1. 1.    Eating way too much food in remembrance of our starving fore-fathers
2. 2.    Turkey-fueled bickering descends into all out turf wars

With Congressmen, former astronauts, bloggers, and businessmen lining up on both sides of the new direction for NASA, only one thing is for sure: This issue won’t be resolved anytime soon.
Instead of wading into that debate, I thought I would take a quick peek into what’s new on the space tourism front (one of my favorite topics).

From Russia with Love

Russia could be considered the granddaddy of space tourism. Using private western wealth to maintain their space program Russia has launched a number of space tourists over the past few years, but has halted the practice due to a lack of space on upcoming flights.

But the retiring of the space shuttle and maintaining a Soyuz life boat on the ISS has been a boon for their program, and they have doubled their Soyuz capsule production. According to the head of Russia’s space corporation, Energia, an extra capsule could be built solely for the purpose of sending a tourist to space. If Russian supported space tourism returns, that raises the question will other countries follow suit?

Space Ship Two is On-Deck

Scaled Composites is not a company name most people recognize, but their products are another story. Back in 2004 Scaled Composites clinched the X-Prize for building a flying a reuseable sub-orbital spacecraft they had named “Space Ship One”. Quickly thereafter Sir Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic and pre-ordered a number of “Space Ship 2’s”.

Scaled Composites is usually pretty secretive on where their programs are, only unveiling products when they’re finished. But a few days ago they announced that White Knight 2 has carried Space Ship 2 up to an altitude of 45,000 feet! This means that unpowered gliding tests of SS2 are bound to happen shortly, followed by powered tests. According to Virgin Galactic, SS2 may be ready by the end 0f 2011 to carry passengers. For those interested, tickets start at $200,000 and there are already 300 people ahead of you in line.

Pass the Mashed Potatoes!

Since there are plenty of turkeys already involved in the NASA direction mess, let’s talk about the government’s role in space tourism. Currently the FAA is responsible for overseeing all space tourist flights, and by most accounts, it has been pretty easy going about regulation. One might think this would make them a good candidate for overseeing private commercial flights as well. The FAA certainly thinks so, however according to NASA, it is they who should be involved.

Bill Nelson, a senator from Florida believes that NASA should be in charge. He even went so far as to snap at FAA administrators that the FAA had no business being involved in commercial space, which hardly comes as a surprise considering his background.

In short, space tourism is alive and well, marching ever closer to being ready for the public. How big a role the American government will play in this has yet to be determined, but already battle lines are being drawn up.

Redorbit.com has an interesting piece on work being done by engineers from the University of Cincinnati as they convert solar energy into sugars.

Retired CIA operations officer Charles Faddis submitted a piece to CNN regarding the need for increased security for the engineers at modern nuclear facilities.

Officials in the UK recently laid down plans for a new $45 billion high speed rail network.

And finally this week, ArsTechnica takes a look at a massive Rube Goldberg Contraption competition for teenagers. No word yet on whether or not Pee Wee Herman will be entering.

Terry was part of a panel of sustainability experts Knovel convened on February 8th in Santa Ana, California to discuss Sustainability and Its Impact on Design and Innovation, a topic of growing interest to engineers.

Jon Fortune, Manager, Energy Advisory Service, California Center for Sustainable Energy,  also spoke about where we are in defining what it means to be green and reaching our goals. We are now setting the bar with new standards like Greenroads, a new sustainability performance metric for roadway design and construction. Listen as Jon reflects on whether we can ever achieve a sustainable world.

Watch the full video to learn what it means to be “green” today, market drivers and the evolution of corporate-level sustainability initiatives. And panelists shared their experience and perspectives to help engineers better understand how they can drive sustainability and collaborate with peers to achieve goals.