No extra solar planets were known to exist prior to 1994. Since then, we've found 155. Some researchers say it's only a matter of a few years before we hit jackpot - the first earth like planet. Exoplanets are the guys in charge of the hunt.   http://exoplanets.org

Eaves dropping

August 15, 1977, Big Ear at the Ohio State University Observatory, recorded an alien signal, its observations recorded on a printout sheet. A professor circled the code and added a single comment in the margin: "Wow!" Not only was it extremely strong, but it also almost certainly came from outside the Earth. If you join SETI@home, you'll be part of SERENDIP, a world network of computers, attached to the world's largest radio telescope, the giant Arecibo dish in Puerto Rico. SETI is short for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and funded by Carl Sagan's Planetary Society.   http://www.planetary.org/html/UPDATES/seti/

Meteor/Killer Asteroid watch

American Meteor Society affiliates observe, monitor, collect data on, study, and report on meteors, meteor showers, meteoric fireballs, and related meteoric phenomena. Both amateur and professional astronomers.
AMS Meteor watch          http://www.amsmeteors.org/index.html
Killer Asteroid watch      http://www.space-frontier.org/Projects/TheWatch/

Laser search

A new addition to SETI, is a light/laser based search. Light-based SETI projects at Harvard and Berkeley, have optical telescopes search for flashes of light or for light whose energy is concentrated into an unnaturally pure color, either of which could be distinguished from the steady, multicolored natural light of a star.
http://www.planetary.org/html/UPDATES/seti/oseti_article.html

Allen Radio Telescope Array

Billionaire Paul Allen has committed $13.5 million to the Allen Telescope Array (ATA-32 and ATA-206), at the Hat Creek Observatory, 466 km northeast of San Francisco. The world's newest multiple use radio telescope array will total 350 6.1-meter dishes by 2010. In addition to other uses, the telescope will search for possible signals from technologically advanced civilizations elsewhere in the galaxy, increasing SETI search speed by 300 times at one-fifth the cost of comparable traditional radio telescopes. Scientists believe that radio waves, traveling at light-speed through interstellar space, may offer the easiest way to detect evidence of a technologically sophisticated civilization elsewhere in the galaxy. With sufficient collecting area, it is possible to detect signals from a distant technology that are no more powerful than those produced on Earth today.   http://www.seti.org

Infrared Spitzer

Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed, for the first time, suns like ours that have both planets and a debris disc.   http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer/index.shtml

Optical Hubble

Hubble is vital for spying on distant black holes, baby galaxies, and clues about the birth of the Universe. The telescope has provided stunning images over the years. A rescue mission is urgently needed to replace Hubble's failing battery and stabilizing gyroscopes.    http://hubble.nasa.gov/index.php

Gamma Ray Integral

The most sensitive gamma-ray observatory ever launched. 
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=21

Launched in 1999, the European Space Agency's X-ray Multi-Mirror satellite is the most powerful X-ray telescope ever placed in orbit. Scientists are sure the mission will help solve many cosmic mysteries, ranging from enigmatic black holes to the formation of galaxies.   http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=31249

Un-manned Missions

Titan watch        ONGOING

ESA's Huygens images continue to reveal the secrets of Titan. The results show a surface of wet sand with a thin solid crust, volcanoes, islands, rivers, lakes and streams - all embedded in a frigid -180 degrees Celsius orange haze. Instead of liquid water, Titan has liquid methane. Instead of silicate rocks, Titan has frozen water ice. Instead of dirt, Titan has hydrocarbon particles settling out of the atmosphere, and instead of lava, Titanian volcanoes spew very cold ice.   http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html

Voyager 1 and 2        ONGOING

Launched in 1977 a few weeks apart and now heading out of the solar system. Expected to continue to operate and send back data until at least the year 2020. Voyager 1 is now the furthest human-made object from the Sun. For the past two years or so, Voyager 1 has detected phenomena unlike any encountered before in all its years of exploration, probably entering the "termination shock" - the solar system's final frontier. This darkness of interstellar space is a vast expanse where wind from the Sun blows hot against thin gas between the stars.    http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov

Sail in Space         SPACESHIP LOST

A spacecraft without an engine - it is pushed along directly by light particles from the Sun, reflecting off giant mirror-like sails. Because it carries no fuel and keeps accelerating over almost unlimited distances, it is the only technology now in existence that can one day take us to the stars. The spacecraft will be launched from a submerged Russian submarine in the Barents Sea. It will be carried into orbit on board a Volna rocket - a converted ICBM left over from the old Soviet arsenal. Cosmos 1 will be the first Space mission ever flown by a non-governmental advocacy group.      http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/index.html

Deep Impact/Tempel 1        DEPARTED

The spacecraft is called Deep Impact just like the 1998 movie about a comet headed straight for Earth. NASA's goal is to blast a crater into Comet Tempel 1 and analyze the ice, dust and other primordial stuff hurled out of the pit. Mission planners say the energy produced will be like 4.5 tons of TNT going off — producing a fireworks display for the world's observatories. An interactive 3D orbital plotter has been developed to show the trajectories of the Deep Impact spacecraft as it approaches and runs closely past comet Tempel 1, on July 4, 2005 and collide with the comet. After observing the impact itself, the flyby spacecraft will continue in its obit about the sun, pass Mars on January 6, 2007, and return to the Earth in late January 2008.    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main/index.html
http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/

Saturn watch        ONGOING

NASA’s Cassini carried the Huygens probe and continues to research Saturn.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html

Mars watch        ONGOING

Spirit and Opportunity are motoring around Mars.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

All NASA/ESA missions  

Overview of current NASA/ESA missions.
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/timeline/current/current_missions.html

Available Private Expeditions

International Space Station

Space Adventures using Russian facilities. Mock launch and re-entry simulations, zero gravity flights and other mission-specific training exercises. The four to six month training sessions culminate with the ultimate experience: an eight to ten day spaceflight to the orbiting ISS. Around USD 25 million.     
Space Adventures         http://www.spaceadventures.com
Atlas Aerospace            http://www.atlasaerospace.net/eng/spacefl.htm
Incredible Adventures  http://www.incredible-adventures.com
Spacetopia (Japan)      http://www.spacetopia.com

MIG fighter jet/Star City

Space Experiences on Earth: Individuals can float weightless like astronauts on a parabolic zero gravity flight, view the Earth from 99 percent above its atmosphere in a MIG fighter jet, simulate space walks in an authentic space suit and more. These experiences are performed in Star City, the same professional training facilities where Russian cosmonauts, astronauts and military pilots perform their own training. Ticket price: $5,000-10,000.

Space Adventures       http://www.spaceadventures.com
Spacetopia (Japan) also offers Titanic dives       http://www.spacetopia.com
Incredible Adventures       http://www.incredible-adventures.com
Atlas Aerospace       http://www.atlasaerospace.net/eng
MIG only       http://www.flymig.com/packages/
Bill Span MIG only       http://www.costnet.com/mig.htm

Zero gravity flights

Weightless Flight in Russia and Sweden aboard Russian IL-76 MDK aircraft better known as the Flying Laboratory. In US aboard ZERO-G’s Boeing 727 aircraft G-force. Weightlessnes in roller-coaster spin ride To 25,000 feet. Regular launches from Florida (US), Baikonur (Rus), and above the Arctic Circle (Swe) although also available anywhere in North America if charter of entire flight. Ticket price: $3700 (approx).

X Prize Foundation Zero gravity       http://www.nogravity.com
Zero-Goup (Sweden)       http://www.zero-group.com
Spacetopia (Japan) also offers Titanic dives       http://www.spacetopia.com
Incredible Adventures       http://www.incredible-adventures.com
Atlas Aerospace       http://www.atlasaerospace.net/eng
Space Adventures       http://www.spaceadventures.com

Spaceflight Training  

NST spaceflight simulators in Santa Maria, California, near Vandenberg Air Force Base. In collaboration with
SpaceAvailable, LLC (SAL) of Newport Beach, California - a spin-off company of Universal Space Lines, LLC, founded by Apollo 12 and Skylab Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr.
http://www.spaceflight-training.com/

Mars Society: Looking for a few good Martians

"Volunteers Needed For MDRS Crews: Hard Work, No Pay, Eternal Glory.” The Mars Society is looking for a few good Martians. The Society does various Mars expeditions - on earth (Devon Island and Utah) - complete with daily dispatches and week-in-reviews. Applications are considered from anyone in good physical condition between 18 and 65 years of age. The Mars Society will pay travel and related expenses from Salt Lake City, Utah during training and simulation, but there will be no salary. Founder Robert Zubrin.    http://www.marssociety.org

Upcoming Private Expeditions

Virgin Galactic

2008 space flight fleet. Five- or nine-seater spacecraft are being designed by Burt Rutan to travel at three times the speed of sound. The journey into space will last around three and a half hours, go 70 miles above the planet, include six minutes of weightlessness and a view of the curvature of the Earth. David Bowies "Major Tom" will play on takeoff. To 300,000+ ft, (100 km) with SpaceShipOne eqvivalent. Ticket price: $208,000.      
http://www.scaled.com

Space Adventures

One-hour flights to space on a private reusable craft, allowing one to four passengers to witness a view of Earth in a weightless environment. No date yet. $102,000.  
 http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital

Dream Chaser

NASA researchers and SpaceDev work to develop a reusable, crewed spacecraft dubbed Dream Chaser. No tickets or date for take off yet.
http://www.nogravity.com

SpaceX (Pay-Pal's Falcon)  

Founded in 2002 by the 33-year-old SpaceX CEO South African Elon Musk, who earned multi-millions from the sale of Web-software maker Zip2 to Compaq in 1999 and of PayPal to eBay in 2003. Working on a 2 stage rocket that will undercut payload prices by two thirds when all glitches are worked out. SpaceX has recieved deposits to launch Falcon I in 2005 and Falcon V in 2006. The Falcon sits at Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Santa Barbara, California; the SpaceX test facility is in Texas.
http://www.spacex.com

Budget Suites

SpaceX rocket Falcon V will be the carrying vehicle for the prototype inflatable space hotel of Robert Bigelow, owner of Las Vegas-based Budget Suites of America Hotel Chain.    http://www.bigelowaerospace.com

IOS: Private Space flights in 2006

Founded in 1996 by husband and wife team Randa and Roderick Milliron, based in Mojave, California. Constructing two new rockets: the Nano, which will send tiny satellites into orbit, and the Neptune, a rocket capable of ferrying up to eight people into orbit. The team competes for the 50 million America's Space Prize and aim to begin the world’s first scheduled orbital tourism space flights in late 2006. The company has even ‘promotional fare’ tickets available. The flight will be a twenty-one degree, 250-mile altitude low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) for a period of up to seven days. CEO Randa Milliron says that the goal is to carry both cargo and humans between Earth and Moon and eventually to the rest of the Solar System.     http://www.interorbital.com

Armadillo: Doom and Quake creator builds the real stuff

Seven volunteers have been meeting in a Dallas warehouse for 3 years to build computer-controlled hydrogen peroxide rocket vehicles, with a parachute and compressible nose cone to ensure a soft landing. John Carmack, 33, the legendary coder behind the games Doom and Quake, started Armadillo Aerospace in 2001. Russ Blink is the test-pilot, whilst John will stay grounded at the computer-control.   
http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home

Amazon.com and Top Secret Blue Origin

In 1991 Jeff Bezos (40) did a stunt in Taco Bells commercials. In 1994 he founded Amazon.com and built personal worth of $4.3 billion (2004). In 2000, he founded project Blue Origin, currently building the seven-person sub-orbital vehicle "New Shepard”. HQ is in a 53,000-square-foot, one-story warehouse in a desolate part of Seattle. A possible launch pad will be in Las Cruces, N.M., near the White Sands Missile Range. The cost of development is estimated at $US30 million.

Blue Origin is actively hiring. They need engineers, but also generally talented individuals. One notable staff member is science fiction author Neal Stephenson ((“Snow Crash” and “Cryptonomicon”), who serves as a part-time advisor.     http://www.blueorigin.com

Rocketplane Ltd

In Oklahoma, a state tax credit was key to getting Rocketplane Ltd. funded to begin work on a reusable launch vehicle for space tourism flights that would originate from one of the state's old Air Force bases.     http://www.rocketplane.com

Xcor Aerospace

In California, Xcor Aerospace seeks government contracts to develop technologies that can be adapted to its real goal of developing its own passenger rocket.   
http://www.xcor.com

Space entrepeneurs ICSO

Space entrepreneurs are worried that the government may be blocking the progress of private space travel. But now they have their own group, the Industry Consensus Standards Organization (ICSO), to make their plea for less restrictions of space travel heard.    
 

Government Expeditions

International Space Station        ONGOING

Expedition 11.
 http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station

Cosmonauts to Space (Progress)    

Russian cargo ship Progress M-52 launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.  
 http://www.energia.ru/english
http://www.rusadventures.com/tour9.shtml?tour=9

Euronauts to Space (Soyuz)       LAUNCH APRIL 15, 2005

Italian Roberto Vittori will be the next ESA astronaut to fly to the International Space Station, on the 10-day Italian Soyuz mission, scheduled to be launched April 15 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The mission will exchange the current ISS Expedition 10 crew (Leroy Chiao and Salizhan Sharipov) for the ISS Expedition 11 crew (Krikalev and Phillips).
http://www.esa.int/esaHS/astronauts.html

Astronauts to Space (Discovery)       LAUNCH JULY, 2005

American Discovery with seven astronauts on board will be launched  in July.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

Astronauts to Space (Atlantis)       LAUNCH JULY 12, 2005

American Atlantis with crew of six will be launched from Cape Canaveral on July 12.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

Taikonauts to Space (Shenzhou 6)        LAUNCH FALL  2005

China's next mission is scheduled to launch September or October 2005, and the Taikonauts will orbit for up to five days in a Chinese rocket.  
http://www.calt.com.cn/new/english

Private Organizations

The Planetary Society

Founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Dr. Sagan was the author of many bestsellers, including Cosmos, which became the best-selling science book ever published in the English language. Sagan died December 20, 1996, but his society continues his legacy. The Planetary Society is a non-profit, non-governmental membership organization that supports and advocates exploration of the solar system and the search for extraterrestrial life. With 100,000 members in more than 140 countries, the Planetary Society is the largest space-interest organization on Earth. They support various projects and the website is a wealth of news on Space.      
http://www.planetary.org

The National Space Society (NSS)

An independent, international, grassroots nonprofit organization, NSS is dedicated to the creation of a spacefaring civilization. Founded in 1974 by Wernher von Braun, NSS is working as the preeminent citizen’s voice on space. The ultimate goal is "People living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth."
"Cultures that do not explore, die!" writes the Society in its mission statement. They want humanity to diversify, live and think out of the box, and go to outer space to survive. NSS also publishes the Space mag adAstra. Recently partnered with Space.com, the guys are another interesting addition to the ongoing grassroots Race for Space.      
http://www.nss.org/

The Space Frontier Foundation

Created in 1988 by Bob Werb, Jim Muncy and Rick Tumlinson, the space foundation is a media and policy organization composed of space activists, scientists and engineers, media and political professionals, entrepreneurs, and citizens from all backgrounds and all nations, "dedicated to opening the space frontier for all humanity within our lifetimes." The foundation's goal is large-scale permanent settlement of space, achieved by free markets and free enterprise. They give annual awards to space activists who have made the greatest contributions that year to opening the frontier. Most recently, an award went to Burt Rutan and the XPrize. The site is another wealth of space news.       http://www.space-frontier.org

The Space Tourism society       

Founded by its president John Spencer, STS is a non-profit society focused on space tourism. The aim is to design and build fleets of orbital access vehicles, orbital super yachts, and space and lunar cruise ships with names such as 'Orbital Ecstasy,' 'Ambrosia,' or 'Lady of the Stars,' to serve space tourist. Many of those going will have won international lotteries for their dream vacation. Target is the Walt Disney and Baron Hilton of the space tourism industry; "an industry destined to be the largest, most prestigious, and profitable industry off-world," they say.
http://www.spacetourismsociety.org

The Mars Society  

Founder Robert Zubrin caused a sensation by proposing Mars Direct, a way of getting to the Red Planet without stopping at either the ISS or the moon. The Mars Society offers the latest News from Spirit and Opportunity, and several projects on Earth simulating and researching the Mars environment: "Given the will, we could have our first teams on Mars within a decade," is the mission.
http://www.marssociety.org

International Space organizations  

Planetary Society has compiled links to organizations around the world.
http://www.planetary.org/html/links/spacegate-npo.html

Money

The Colony Fund  

Billionaire funding can't cover the development of everything required for commercial space infrastructure, sais Thomas Olson, chief executive of the Colony Fund. "We're starting from scratch," he said, describing communication and data systems and the parts that go into spaceships. "There's not enough wealthy patrons to be able to build this stuff by themselves." So there are funds set up. Colony Fund is one such: "Now the general public can take part in a small way, investing in a tiny part of a larger portfolio for something that has a lot of risk to it, but possibly some great rewards over a long time horizon." The first Colony Fund is intended to be a $500 million fund, a test model.      
http://www.colonyfund.com

Gold & Appel Venture Capital       FOUNDER CURRENTLY UNDER ARREST

Had a good month when Spaceship One made it: "If all your friends thought you were nuts and commercial space wasn't real, you could watch the evening news and find out that there was some reality here.” They now continue to invest in private Space.    

In-Q-Tel/CIA       

Mike Griffin, is a former NASA exec and president of the venture-capital firm In-Q-Tel launched 1999. This is another venture capital company interested in Private Space travel: A private non-profit enterprise founded by CIA ("but we are not looking for government-specific solutions"), with a mission to identify and invest in cutting edge technology. In-Q-Tel has evaluated over four thousand proposals, most from companies that had never previously considered working with the government, and invested in or otherwise established strategic relationships with more than 50 of these companies.
http://www.in-q-tel.com/about

Space and advertising

Jay Coleman/EMCI  

New York marketing guru Jay Coleman, president of Entertainment Marketing Communications International, or EMCI, held exclusive rights for X Prize corporate sponsorships. In 1996, Coleman broked a deal between Pepsi and Russian space companies to float a giant inflatable Pepsi can outside the Mir space station and film it for a television commercial. Four years later, there was a space campaign for Pizza Hut, their company logo plastered to an unmanned Russian Proton rocket. Now 7Up plans to acquire seats on the first commercial Space jets and organize sweepstakes to make space travel "a reality for everyone". All thanks to Coleman. "For an advertiser, space is totally uncluttered. If you come in and you sponsor sports, you're one of thousands of companies. If you get to be involved in space, you're on the cutting edge of what I believe is really going to be a big, big platform over the next 20 years."    
http://www.emcionline.com

Rick Tumlinson/LunaCorp/MirCorp/Xtreme Space

Rick co-founded the firm LunaCorp which produced the first ever TV commercial shot on the International Space Station for Radio Shack. He led the team which turned the Mir Space Station into the world’s first commercial space facility, and was a co-founder of the space firm MirCorp. Along the way he personally signed up Dennis Tito, the world’s first "citizen explorer," and has assisted in numerous other such projects. Rick is working on a book, The Case for the Moon, and is starting his own space firm, “XTreme Space.”    
http://www.lunacorp.com

Ticket sales, prizes and other   

Virgin: $1.45 billion in pledged tickets

Richard Branson is pouring $135 million into 5 private space crafts, scheduled for 2008. More than $1.45 billion in tickets has been pledged already, Richard claims. 7,000 people have lined up to pay $210,000 for the trip.

The list includes Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Dave Navarro, William Shatner from Star Trek and a Hollywood director who has booked an entire ship. In addition to that amount, Virgin has spent £14 million buying the licensing rights to Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne.    

Space Adventures: $2,000,000 in pledged tickets and $25 million Soyuz seats  

Space Adventures is the only company currently accepting deposits from suborbital clients, currently totaling over $2,000,000. These are also the guys who took Dennis Tito (former NASA engineer) privately to the International Space Station (ISS). SA has reserved four more Soyuz seats, the Russians sell them for $20 million each. In addition, Space Adventures is working on a plan for an all-commercial Soyuz flight to the station. The cost of two seats is about $50 million. Founded in 1998 by Eric Anderson, 30, currently the president and CEO, previously co-founder of Starport.com, an astronaut-endorsed space education and entertainment web site (Starport.com was sold to SPACE.com in June 2000).    
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital

America's Space Prize

$50,000,000 to be awarded latest by January 10, 2010. Spacecraft must reach a minimum altitude of 400 km (approx. 250 miles); complete two (2) full orbits, carry a crew of five people; dock with a Bigelow Aerospace inflatable space habitat and be capable of remaining on station for at least six (6) months; perform two consecutive, safe and successful orbital missions within a period of sixty (60) calendar days; no more than twenty percent (20%) of the Spacecraft may be composed of expendable hardware; the contestant must live and have its principal place of business in US; must not accept or utilize Government development funding.    http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/prize.html

Ansari XPrize: 10 million  

Awarded to SpaceShipOne. Founded by Peter Diamandis the Ansari XPrize got its name from financial contributor Anousheh Ansari; a female Iranian-born electrical engineer who made a fortune at the height of the Internet bubble, selling start-up Telecom Technologies to Sonus Networks for an estimated $440 million.    
http://www.xprize.org

WTN X Prizes  

To be awarded. The X Prize Foundation (XPF) and the World Technology Network (WTN) sponsor a series of new technology prizes in the new “Holy Grail" competitions. These "holy grail" goals might include cures for major diseases, teleportation, molecular assemblers, cold fusion and a wide variety of others with truly major societal implications.    
http://www.xprize.org

Market, risks and statistics

The market and the polls

80% of Americans under 40 said they wanted to travel to space. 10% adding that they would be willing to pay at least one years salary for it.

On a CNN poll, 38% out of total 27208 votes (10207 votes) said they'd be willing to pay 200 thousand dollars to go. (10207x200 thousand = 2 billions)    

The tourists  

In a survey conducted with individuals who have paid deposit for the Space Adventures flight that will ultimately cost $102,000 (USD), the clients said that they'd be be willing to fly on SpaceShipOne if a seat were made available on the first flight (69%), their biggest reason to see Earth from space (46%), prefer similar design to SpaceShipOne (72%), plan on repeat suborbital flights (51%) and have no preference for location of the suborbital spaceport (53%).    

Killer statistics

On a regular airplane, the risk of not making it to your destination is about 1 in 10 million, while on a military combat mission the odds are about 1 in 23,000. Military risk levels, rather than the current 1 in 50 for human spaceflight, could be a good target for Rutan's and other spacecraft, said last year Howard McCurdy, a space historian and professor of public affairs at American University in Washington, D.C to Space.com. Everest historic summit fatality rate is currently 1 in 10.

New Technology

Private hybrid rockets

Founded in 1997 by Jim Benson, SpaceDev provides a wide variety of safe, clean, simple, reliable and inexpensive hybrid propulsion systems. These systems safely and inexpensively deliver payloads to sub-orbital altitudes or enable satellites and on-orbit delivery systems to rendezvous and maneuver in space. These are the guys behind Rutan's hybrid rocket.   http://www.spacedev.com/newsite/templates/subpage3.php?pid=53&subNav=11&subSel=2

New jet to go anywhere in two hours  

NASA's new scramjet engine, taking oxygen from the atmosphere instead of carrying liquid O2 to ignite its fuel, broke its own speed record at nearly Mach 9.8, or 7,000 mph at about 110,000 feet. That's fast enough to get anywhere on the globe in two hours, or cross the Atlantic Ocean in half an hour. Unlike jet plane engines, which use fans to compress air, the X-43A uses no moving parts - the shape of its belly sucks in and compresses air at supersonic speeds. Carbon-carbon thermal protection material prevents the metal parts from melting.   

Ion engines

ESA’s SMART-1 new solar-electric propulsion technology is 10 times more efficient that the usual chemical systems employed when traveling in space. Smart-1 used solar panels to drive an ion, or charged - particle, engine on a ``leisurely'' voyage to the moon. The engine has been fired up intermittently during the craft's journey, with momentum carrying it the rest of the time. Ion technology was also used as a space mission's primary propulsion system by NASA's Deep Space 1 probe in 1998.

Image based self-positioning 

SMART-1 demonstrated new techniques for eventually achieving autonomous spacecraft navigation. The OBAN experiment tested navigation software on ground computers to determine the exact position and velocity of the spacecraft using images of celestial objects taken by the AMIE camera on SMART-1 as references. Once used on board future spacecraft, the technique demonstrated by OBAN will allow spacecraft to know where they are in space and how fast they are moving, limiting the need for intervention by ground control teams. 

Deep-space communication: Radio transmissions at very high frequencies

SMART-1 is testing radio transmissions at very high frequencies compared to traditional radio frequencies. Such transmissions will allow the transfer of ever-increasing volumes of scientific data from future spacecraft. With the Laser Link experiment, SMART-1 tested the feasibility of pointing a laser beam from Earth at a spacecraft moving at deep-space distances for future communication purposes.

Beaming to Mars, home for dinner

Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion, or magbeam propulsion, could cut the time required for long journeys around the solar system from years to weeks. The technology is currently developed at the University of Washington. The MagBeam system separates payload and power source; the power source stays in one place (for example, in permanent orbit around the Earth). Spacecraft are pushed to other parts of the solar system. A test mission is up within 5 years if funding remains consistent. If it works, quick trips to distant parts of the solar system could become routine. Robert Winglee, a UW Earth and space sciences professor is leading the project at the University of Washington.   
http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/mars.htm

Living Legends

Arthur C Clarke

British Arthur C. Clarke set out the principles of satellite communication with satellites in geostationary orbits in 1945. Clarke’s work led to the global satellite systems in use today, including satellite applications for weather forecasting using rockets and satellites for meteorological research and operations.

Author of many sci-fi novels, his most famous is "2001: A Space Odyssey." In 1985, he worked with Peter Hyams on the movie version of “2010: Odyssey Two”. Their work was done using a Kaypro computer and a modem, linking Arthur in Sri Lanka (where he has lived since 1956) and Peter Hyams in Los Angeles. His thirteen-part TV series Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World in 1981 and Arthur C. Clarke's World of strange Powers in 1984 has been screened in many countries and he has contributed to other TV series about space, such as Walter Cronkite's Universe series in 1981. In Sri Lanka, he is pursuing underwater exploration and writing.    http://www.clarkefoundation.org