If you’re patiently awaiting the launch of Virgin Galactic, there’s something new to keep you entertained for a little bit. Bulldozers and cranes at Spaceport America in Las Cruces, New Mexico have been moving dirt and rocks around to get things ready for rockets, shuttles, and spaceships. Things have been progressing so well that public tours will begin in December—looks like a great holiday gift.

The tours will require a snazzy hardhat, because of course, it’s a work zone and they don’t want any lawsuits injuries. Visitors will learn all about the history of New Mexico from conquistadors to the state’s future in outer space tourism. The highlight of the tour will be to see the runway and the vertical launch pad up close and personal. Maybe you'll even be able to add your initials if the concrete is still wet. ]]> kjb 2009-11-03T09:19:21-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/5/151621/029

Cirque Du Soleil founder and "I'm so rich I could go to space" mega-billionaire Guy Laliberté has—fittingly—taken off from Kazakhstan on his way to the International Space Station. Now that he's entered orbit, he's officially become the latest in a slowly increasing list of space tourists. Unlike other space tourists, though, Laliberté isn't just going for pleasure. He's bundling his trip into a broader program of environmental and anti-poverty activism.

Here's where things get a little bit dicey for us. Laliberté seems really sincere and the organization he's promoting, the One Drop Foundation that he founded, literally does the Lord's work getting water to people who don't have it. But we can see how the particular way he's chosen to highlight his cause might engender, in a certain kind of person, a potential... snideness:]]> Omri 2009-10-05T15:59:31-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/16/154135/729

If you want to be a space tourist today, pretty much your only option is to pay a space tourism company hundreds of millions of dollars to hook you up with the Russians. While that usually works—and it doesn't always—it's hardly what most people mean when they talk about broad-based "space tourism." They mean an industry where space is accessible as a luxury vacation option to a variety of tourists.

A new report on the industry insists that the only way to open up outer space is to start small: ]]> Omri 2009-09-16T16:39:37-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/17/124248/555

If you're very rich, very bored, and have a very deep need to one-up your shark diving and sandboarding friends, space tourism company Space Adventures will train you, put you on the back of a Russian rocket, and shoot you into outer space. They've been doing it for over a decade and they've become pretty good at it, sending several tourists into orbit to the tune of over $170 million.

The company offers all kinds of packages, from a lunar mission and orbital spaceflights to zero gravity walks on the International Space Station. This is usually where we'd give you the pricing for each separate package, but after the first dozen or so million dollars we lose track. Suffice it to say that the lunar mission, which takes tourists around but not onto the surface of the moon, clocks in at a cool $100 million. No one has taken them up on the offer yet so there's still a chance for you to become the world's first private lunar explorer.

Apparently the Earthrise as seen from the dark side of the Moon is quite stunning this time of year. Or any time of year.]]> Omri 2009-08-17T14:09:36-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/7/20/12309/2511

Forty years ago today, you could look up into the night sky at the moon and know that way up there, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were hopping around and generally making history as the first men to walk on the moon. Now that it's been four decades since that seminal moment of "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" and no one has walked on the moon since 1972, it's about time we look back and reflect on the physical and technological feats that were accomplished to bring this about.

Sure, there are tons of events this week in celebration, and Louis Vuitton threw an astronaut party last week, but the real action is at home on your computer. It's called "We Choose The Moon," and it's a flash website that effectively re-broadcasts the transmissions between Houston Command and Apollo 11 throughout their mission. Along with browsing historical photographs, the site allows you to follow along with a livestream, three Twitter accounts (@AP11_CapCom, @AP11_Spacecraft, and @AP11_Eagle), and a route map that progresses in real time with the mission as it was fourty years ago.

There's a lot of technical phrases, but also quips from the astronauts about dealing with lack of gravity and passing time in outer space, and the best part is that they're the actual transmissions! Since today is the day for the lunar landing and moonwalk, tune in or install the desktop widget to experience history all over again—we recommend forwarding it to your parents and grandparents who watched the original event on TV in 1969.

Related Stories:
· We Choose The Moon [Official Site]
· Apollo 40 Years, Event Schedule [NASA]
· Where to Celebrate The 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing [Jaunted]

[Photo: National Air and Space Museum] ]]> JetSetCD 2009-07-20T12:50:20-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/7/17/11588/2961

The 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11's Landing on the Moon will happen on Monday, July 20, 2009 but the moon landing celebrations have already begun. We rounded up a few of them for you last week and HotelChatter's got the skinny on a moon landing hotel package at the Moon Rise Hotel but there are a few more moon events you might want to check out.

Kennedy Space Center
There will be a free concert at The Kennedy Center's Concert Hall on Saturday at 8pm. Tickets are on a first-come, first-serve basis and will be extremely limited. Ticket distribution begins at 10am in the Hall of Nations until noon (or until all tickets have been given out.) But if you can snag a pair, you'll be treated to performances of Fanfare from 2001: A Space Odyseey and the theme songs from Lost in Space, Star Trek, Star Wars and E.T.

Virginia Living Museum
Folks near Newport News, Virgina can pop into the Virginia Living Museum this weekend for their "Astronaut" special at 11:30am and 12:30pm. This is a full-dome immersive experience that shows you what a rocket launch is like from inside the body of an astronaut. "Discover the perils that lurk in space as we subject ‘Chad,’ our test astronaut, to everything that space has to throw at him." Also folks from NASA Langley will be on hand to talk about sending more humans to the moon and Mars. Each show is $4 plus museum admission. ]]> juliana 2009-07-17T13:40:18-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/7/11/151857/951

It was 40 years ago this month that man first stepped foot on the Moon, and celebrations around the country are reminding Americans of just how amazing the feat was. For those who need a refresher, the Apollo 11 mission took off from Cape Canaveral at the Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969, shooting Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin (pictured) into outer space with the help of the Saturn V rocket. Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin had the singular pleasure of traipsing along the rocky lunar surface, while poor Collins orbited above. ]]> Victor Ozols 2009-07-11T15:18:57-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/