Have you ever longed to hop aboard one of the space shuttles bound for outer space? Have you daydreamed of spending a week or two on the International Space Station?

Your wishes might come true now that Space Adventures is looking to send a couple of regular folks into space in 2008 and 2009 aboard a Soyuz craft, and the firm will soon be selling seats for the low, low price of $100 million apiece.

Each experience includes cosmonaut training and over a week in space orbiting the Earth aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

"With the successful flights of the first and only five private space explorers, we not only created the space tourism industry, but now, because of the global market demand, we have secured two additional Soyuz seats and have proposed to the Russian space agency the purchase of seats in 2010, and beyond," said Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures. "The unique provision to Space Adventures of these commercial Soyuz seats has enabled my team to engage with potential clients from all over the world who have the interest in private spaceflight, the financial capability and the insatiable desire to explore."

Space Adventures, the only company to have successfully launched private explorers to space, is headquartered in Vienna, VA. with an office in Moscow. The company’s advisory board includes Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, Shuttle astronauts Sam Durrance, Tom Jones, Byron Lichtenberg, Norm Thagard, Kathy Thornton, Pierre Thuot, Charles Walker, Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev.

If being an innovator is your thing, then consider this BioSuit. Straight from MIT, this suit affords greater mobility and any punctures can be patched quickly. You won’t have to worry about atmosphere for a while, as it just might make it on a mission to Mars. In the meantime, it is still here on Earth.

like space? here’s 8GB worth. Kingston’s done it again. Its’ new DataTraveler II Plus max is 8 gigs, along with a $154 price tag. Not too bad.

The US and EU are entering into an agreement to allow their satellite navigation systems to work together to provide more accurate images and information. The satellites would send information on the same radio frequency, enabling receivers to get signals from both systems and combine the data.

The US already has 30 satellites orbiting the earth and the EU aims to have 30 satellites up in space by around 2010 with a fully operational Galileo system by 2012. The United States is in the process of updating its GPS system — procuring new satellites that would launched into space by 2013.

On August 7, the Endeavour will launch itself into space once again this year.  Teacher/Astronaut Christa McAuliff has been waiting 22 years for this day and will operate the shuttle’s robotic arm, transfer cargo, and even report to students at three different schools from space.  It would’ve been nice to have my science teacher teach astronomy from space.

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