The International Space Station is getting a new room

"LAS VEGAS (AP) — NASA is partnering with a commercial space company in a bid to replace the cumbersome "metal cans" that now serve as astronauts' homes in space with inflatable bounce-house-like habitats that can be deployed on the cheap."

I'm glad that Bigelow Aerospace is being allowed to show just what their systems can do.  Their Genesis I and Genesis II modules are still orbiting the earth and can be tracked along with the ISS at the following link.

Our Planet Earth from Space

Bigelow is still working on their BA330 Module which is much larger than their two previous modules, and the TransHab systems are getting proven in space.  And hopefully in the coming years space tourism at an reasonably affordable price will be the jump start necessary to increase our use of space and the second step of our possibly colonizing other planets.

More on Asteroid mining

Can't you just tell one of my first loves was space?

"NASA is considering a $2.6 billion asteroid-retrieval mission that could deliver a space rock to high lunar orbit by 2025 or so, New Scientist reported last week. The plan could help jump-start manned exploration of deep space, carving out a path to the Red Planet and perhaps even more far-flung destinations, its developers maintain."

YAY!!!

I grew up in the 70's at the height of the Apollo Program.  As a kid I was given a model of the Saturn V with the LEM and the CSM.  The whole model was almost 4 feet tall.  I also had models of the CSM and the LEM that were almost 8 inches tall themselves.  I read books about the space program, I begged my father for books and models about the Mercury and Gemini program in addition to more Apollo models.  I read hundreds of science fiction novel y Asimov, Heinlein and others.  I wanted to go to space, live on a space station, be able to ride a taxi from the earth to the moon.

In short I was Space Struck.

Well budgets and political situations changed and space was put on a back burner.  It still is on the back burner, but now on the back back burner of the government.  However Private companies are bringing it to the front burner, a little bit at a time.

And I'm happy to see that.  I just hope that my kids can have the same excitement about space travel that I once had.  And that Private space travel can bring about that sense of wonder soon.