by Alan Breakstone

By Samuel M. Coniglio, IV

by Alan Breakstone

Space Adventures, Ltd., the world's leading space experiences company, announced today the results of an informal survey of the over 100 people who have paid deposits to fly on a suborbital vehicle.

There is considerable controversy about the June 21st flight of SpaceShipOne, with some commentators saying that it is of little importance. So here is Space Future's view.

Scaled Composites has announced that SpaceShipOne will make its first flight to space on June 21, 2004 – a date that will live in the history of space flight along with those of other epoch-making flights, such as the first ever flight to space, by Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, and the first private flight to space, by Dennis Tito on April 28, 2001.

The Civilian Space Exploration team, an amateur group of rocket enthusiasts, built a rocket that reached the edges of space on May 17, 2004. The GoFast did not carry passengers, yet this speaks well for space tourism: if a group of amateurs can send an unpiloted rocket into space, how hard can suborbital tourism be? Combined with the latest SS1 flight, how can anyone say space travel and tourism isn't possible?

Arlington, Va. -- May 18, 2004 --Space Adventures, Ltd., the world's leading space experiences company, announced today it has begun working with Dentsu, the world's largest advertising agency, to send a prominent Japanese figure to the International Space Station ( ISS) within the next several years.

Press Release

The X-Prize has been renamed the Ansari X-Prize after two Iranians, Anousheh and Amir Ansari, contributed an unspecified—but probably spectacular—sum to the X-Prize Foundation.