There have been several pieces of news on the topic of Space, which has been very quiet since the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The first story is one of retrospection where the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's spokesman Tyrone Woodyard spoke up on what would have been possible had the troubles with the tiles on the shuttle been discovered before the shuttle returned, and put the chances of a rescue scenario as "technically possible, but very, very risky" to Wired.
Second, earlier in the week Wired also reported that NASA is bringing together a team of non NASA people who will be monitoring the agency as it returns to space. Included in the group will be leader Thomas Stafford and Richard Covey who piloted Discovery on the first flight after Challenger. "We are assembling some very seasoned veterans of lots of different experiences, who are not part of the (space) agency, to oversee ... our procedures and which options we chose and whether or not that's the right approach," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said at a breakfast meeting on Capitol Hill. The idea of the program moving back to space is a good sign, and is much needed to bring back the confidence of the American, even world's people.
Lastly, BBC News reported that several of the companies that are aiming for a commercial trip to space are progressing quite quickly towards their completed mission. The leader is Scaled Composites, who's entry in the X-Prize contest has already done several test flights. "SpaceShipOne is a reusable suborbital spacecraft developed in secret with an estimated $20 million (£12.4 million) of finance, by Burt Rutan and unveiled at a recent ceremony in the Mojave Desert, California. The aim of SpaceShipOne, which is carried aloft by the White Knight aircraft for the first part of its journey, is to win the $10 million X-prize which will be awarded to the first craft that can carry three people to an altitude of 100 km twice in a two-week period."
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