we have lift off

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49141123/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.UF_RRlG076A


CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — With an eye toward developing a commercial spaceport, Florida has asked NASA to transfer 150 acres of land north of the shuttle launch pads and the shuttle runway to Space Florida, the state's aerospace development agency.

"Florida believes that the properties identified in this request are excess to the needs of the U.S. government," Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Carroll, who is also chairwoman of Space Florida, wrote in letter to NASA chief Charles Bolden and Ray LaHood, secretary of Department of Transportation, which oversees commercial space transportation in the United States.
The letter, dated Sept. 20, was posted on the state's Sunburst public records website.

A week earlier, Space Florida agreed to spend $2.3 million for environmental studies, land surveys, title searches, appraisals and other activities to lay the groundwork for Cape Canaveral Spaceport, a proposed state-owned commercial complex that would be licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration and operated like an airport.

$200,000 and you can go to space.. i heard this on the radio today and seen this thread and just remembered it, awesome idea.. hope some day i win the lottery so i can go check out space
http://www.virgingalactic.com/

and then some, theres soon to be a space hotel by bigalow aerospace so i dont see why branson wouldnt partner up with this dude to shuttle people to and fro.

cant wait to live on mars already investing in property

srh88 said:

$200,000 and you can go to space.. i heard this on the radio today and seen this thread and just remembered it, awesome idea.. hope some day i win the lottery so i can go check out space
http://www.virgingalactic.com/

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Unfortunately that is only a salesman's version of space. The Scaled Composites tech does not scale to orbit. It's pushed to the limit for that silly suborbital hop. cn

I hate it when I suborbitally hop.

silasraven said:

and then some, theres soon to be a space hotel by bigalow aerospace so i dont see why branson wouldnt partner up with this dude to shuttle people to and fro.

Click to expand...

i just heard about it today lol... i dont follow too much space stuff, but.. if bill nye the science guy says we gotta exlore so.. we gotta explore... BILL! BILL! BILL!.. (if anyone remembers that shows theme song)

[video=youtube;FVZmL5UARcs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVZmL5UARcs[/video]

cannabineer said:

Unfortunately that is only a salesman's version of space. The Scaled Composites tech does not scale to orbit. It's pushed to the limit for that silly suborbital hop. cn

Click to expand...

it would still be awesome. lol

amazing view
http://www.inquisitr.com/328716/teen-takes-pictures-of-earth-from-space-with-simple-diy-project/

British 19 year-old Adam Cudworth accomplished a feat generally reserved for astronauts and NASA scientists. Using a simple do-it-yourself project that he created during his spare time after school and then launched last Thursday, Cudworth took pictures of the Earth from space.


Cudworth’s homemade spacecraft included a camera he purchased from eBay for just under $50, a GPS to aid in the retrieval of the device once it landed, a radio transmitter, and a microprocessor all encased in an insulated weatherproof box. The British teen launched the device 20 miles into the sky with the aid of a large helium weather balloon reports Yahoo! News.
The device recorded two and a half hours of incredible video footage comparable to the images NASA’s team would produce after spending hundreds of millions of dollars and given much more technologically advanced instruments and tools. The Daily Mail notes that Cudworth is modest about the feat he accomplished, stating:

http://www.space.com/17775-sarah-brightman-space-adventures-announcement.html
so we have our first investors,AMERICA GOT BEAT!!!!!!! russia will send up the first private citizens 8 of them. they have trained in russia to be prepared. there tickets were between 20-35 million. so i think we have our first investors coming on board
people dont spend money for no reason to come back empty handed. they will probably be conduct some sort of research and bring it back. so get ready people next month space x will launch there rocket to the station on the 7th and the russians on the 10th. so allot is going on to the station.maybe russians will gett a ride back from space x i dont know yet.http://www.space.com/17706-spacex-dragon-space-station-cargo-mission.html
http://www.space.com/video
mars had flowing water. so now with exsperiments going up and people studying w/e someone might try to taraform mars.
Famed soprano singer Sarah Brightman will make a 'groundbreaking announcement' about space travel next month, according to the U.S. space tourism company Space Adventures.

Brightman will hold a press conference in Moscow Oct. 10 at 4:00 p.m. Moscow time (8:00 a.m. EDT). She will appear with UNESCO Artist for Peace Mikhail Gendelev and Eric Anderson, chairman of the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures.
Space Adventures has brokered deals to send seven private citizens aboard Russian spacecraft to the International Space Station. These space tourists typically train extensively in Russia before their trips, and spend about two weeks in Earth orbit. Their ticket prices have ranged from about $20 million for the first traveler, American investor Dennis Tito, in 2001, to $35 million for the most recent space tourist, Canadian circus-founder Guy Laliberte, in 2009.

http://www.space.com/18196-lynx-suborbital-space-plane-photos.html
http://www.space.com/18241-orion-nasa-spaceship-2014-test-flight.html
the first link is a prototype to what will really be out there and the cost of the ticket is only 95,000 which is 105,000 less than space ex. the second is kinda cool untill you realize how slow nasa is with their progress. orion is a capule that will take 4 people to the moon mars asteroids ect. but here the catch and bummer it will not be launched till 2021. so with alll these space venture companies it seems nasa IS falling behind and probably very soon will become just a museum for people who want to see the first space company to launch a man to the moon. yeah it kick started all space ventures....yeah right it was russia with their sputnik. but still nasa is cool to look at but with soo many companies coming out at this point its like soon enough nasa will have to pull allot of strings to get those years dialed down to something alittle more timely. o and i dont have a link but china is eyeing new rockets and stuff for its space station.


and russia just launched its people to go to the station this coming up whenever not sure if its the private citizens or whom it is. with more and more occupancy in space it will come down to who is willing to throw their toys in the air to help people live up there.

[video]http://www.space.com/18573-mojave-bakes-aerospace-genius-video.html[/video] boring, but at least its something to get this out there. http://www.space.com/18565-mars-rover-curiosity-discovery-mystery.html
the mars rover may have found something and it will take a couple of weeks to figure out what it is and in the mean time there has been another conferance for the space race to the moon its done by google. 30 mill purse 20 for first and 10 for second. remember nasa made a statement saying they will have a base by 2030, russia and china 2025 and mars by mars one in 2023-25.
A private race to the moon with robotic probes may kick off a lunar "water rush" that helps humanity explore asteroids, Mars and other deep-space destinations, some scientists say.
The 25 privately funded teams competing in the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize may perform vital prospecting work that will lay the foundation for large-scale exploitation of moon water, leading to cheaper and more efficient space exploration, the idea goes

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has apparently made a discovery "for the history books," but we'll have to wait a few weeks to learn what the new Red Planet find may be, media reports suggest.http://www.space.com/16570-new-water-searching-moon-rover-begins-testing-video.html

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 a trip.
In Musk's vision, the ambitious Mars settlement program would start with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, who would journey to the Red Planet aboard a huge reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane.
http://www.space.com/18596-mars-colony-spacex-elon-musk.html

so that makes space X and Mars one for mars and nasa,russia,china for the moon.

http://www.space.com/18648-robot-balloon-space-tourism.html

Not all space tourism is rocket science. A newly successful test of a balloon could allow paying human customers to enjoy stunning Earth views and the weightless astronaut experience by 2014.

The test balloon carried a humanoid robot up to an altitude of almost 20 miles (32 kilometers) on Nov. 12 — just a few miles shy of where skydiver Felix Baumgartner leaped from during his "space dive" in October. Startup Zero 2 Infinity wants to eventually offer hours of flight time for space tourists to do whatever they want in a near-space environment.
"Some people will want to tweet," said Jose Mariano Lopez-Urdiales, founder and CEO of Zero 2 Infinity. "Some will want to put down a carpet and pray to mecca. Some people will want to eat their favorite buffalo wings while they're up there."


The Spanish company already has waitlist customers who paid an early deposit of almost $13,000 (10,000 euros) as the first installment out of a total ticket price of $143,000 (110,000 euros). It has also attracted funding from the world's second-largest balloon manufacturer, Spain's third-largest bank, and several angel investors by proving its concept step-by-step and by relying on proven helium balloon technologies.
Flight testing took place at an Air Force base near Virgen del Camino in Spain. But Lopez-Urdiales envisions future flights launching from many other locations in the country.

How will that do weightless? cn

its the free fall, and at a point of space just enough to get some wieghlessness
mercury was just found to have water so, mars and mercury become back ups anlong with passing astriods. for that price i'll run an exsperiment about how to inject a plant with statolith particles so water can get to the roots in space.
http://www.space.com/18687-water-ice-mercury-messager-discovery.html

Ohhh that sucks. I'd have expected to return in the balloon for a soft landing. cn

http://www.space.com/18796-back-to-the-moon-for-power-scientist-says-go-video.html

back to the moon for power^^^^^^

and it will cost 1.5 billion round trip to the moon for a stay and back. the guy who came up with this is also inthe contest for googles lunar x prize. so more and more people are commenting on having the capabilities of space flight forthe coming years. and this is just the start.http://www.space.com/18800-golden-spike-private-moon-company.html

http://www.gizmag.com/qu8k-rocket-derek-deville-100kft-micro-prize/20119/
derek launched a rocket made of aluminum almost into orbit. the launch rocket is 8 inches wide and 14 feet long 320 lbs. launched in 92 seconds. amazing video
Launched from Black Rock Desert in Nevada on September 30 in an attempt to win John Carmack's 100kft Micro Prize, Derek Deville's home-built Qu8k rocket reached an altitude of 121,000 feet (36.8 km) after 92 seconds flight ... and captured some excellent video footage along the way.
http://youtu.be/5HTwbpjBUOk the video wont embed even by clicking the icon the site also has it. check it out.