A "Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans" chaired by Norman Augustine has recently been anounced, to report at the end of August or later. A potentially important piece of good news is that "stimulating commercial space flight capability" is one of the subjects to be addressed by the review.

Dr. Simonyi is currently on his second trip to space, which is the seventh civilian trip brokered by US company Space Adventures. However, it will be the last for civilian space explorers for the foreseeable future. Due to expansion of the International Space Station ( ISS) crew from three to six starting in April, there will be no extra seats aboard the Soyuz capsules for non-professional space travelers.

Right now, there are two types of people who go to space, astronauts and tourists. They're easily differentiated in one respect: tourists pay for their journey. But when you consider how hard these tourists have to work before merely setting foot on the International Space Station ( ISS), you realize the word “tourist” is an oversimplification of the process that these adventurers currently undergo.

by Carol Pinchefsky

by G.B. Leatherwood

For advocates of space tourism, the year 2004 can be conveniently summed up in one word: "SpaceShipOne". That project could hardly have gone better: after just three powered test-flights, starting on the centenary of the Wright brothers' first flight, SpaceShipOne reached space three times in 2004, thereby winning the Ansari X-Prize of $10 million.

by Carol Pinchefsky

As the test flight program of Scaled Composites Inc's sub-orbital, passenger-carrying rocketplane "SpaceShipOne" progresses steadily, it performed its second gliding flight on August 27. Described on Scaled Composites' web-site the flight successfuly achieved all its objectives, which are listed as:

XCOR Aerospace, the rocket development company, partnered with Space Adventures, the US space tourism travel agency, has recently announced its new “Xerus” project to develop a sub-orbital rocket-plane capable of making passenger flights to an altitude of 100 km.

In a short item entitled “Tourism Cost Realities” in Aviation Week and Space Technology (February 4, p 17) Boeing gives some hints about recent work on a space tourism vehicle. Boeing's conclusion is that they could not develop that vehicle on a commercial basis - but the figures they quote actually strongly support the case for funding the production of space tourism vehicles.