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There’s a new player in the bustling world of “commercial space,” although the “space” part is a matter of definition. A Tucson, Arizona-based start-up plans to use a helium balloon to lift big-ticket customers in a pressurized capsule to around 98,000 feet. That’s a journey to the edge of space, if not into space as traditionally defined. This artist's rendering shows the tourist capsule (inset) planned by World View Enterprises that would be carried by balloon to an altitude of 98,000 feet, from where passengers, paying $75,000, could see the Earth's curvature below and the black of space above. The passengers would ascend for 1½ hours before spending two hours admiring the world from on high. Then the capsule would be disconnected from the balloon and begin a free fall, but a parafoil above the capsule would become increasingly effective in the thickening air and the capsule would glide to the surface, landing on skids. Price point: $75,000. The eight passengers on board would presumably come from the same customer pool that feeds high-end luxury vacations, such as round the world golf tours. said Jane Poynter, co-founder of Paragon Space Development Corp., which has lined up investors for the new venture, World View Enterprises. More than just hot air: This artist's rendering released Tuesday by World View Enterprises shows its capsule to be lifted by a high-altitude balloon to around 98,000 feet It hopes to begin the balloon flights in three years. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announced Tuesday that, for purposes of regulation, the capsule will be treated as a space vehicle because it will be built to operate in outer space. it stated. The venture’s website promises a “truly transformative human experience.” The company said Tuesday it will offer There’s no distinct boundary between the atmosphere and space. Rather, the atmosphere steadily thins with altitude. On tourism trips, the World View balloon would rise to about 98,000 feet. One commonly referenced boundary of space is the Karman Line. That’s at 100 km (328,000 feet) and is roughly the altitude above which aerodynamic flight is impossible, even in theory. But in the minds of the people behind World View, they’re getting into space tourism. said Paragon co-founder Taber MacCallum. Poynter and MacCallum are well known in the entrepreneurial space community. In the early 1990s they spent two years as “bionauts,” sealed inside Biosphere II, a massive, greenhouselike structure in the Arizona desert. Their company, Paragon, has had contracts with NASA for life-support technology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZCAnLxRvNNc Toy Robot in Space! - HD balloon flight to 95,000ft. The highlights of the entire space flight from the music video for 'Edgar' by Lucky Elephant, this was published in 2010, but you can have a look at what you will experience with the ticket you may buy for your own space flight. The field of commercial space has been growing in recent years. Virgin Galactic, backed by billionaire businessman and adventurer Richard Branson, hopes to carry passengers on suborbital flights in 2014. It will use a rocket-powered vehicle called SpaceShipTwo, still in testing, that is designed to reach altitudes above the Karman Line. The company has sold nearly 650 tickets in advance. The ticket price recently jumped to $250,000 a seat, up from $200,000. World View’s MacCallum said. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9VXUTXroxIM A clip from You Have Been Warned/Outrageous Acts Of Science 'Homemade Heroes' episode on Discovery Channel (UK+International) and Science Channel (US), explaining the science behind filming in near-space using a helium filled weather balloon. Paragon also is working with billionaire Dennis Tito on his Inspiration Mars plan — a 500-day mission that, if technically feasible, would send two astronauts on a flyby of Mars during a rare alignment of the planets five years from now.

Ever since the late 17th century, it's been understood that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That's Newton's Third Law of Motion. But a group of German scientists recently came up with a trick that appears to break that law, one that lets light accelerate all by itself. And it could bring us faster electronics in the process. Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727) This is not a simple trick. It involves fiddling with the mass of photons, particles that are believed not to have a mass at all, and requires a form of negative mass, a state that scientists believe does not exist. That's the trick part. And that's also why it merely appears to break Newton's third law. All that said, it's pretty impressive. Newton Third Law: A force is a push or a pull upon an object that results from its interaction with another object. What these German scientists basically did is create an optical diametric drive. The basic principle behind a diametric drive calls for an object with positive mass to collide with an object with negative mass causing both to accelerate forever in the same direction. In the 1990s NASA tried and failed to build one, because it would make an awesome spaceship engine. However—and that's a big however—diametric drives are difficult to build because there's no such thing as an object with negative mass, at least not one that scientists have observed. Bear with me here. To get around these basic rules of physics and quantum mechanics, our friends the German scientists used photons to create something called effective mass. This is what a particle seems to have when it's responding to forces, and there is such a thing as negative effective mass. So the scientists sent a series of laser pulses through a two loops of fiber-optic cable—one bigger than the other—that connect at a contact point. As the pulses are traveling through the different-sized loops at slightly different times, they share photons creating an interference that gives them effective mass, some positive and some negative. In this so-called optical diametric drive, the pulses accelerate in the same direction. Cool, huh? Complicated, but cool. This is an illustration of the "super-photon." Needless to say, the idea of laser pulses that accelerate continuously bears big implications for anything that uses fiber optic cables. This method could make computers, communications networks, and so forth to get faster and more powerful. Just remember that it's a highly experimental new technology; it's going to take a while before this makes your iPhone better.

An 11-year-old Colorado boy may have found a way to literally make a beer that’s out of this world. Michal Bodzianowski, a sixth grader at Douglas County's STEM School and Academy in Highlands Ranch, Colo., recently won a national competition where his beer-making experiment will be flown to the International Space Station, the Denver Post reports. "I really didn't expect this from the start. I just designed this experiment to get a good grade in my class," Bodzianowski told KDVR. A sixth grader at Douglas County's STEM School and Academy in Highlands Ranch, Colo., recently won a national competition where his beer-making experiment will be flown to the International Space Station. The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education sponsored the competition where 11 proposals, out of 744 submitted by 3,900 students, were selected for the flight that will launch in December. Bodzianowski said the idea of bringing beer to space stemmed from a book he read about the Middle Ages. "It was a punishment for crimes, that you couldn't drink beer," Bodzianowski said describing the book called “Gruesome Facts” that explained why beer was popular during mediaeval times, "and most people didn't survive (that) because the water was contaminated." In space, Bodzianowski says that beer can be used “in future civilization as an emergency backup hydration and medical source." That way, if a project explodes, that wounds people and contaminates the water, "the fermentation process could be used to make beer, which can then be used as a disinfectant and a clean drinking source." His teacher, Sharon Combs, is proud of Bodzianowski’s success. “I never expected it to be one of my sixth graders,” Combs said. “But Michal’s got the natural curiosity of people who go after science. He’s very talented.” 6th-grader Michal Bodzianowski performs experiment that will soon test microbrewing in space. Bodzianowski’s experiment will be flown to the International Space Station out of Cape Canaveral in December. Once in space, an astronaut will follow Bodzianowski’s instructions and combine the ingredients of hops, malted barley, yeast and water in a 6-inch silicon tube. "We're just trying to get the yeast to react with the ingredients of beer," Bodzianowski said. "If it doesn't react at all, this tells you it won't work." Despite the risks, Bodzianowski remains optimistic. "It's going to be the greatest moment of my life, so far," he said.