Amazon boss shows off spacecraft:

The billionaire founder of Amazon.com has released the first images of the launch of a private spacecraft that could bring space travel to the masses.

A video of the cone-shaped Goddard vehicle shows it climbing to about 85m (285ft) before returning back to Earth.

The test launch took place in November 2006 in a remote part of Texas, but details have only now been released.

(reminded by Nerdshit).

Stephen Hawking plans to go into space in 2009:

World renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking wants to go to a place he has only theorized about in his long career: space.

“This year I’m planning a zero-gravity flight and to go into space in 2009,” he was quoted as saying in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Hawking, 65, has said he hopes to travel on British businessman Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic service, which is scheduled to launch in 2009. The service will charge space tourists about $200,000 US for a two-hour, suborbital trip some 140 kilometres above the Earth.

(via Monkey Filter).