-based X-Prize Foundation.

Its president Peter Diamandis hailed the Mojave Aerospace Ventures team behind SpaceShipOne. "We are proud to announce that SpaceShipOne has made two flights to 100km and has won the Ansari X Prize," he said. "What we finally have here, after 40 years of waiting, is the beginning of the personal spaceflight revolution. " Two steps up Describing his record-breaking trip into space, Brian Binnie said: "It's a fantastic view; it's a fantastic feeling. Tickets to ride. Science/Nature | Virgin Galactic: The logical next step. The news that Sir Richard Branson has signed a deal to take paying passengers into space suggests the Ansari X-Prize has achieved its goal of bringing space tourism closer to the masses. One of the aims behind the $10m (£5.7m) challenge was to galvanise enthusiasm for private manned spaceflight, thereby bringing "out of this world" tourism within reach of ordinary people.

In the past, space travel has been open only to the privileged few; either government-back astronauts or millionaires with enough spare cash to book a flight on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station. If and when the Virgin venture - dubbed Virgin Galactic - begins offering its first spaceflights, the tickets will still be expensive. A sub-orbital flight is expected initially to cost about £100,000. But Sir Richard says prices will eventually come down to a level where "masses of people" will get to enjoy the space experience. Five Virgin Galactic SpaceShips are to be built.

Short but sweet Major step. Lego: Pathfinder Space Ship, an Incredibly Complex LEGO Masterpiece. Daedalus Project. Rendered image of the Daedalus, courtesy of Adrian Mann In the winter of 1973, the men and women of the British Interplanetary Society convened in London to engage in some lively interstellar discourse. The members' intent was to draw up a workable design for an extremely ambitious unmanned space probe, one capable of reaching a neighboring star system within fifty years. Moreover, they limited themselves to using only current and near-future technology, as this would allow the theories to be translated into practice one day if the concept proved feasible. In order to reach even the nearest stars within the allotted fifty-year window, the thirteen scientists and engineers of the research group had a formidable task ahead of them.

Their space probe would be required to accelerate to astonishing speeds, and it would need to weather the constant battering of particles from the soup of space debris known as the Interstellar Medium. The project had three clearly stated guidelines: Image of the Day : New Year Dawns. Scifi.ign.com. By: jesuiscanadien When we last left the Doctor, he and Donna, and a very upset Martha were being kidnapped by an insistent TARDIS, finding themselves on a planet experiencing a guerrilla war.

The Doctor has a DNA sample taken forcibly and a daughter is created from the genetic material, downloaded with the military history, strategies, and combat techniques to fight the war in progress. The Doctor disavows the girl, just as Martha is kidnapped by the enemy, the Hath, and Donna works to convince the Doctor to accept her heritage, giving the girl the name Jenny. The Doctor, Donna, and Jenny are taken prisoner by the humans and their leader, Cobb, as the Doctor is a pacifist and Cobb is determined to find the Source by any means necessary, which the Doctor had located.

Hath Peck is lost to a black cess pool on the way, but Martha manages to catch up to the Doctor and his gang. Well, the Doctor sure has a good looking kid. I don? I?