Richard Garriott has the best geek cred, ever. Not only was his father an astronaut, but also he earned a not-so-small fortune writing videogames. Garriott plays with the most awesome toys (he owns a freakin’ Sputnik), lives in the coolest house (featured on HGTV and MTV’s Cribs), and has the most fun of anyone you’ll ever meet.

According to a BBC article , Blue Origin, the aerospace company launched by Amazon.com's founder Jeff Bezos, has released images of its spacecraft, which launched in November. The launch was viewed only by intimates of Bezos and his project but was captured on camera.

The New York Times has written an article about space fashion (registration required). In brief, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Rocketplane Ltd. are sponsoring a zero-gravity fashion competition "for clothes that look good in zero gravity. The best designs will appear in a fashion show in Tokyo this fall."

According to Business 2.0 magazine via CNN, even though suborbital tourism and space hotels do not currently exist, "[a]ll, however, have the potential to generate astronomical returns during the next decade."

By Carl Roberts

By Carol Pinchefsky and Alan Breakstone

A documentary on space tourism will be appearing on Thursday, January 31, at 9pm EST on the Travel Channel. _Space: The Final Vacation_ promises an out-of-this-world look at the armchair astronaut's most coveted destination.

According to MSNBC, Mark Burnett, the producer of “Survivor” who envisioned and realized 16 castaways duking it out for survival, like Gilligan’s Island with an edge, has made an even more daring programming decision: He plans a new “Survivor” series that will send 13 to 15 contestants to Star City, Russia. After a process of elimination, one lucky winner will be sent to Mir Space Station.