Readers will have noticed that more and more people are using the "T word" - that is "tourism" in the context of "space tourism", and using it positively, to support tourism as an objective of space development activities.

World famous science fiction author and visionary Arthur C. Clarke wrote in the February 1, 1999 issue of Space News that it's time to think seriously about building hotels in orbit.

The November/December 1998 issue of "STA Spacetrans", the newsletter of the Space Transportation Association, describes the first time that a NASA Administrator spoke out formally and positively in public about space tourism.

The classic article "Studies Claim Space Tourism Feasible" published in 'Aviation Week & Space Technology' the leading aerospace industry magazine on April 7, 1997, pp 58-60, is now available on the Internet here. The 3-page article, by Aviation Week reporter William Scott, described 3 presentations at the 1997 IEEE Aerospace Conference held in Snowmass, Colorado, and is of considerable historic interest in being the first article about space tourism to be published in Aviation Week (though not the first time that the words have been used).

Readers may like to review the Space Transportation Association Space Travel and Tourism Division's Bulletin Board of news and events at http://www.spacetransportation.org/bulletins.htm.

Buzz Aldrin, space tourism's most famous supporter, appeared with David Letterman "the most powerful man in American broadcasting" on November 3. His invitation was triggered in part by the orbital trip being taken by the 77-year-old John Glenn.

NASA Watch, the website that is famously "on NASA's case" has opened a new section on "Tourism and other non-traditional uses of space". Although still under construction as of this writing, expect to see this grow in the coming months.

At 2:19 pm today, the Space Shuttle Discovery carried US Senator John Glenn and six other astronauts into orbit in a nearly flawless launch. Glenn, the second American in space in 1961, returns to space at age 77.

So now we know - the long-sustained image that "Only extraordinarily fit people can go to space" is - A MYTH. The truth is that anyone can go - or at least anyone who would ride in an aeroplane.

The largest international space meeting each year is the annual Congress of the International Astronautical Federation ( IAF), the 49th of which took place this year from September 28 - October 2 in Melbourne, Australia.