There are hundreds of operational satellites in orbit above us…as well as thousands of decommissioned satellites and their detritus, known as space junk. To date, 19,000 of these not-so-heavenly bodies are currently being tracked, but it is estimated that over 600,000 pieces over 1-centimeter wide exist.

Sean O'Keefe, former head of NASA, may have been a passenger on a DeHavilland DHC-30 aircraft that crashed in a mountainous area in the Alaska wilderness Monday night as reported by CNN.

On Thursday, 2009 March 12, a tiny piece of space debris from an old rocket motor caused the three astronauts aboard the International Space Station ( ISS) to don their space suits and hustle to the attached Soyuz spacecraft just in case—just in case the 13-centimeter-diameter (about five inches wide) poked a hole in their home away from home.

Usually no means no, but not to the folks building Spaceport America, a commercial spaceport currently in development and earmarked for space tourism. In fact, Steve Landeene, executive director of the New Mexico Space Authority (NMSA), viewed the loss of a tax increase referendum in Otero County, New Mexico, that would support Spaceport America as little more than a temporary setback.

Jim Benson, 63, founder of SpaceDev, the first publicly traded space company, died October 10, 2008, from a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor, with which he was diagnosed in 2007.

by G.B. Leatherwood.