In a July 14, 1999, speech to the Washington Space Business Round Table (reported in -Space News_, August 2, p 15) FAA Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation Patricia Grace Smith laid out her vision of converting space transportation "...into a real mode of transportation". By this she means reaching the situation "... when a multitude of entrepreneurs will open space to all kinds of activities: thrill-rides, vacationers, industry and even trips to the Moon and beyond."

Over 100 people from around the world gathered at the Space Transportation Association's "Going Public" Space Tourism conference in Washington, D.C. to learn more about the issues inhibiting space tourism from becoming a viable endeavor.

The 2nd International Symposium on Space Tourism took place in Bremen from April 21-23, organised by Professor Uwe Apel of Bremen Technical University as Chair of the Program Committee, and Hartmut Mueller of Space Tours Gmbh as Chair of the Host Committee. Among the 26 papers presented, several are destined to become recognised as 'classic' papers in the field, establishing an important new element of accepted wisdom among professionals in the field, or creating what will be seen as a milestone in the future.

The Space Tourism Pavillion will be a feature at this year's Tomorrow's World Live exhibition, organised and sponsored by the BBC Tomorrow's World programme, the UK's most popular science and technology show.

The newly formed Space Travel and Tourism devision of the STA will be hosting a space tourism conference in Washington this coming June, entitled:

Over the past few weeks, two self-made billionaire businessmen have established companies with the stated objective of playing roles in the commercial space tourism industry that is becoming increasingly widely recognised as the true future of space activities.

The team that produced the historic NASA/STA report, General Public Space Travel and Tourism, has now published Volume 2 - Workshop Proceedings, NASA/CP-1999-209146, dated February 1999.

"October Sky" is a delightful film based on the autobiographical book "Rocket Boys" by Homer Hickham Jr, which tells of his inspiration as a teenager by the launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957. As a result he decided he wanted to build rockets, although his father wanted him to follow in his footsteps as a coal-miner. Encouraged by his school-teacher and his mother, Homer began building model rockets with some friends, and through persistence they ultimately won a national science competition - and scholarships that allowed them to escape from coal-mining. (Homer himself ended up working for NASA, from where he recently retired.)

The following are events open to the public that concern space tourism

Here is another web site with a good collection of space tourism (and