Three weeks ago, we took a look at research from University of Western Ontario psychologist J. Philippe Rushton - reporting that 17- to 18-year-old men had an advantage of several IQ points over women, based on an analysis of SAT scores. Virtually everything about the politically incorrect study could spark a controversy: How do you define "g," the measure of general intelligence that Rushton looked for within the SAT tests? Are g scores, or even IQ scores, a valid measure of intelligence? Are there statistical or societal factors that could distort the scientific results? And the questions go on and on....

Anyway, Rushton sent along an e-mail today that could shed more light, as well as heat, on the issue of gender and intelligence. The tone of the correspondence is a bit academic, but feel free to digest it and add your comments:

"What a difference a day makes. Just 24 hours ago, I was telling a newspaper reporter that my confidence in the finding that men average higher IQ scores than women would be greatly enhanced if new studies could be found in support. These new studies, from other than the 'usual suspects,' are now to hand.

"The finding of a male IQ advantage of 3.6 points on g from the SAT by Jackson and Rushton (2006), as earlier of 4 to 8 points by Richard Lynn, Paul Irwing, and Helmuth Nyborg, is validated by reaction time (RT) measures. The effect size of 0.24 favoring males found by Jackson and Rushton is matched by simple and choice reaction time (SRT and CRT) effect sizes of from 0.17 to 0.40.

"RT tasks are so easy that 9- to 12-year-old children can perform them in less than one second. Children with higher IQ scores perform faster than children with lower scores, because RT measures the efficiency of the brain's capacity to process information, which is the same ability measured by intelligence tests. SRT correlates with IQ about 0.20, while CRT correlates about 0.40 - in aggregate, RTs can correlate 0.70 with IQ (Jensen, 2006).

"In a meta-analysis of 72 effect sizes derived from 21 studies (N = 15,003) of SRT over a 73-year period, Silverman (2006) found both secular trends and an effect size favoring men of 0.17. Several small sample studies have also found that men average faster on CRT, such as the Bonn Longitudinal Study of Aging (Mathey, 1976; reviewed in Deary & Der, 2005).

"The most definitive evidence comes from two recent population representative studies by Deary and Der, carried out to examine aging effects.

"In the first, Deary and Der (2005) tested [more than] 500 16-, 36-, and 56-year-olds from the West of Scotland. Participants were retested eight years later, at which time they also took the g-loaded Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT). Individual differences on the RT measures were stable over the 8-year period (r ~ 0.50), correlated with the PASAT scores (mean r ~ 0.25), and declined with age (CRT from age 20; SRT from age 50). Importantly, men scored higher on PASAT (d ~ 0.20) and averaged faster on RT, especially on one of the CRT measures (d ~ 0.40).

"In the second study, Der and Deary (2006) reanalyzed data for 7,130 adults in the UK's Health and Lifestyle Survey. Again they found CRT declined from age 20, SRT from age 50, and men consistently averaged faster.

"In conclusion, uncertainty over whether males really do average higher in general mental ability, a finding that has been missed for nearly 100 years, is considerably reduced."

References

Deary, I. J., & Der, G. (2005). Reaction time, age, and cognitive ability: Longitudinal findings from age 16 to 63 years in representative population samples. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 12, 187-215.

Der, G., & Deary I. J. (2006) Age and sex differences in reaction time in adulthood: Results from the United Kingdom Health and Lifestyle Survey. Psychology and Aging, 21, 62-73.

Jackson, D. N., & Rushton, J. P. (2006). Males have greater g: Sex differences in general mental ability from 100,000 17- to 18-year-olds on the Scholastic Assessment Test. Intelligence, 34, 479-486.

Jensen, A. R. (2006). Clocking the mind: Mental chronometry and individual differences. Oxford: Elsevier.

Silverman, I. W. (2006). Sex differences in simple visual reaction times: A historical meta-analysis. Sex Roles, 54, 57-68.

Last week, a 13-year-old named Sierra left a comment basically asking for more information about life in space - and in response, I suggested that she look up Robert Heinlein's classic, "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress." When Ken Murphy, the co-chairman for next year's big space meeting in Dallas, saw that item, he had a better idea. So much better that I'm passing it along as this month's selection for the Cosmic Log Used Book Club.

The CLUB Club highlights books with cosmic themes that have been around long enough to show up in your local library or used-book shop. Murphy's suggestions fit those specifications perfectly:

"I saw the comment where you recommended 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' to Sierra.  I'd like to suggest a visit to the Lunar Library, where I have an entire section on youth books, as well as a large list of lunar science fiction, some 60 of which have been reviewed in the forums. ... For young ladies I would highly recommend 'Countdown for Cindy', and less so Paula Danziger's 'This Place Has No Atmosphere.'"

"Countdown for Cindy" appears to be out of print, so the best ways to get it would be through online used-book dealers or libraries. "This Place Has No Atmosphere" is much more available. If you're looking for additional recommendations and mini-reviews, Ken's Lunar Library is a great place to start - but just as you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, you shouldn't judge this site merely by its home page. You'll find much more depth if you click through the menus and forums.

For taking the time to make recommendations, I've sent Murphy a hardcover copy of "First Man," James Hansen's authorized biography of Apollo 11 moonwalker Neil Armstrong. By the way, "First Man" is being released in paperback next week and would make a great addition to any armchair astronaut's lunar library.

Feel free to add your suggestions for future CLUB Club selections - and if I highlight your recommendation, you just might get a free book as well.

• Houston Chronicle: Apollo 11's most famous syllable found 
• Contact Music: Virgin to make 'Astronaut Idol' (via NASA Watch)
• Asteroids, atoms and much, much more on 'Nova ScienceNow'
• The Economist: Looping the quantum loop
• Cosmos: The science of predicting the future (via Daily Grail)

In space, no one can serve you coffee.

That's just one of the amenities you'll have to do without during a suborbital rocket plane ride. But when you're paying somewhere around $200,000 to zoom to the edge of space, to see the black sky and curving Earth and get that feeling of weightlessness, it's all about safety and the spectacle. Mundane amenities such as beverage service and in-flight restrooms will go by the wayside.

Today's unveiling of the mock-up for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane served to focus attention on the consumer experience of spaceflight. It's all very well for NASA's accommodations on the international space station to look like an electronics lab, but with more than a half-dozen companies potentially vying for tourist dollars, customer service and customer confidence will likely be key.

"The details are going to be what ultimately discriminates one space tourism provider from another," Chuck Lauer, director of business development for Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Kistler, told me. "We don't really know the answers yet, but we know what questions we want to ask."

Lauer said a lot of the details surrounding the interior cabin design for his company's Rocketplane XL suborbital spaceship will be decided by customers and focus groups during the run-up to the start of service. The craft will be a converted Learjet, but Lauer emphasized that the interior will be "completely different" from the cabin of a small passenger plane.

AP

Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson flashes thumbs-up signs as he reclines in the SpaceShipTwo mock-up.

Rocketplane Kistler and Virgin Galactic are both planning to start test flights by 2008 and start commercial service by 2009. It's interesting to compare the preliminary design details for the two companies' rocket planes:

• How many will go: SpaceShipTwo is built to accommodate two pilots in front and six passengers in the main cabin, separated by a bulkhead. Rocketplane XL will have one pilot, one passenger riding in the "co-pilot" seat (and paying a premium for the privilege) and two more passengers in the back seats. (By the way, XCOR Aerospace is planning an even more intimate experience for its Xerus rocket plane: It'll be just you and the pilot.) 

• What you'll wear: SpaceShipTwo will provide personal spacesuits of a design yet to be set, equipped with data/video recorders. Rocketplane will offer a catalog of fire-resistant fashions, ranging from retro flight suits to "designer spacewear." (Lauer says the finals of a space fashion contest is scheduled for Nov. 2 in Japan.) 

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo artwork shows fliers wearing helmets, while Rocketplane riders would wear lightweight headsets with noise-canceling earphones. "No helmet, no breathing mask," Lauer said. Of course, you'll have oxygen-equipped headgear within reach just in case there's an emergency.

• What you'll do, and not do: When SpaceShipTwo nears the top of its rise, you'll be able to unhook yourself, leave your swoopy reclining seat and float around for a few minutes of weightlessness. At one time, Virgin Galactic planned to keep passengers tethered to their seats - but that idea has apparently been discarded. You'll have about 40 seconds' warning to get back in your seat and recline fully for the descent - otherwise you'll have to ride out accelerations of up to 7 G's (analogous to a rough Soyuz re-entry) on the floor.

Virgin Galactic

During the zero-G portion of a SpaceShipTwo flight, passengers will be able to float around the cabin.

Rocketplane's passengers might be able to hover more loosely in their safety harnesses, but there'll be no getting out of the racing-style seats to wander around. "Our primary concern is safety, and we don't want to be in a position where the passengers are in any personal risk," Lauer explained. "If you want to do the loops and spins, the best place to do that - outside of what Anousheh Ansari has been doing - is in a zero-gravity plane, either here or in Russia."

On both of the rocket planes, you'd be able to do tricks such as juggling weightless candies. But don't even think about squirting water around the Rocketplane cabin to watch it form into little floating globes. "When the gravity comes back, the blobs of water just fall on the floor and get absorbed," Lauer said. That could wreak havoc with the avionics, he said.

The no-squirting rule will apply on SpaceShipTwo as well. In fact, you won't be able to take liquids on board, although water will be available for sipping through a tube if you need it.

And as for restrooms: Go before you go. "C'mon ... it's a one-hour flight," Lauer said. Virgin Galactic had similar advice about its 2.5-hour SpaceShipTwo flight.

• What you'll see: The feedback from would-be fliers has been that "the overall nature of the experience is primarily about the view, and feeling the forces," Lauer said. Thus, both companies are trying to optimize the view of a curving Earth, spread out beneath the black sky of space. But they're doing it using different methods.

SpaceShipTwo will offer as many portholes as it can, placed strategically around the side walls of the passenger cabin. Rocketplane, in contrast, plans to make the most of the forward view. "The best views are really out the front window, just as they are with any airplane. ... When you're in the back seats, it's surprising how much of the forward view you do get," Lauer said.

Back-seat passengers will each get two of their own windows as well, currently planned for placement at shoulder height and above their heads, he said.

The SpaceShipTwo concept gives you dials to watch, showing G-forces, altitude and other statistics, plus a larger cabin display. Rocketplane promises to provide a customizable video display for each passenger. And both spacecraft will be fairly bristling with video cameras to record the highlights of your out-of-this-world flight.

• What else? Virgin Galactic and Rocketplane Kistler both frame their flights as the climax of a space-themed experience that lasts for days. SpaceShipTwo fliers will have a chance to ride the rocket plane's mothership, WhiteKnightTwo, as a warmup for the main event.

The training for the flights should be memorable: Lauer compares it to a "weeklong space camp with the spaceflight at the end." There'll be virtual-reality mission simulations, rehearsals for evacuations and even practice sessions in a hypobaric altitude chamber.

"That sort of stuff will stick with you forever," Lauer said. As if flying to the edge of space wasn't enough.

It's been only a few days since Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Kistler and Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp. acknowledged that they had irreconcilable differences over the development of the Kistler K-1 rocket as a system to deliver supplies and even people to the international space station. That meant Rocketplane Kistler was in the market for a new strategic partner to help manage the $207 million that the company won through NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, or COTS. It turns out that the new partner is one of the companies that competed unsuccessfully for its own share of COTS money: Seattle-based Andrews Space.

In a jointly issued news release, the two companies say Andrews will have "supporting responsibility for systems engineering and integration, and safety and mission assurance." David Little, Andrews' senior vice president, will be deputy program manager for the K-1 program.

Andrews will also make a "strategic investment" in Rocketplane Kistler. Earlier in the week, Rocketplane Kistler's president, Randy Brinkley, told Space News that the investment would be at least as large as the $10 million that Orbital had been expected to provide.

Andrews' president, Jason Andrews, said he was convinced that the K-1 could be operational "in a relatively short period of time," and Rocketplane Kistler said service to the space station could begin as early as 2009. 

SpaceX is the other COTS beneficiary, with $278 million due to come from NASA. Neither corporate team will get all that money at once; rather, it will be paid out as the teams reach milestones leading to demonstration flights in 2009-2010 time frame.

In addition to Andrews, the other unsuccessful finalists in the COTS competition were SpaceDev (which is now in the midst of a new private-spaceship deal), Spacehab and Transformational Space.

• The Guardian: How Britain hid its UFO hunt 
• Nature: Giant telescope offered its choice of homes
• Defense News: China tried to blind U.S. satellites
• Science @ NASA: Strange moonlight

Lewis Geyer / Times-Call

Malcom Buckley, 4, plays underneath a full-scale mockup of the Dream Chaser spaceship during a June unveiling in Colorado. SpaceDev's Jim Benson says he is forming a new company to turn the Dream Chaser into a reality.

Once upon a time, back in the 1980s, NASA had a concept for a "lifting body" spaceship known as the HL-20, which could have been used as a smaller-scale backup for the space shuttle.

NASA ended up going in a different direction. But last year, Jim Benson - the founder of a California-based company called SpaceDev - updated the idea and called it the "Dream Chaser." This year, the Dream Chaser was a finalist in NASA's $500 million program to encourage new commercial spaceships capable of reaching the space station.

Unfortunately for SpaceDev, NASA went in a different direction again last month, awarding the money to SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler to demonstrate their own yet-to-be-developed spaceships. Nevertheless, Benson intends to keep chasing his dream, and now he's founded a new venture called Benson Space Co. for that purpose.

Benson's new venture was first reported online by The Wall Street Journal.

Even before SpaceDev failed to make the final cut for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, Benson had been talking privately about branching out to focus more squarely on using the Dream Chaser as a space tourism vehicle. SpaceDev was turning a profit - producing satellites for NASA as well as other private and government clients, and developing the hybrid rocket engine technology that was used in SpaceShipOne, the first private-sector spaceship.

That success buoyed Benson, but he was looking for new challenges - and today's Journal article signals that he has settled on the challenge he wants to take. "This is the most exciting thing I've ever done," Benson told the Journal.

He says he has quickly raised the first $1 million for what he expects will eventually be a $50 million development effort - resulting in a craft that could take up to six fliers on a suborbital space ride for somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000 each. The Dream Chaser could become a reality as early as 2009, Benson told the Journal. (You can sign up for a reservation even now via Benson Space's Web site, with a $25,000 deposit.)

If Benson's new plan follows the outlines of his previous plan, those suborbital trips would be powered by a SpaceShipOne-style hybrid rocket. The revenue could fuel more ambitious plans and bigger rockets, eventually leading to orbital flights.

But there are lots of questions still to be answered: How well will Benson's new venture mesh with his old venture at SpaceDev? Will he raise enough money to keep up with billionaire competitors such as Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson and Blue Origin's Jeff Bezos? When you add in Rocketplane Kistler, XCOR Aerospace, PlanetSpace, Armadillo Aerospace and all the other players in the still-developing suborbital space tourism industry, it's starting to look like a crowded playing field. Is there room for one more?

On the other hand, Benson is one of the few entrepreneurs out there who's actually turned a profit in the commercial space race. For that reason alone, he shouldn't be written off as just another dream chaser.

Update for 1:45 a.m. PT Sept. 28: Benson e-mailed me to say that "Benson Space will become an important customer of SpaceDev, paying SpaceDev for the development of the Dream Chaser spaceships and for the rocket motors to power them on each flight. ... The $1 million was Phase 1 money, successfully completed, and I am currently raising Phase 2 money - up to $50 million."

He also sent along this news release:

"Poway, CA (September 27, 2006) – Having earned a reputation as a successful technology innovator and entrepreneur for more than two decades, Jim Benson today announced that he has stepped down as chairman and chief technology officer of the company he founded nearly a decade ago, SpaceDev (OTCBB: SPDV), in order to launch an ambitious new venture focused on commercial space tourism, Benson Space Company (BSC).

"'I am dedicated to opening space for all of humanity and, with SpaceDev well-managed and growing, I plan to spend the next several years creating the possibility that anyone who wants to go to space will be able to, safely and affordably,' said Benson. SpaceDev owns many of the patents and intellectual property rights associated with hybrid rocket motors used for safe human spaceflight. Under Benson's guidance, SpaceDev developed hybrid rocket motor technology and furnished all of the rocket motors for Paul Allen's SpaceShipOne, the craft that earned the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004.

"Benson Space Co. (www.bensonspace.com) has completed its first round of financing and submitted a request for proposal to SpaceDev for the design and development of its SpaceDev Dream Chaserœ spaceships. BSC expects to be one of SpaceDev's largest customers, purchasing multiple spaceships and safe hybrid rocket motors for use in personal spaceflight.

"'My biggest challenges over the next few months will be evaluating SpaceDev's response to our proposal request, negotiating the contract for the development of our first spaceships, and completing second-round financing for this new venture,' explains Benson. With the expectation that personal spaceflight will grow into a multibillion-dollar industry, Benson intends for BSC to be first-to-market with a spaceship designed for suborbital, and eventually orbital, flights. He predicts it will also be used to transport people and cargo to the International Space Station and to a variety of emerging private sector orbital destinations.

"'I am very proud of what has been accomplished at SpaceDev,' said Benson. 'The SpaceDev team has grown to over 200 employees in three states. SpaceDev designed and built a satellite for NASA, its rocket motor technology propelled civilians to suborbital space, and SpaceDev has provided mechanisms to over 200 space missions. The company continues to secure exciting new contracts for the design and development of high-performance, lower-cost, advanced space technologies. I have total faith in the management team and engineers at SpaceDev and am looking forward to working with SpaceDev's CEO, Mark Sirangelo, to bring the SpaceDev Dream Chaser to market. The "Second Space Age" is here, and a new race to space is on!'

"Benson will remain a member of SpaceDev's board of directors. He and his family continue to own the largest amount of SpaceDev stock, approximately one-third of the issued and outstanding shares.

"Benson invented modern text indexing and searching in 1984, founded and ran Compusearch for eleven years, and sold the company in 1995. Benson founded SpaceDev in 1997. He is a founding director of the Personal Spaceflight Federation, a trade association representing the emerging new personal spaceflight industry. He obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in geology from the University of Missouri in 1971 and was honored as Alumnus of the Year in 2005.

"Benson Space Company is incorporated in the state of Nevada."

For Iranian-born entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari, the first woman to pay her own way into orbit, a weeklong adventure at the international space station is nearing its end. But for the Virginia-based company that organized her $20 million trip, Ansari's flight is only the start of a new chapter in what could be a decades-long space adventure. "This flight has taken it to the next level," said Eric Anderson, president and chief executive officer of Space Adventures.

Although Ansari is widely known as the "first woman space tourist," Anderson prefers to think of her as the first woman to become a private space explorer. After all, tourists doesn't generally go through months of training for their tours, and they don't often participate in scientific experiments during their ride.

But Anderson does think that Ansari has demonstrated to millions of people that "you don't have to be a professional, military-class astronaut or cosmonaut to aspire to fly to orbit in your lifetime." In that sense, Ansari is a standout, and her flight has "engaged the broadest audience" among the four multimillion-dollar passenger trips that Space Adventures has organized so far. (The other three involved Dennis Tito in 2001, Mark Shuttleworth in 2002 and Greg Olsen in 2005.)

"Between the e-mails and the postings and the signups for the e-mail newsletter, we've literally had tens of thousands of people who have actively reached out to Space Adventures in the past week and a half," Anderson told me today.

And the activity won't stop once Ansari is back on the ground. In fact, she and other members of her family are basically business partners with Space Adventures in a suborbital space venture that was created earlier this year. "That's moving forward," Anderson said, although there's nothing new to announce just yet.

Anderson is also turning his focus to the next private space explorer, software billionaire Charles Simonyi, who Russian space officials say will fly to the space station next March. Space Adventures isn't ready to confirm Simonyi's schedule yet, but Anderson did note that "he's passed his medical [exam], he's begun preliminary pieces of training."

Then there's the next step: giving those space tourists ... er, explorers ... the option of taking on a spacewalk for an extra $15 million. "We've got several people who are interested in that as well," Anderson said. "It probably wouldn't happen for next year, but I believe it will happen in '08 or '09."

Training for a spacewalk would require an extra couple of months, "but it really depends on what the nature of the spacewalk is," Anderson said. It may be purely aimed at letting the customer experience space from the outside, or "it is possible that there may be some simple tasks that that person could do which would be of significant benefit to the program."

An even bigger-ticket item is the $100 million package for a trip around the moon (without actually landing on lunar soil). Anderson said he was in talks with potential buyers and would let everyone know "as soon as we have a finalized contract with one of them" - perhaps by the end of this year.

Anderson makes it sound as if plenty of well-heeled adventurers are interested in spaceflight - but are there enough Soyuz seats available to accommodate them? Or, with the impending shutdown of the space shuttle fleet, will the seats available for sale dry up?

"The answer really is a little of both," Anderson said. "We're certainly just getting started, and I do believe we'll have Soyuz flights to sell in the future. But they don't grow on trees."

That's why Space Adventures is looking into alternative means for putting passengers into orbit. "We're not interested in having just a single supplier," Anderson said. However, those alternatives won't be available for at least five years, he said. (Sounds like a job for SpaceX, or Rocketplane Kistler, or perhaps even Lockheed Martin.)

Which brings us back to Anderson's vision of a decades-long space adventure.

"It's all about changing the mind-set and opening up the frontier in the long term," he said. "To have a woman, especially someone who has certainly earned her way to success in the world through her own hard work ... it's very, very rewarding to have enabled her to reach her dream to reach orbit, and inspire so many others who will one day be advocates and future customers.

"Anousheh's flight is showing kids and young people today that they are unquestionably growing up in a world where they will go to space in their lifetime if they want to," Anderson said. "That's huge."

P.S.: Ansari delivers a big "thank you, thank you, thank you" to her supporters in a video posted on her Weblog today. Followers of space politics may note that she's wearing a jumpsuit emblazoned with an American flag design - as well as the colors of the Iranian flag, which stirred such a controversy before her launch.

• Slashdot: Futurologist on smart yogurt and the $7 PC 
• Mediasite: YouTube for brainiacs | Check out a sample
• Hey, kids: Sign up for Toy Challenge 2007 
• The Onion: Iranians may be enriching high-grade students

The controversies surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls are still lively, 2,000 years after they were written, and more than half a century after they were found hidden within the caves of the Judean desert. To get a sense of the mysteries surrounding those ancient fragments, there's nothing like seeing them up close - and that's exactly what I did last week at Seattle's Pacific Science Center during the run-up to its big-ticket exhibit, "Deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls."

Israel Antiquities Authority via Pacific Science Center

This fragment from a calendrical document measures about 2.5 inches by 4 inches (6 by 10.6 centimeters).

From a couple of feet away, many of the pieces look rather mundane: tattered bits from a shopping list that's gone through the laundry, perhaps, or yellowed wallpaper that's been scraped off a wall, or even ragged pieces from a jigsaw puzzle.

The puzzle analogy is particularly apt, because archaeologists have had to piece together thousands of fragments to decipher what's on the scrolls. To give museumgoers a feel for the job, curators have set up a hands-on exhibit consisting of a bin in which 50 1,000-piece puzzles have been dumped. Only a few pieces were matched with another when I looked, and it's the same with most of the actual scrolls.

But there is the occasional long stretch - like a 41-inch-long (105-centimeter-long) scroll on display in Seattle. No one would mistake this for a shopping list: Rather, it has the look of an ancient Constitution writ small, held safe within its display case.

When you stoop down to look more closely through the glass, you might marvel at the fine script on the parchment, laid out in neat rows. That "Constitution" actually contains Psalm 119: "Forever, O Lord, thy word is firmly fixed in the heavens." Nearby you'll find a commentary on Hosea, cast as a husband's indictment of his wife: "I will uncover her disgrace in the sight of her lovers. ..." And over there, a calendrical text that specifies holy days with all the poetry of, um, a shopping list: "On the 25th of the month is the Sabbath of Jedaiah ..."

The 10 sets of fragments on display in Seattle are just a sampling of the 900 parchment and papyrus documents, found near the ruins of an ancient settlement called Qumran. The texts have been dated to between 250 B.C. and A.D. 68 - thus representing the oldest surviving bits of the Bible. Were they carefully tucked away by the ascetics of the Essene sect, living in Qumran? Or were they more hurriedly left behind by believers who fled Jerusalem when Romans put down a Jewish revolt?

Those are among the questions still being debated by archaeologists. The mainstream view is that the caves were essentially long-term storage libraries for the Essenes, and that Qumran served as the sect's communal center. But in the pages of the Biblical Archaeology Review and The New York Times, Israeli archaeologists Yizhak Magen and Yuval Peleg argue that Qumran was actually the site of a pottery factory rather than a cult headquarters - and that it just happened to be the most convenient place for refugees from the A.D. 68 revolt to stash their precious scriptures.

Such debates touch upon the deep questions surrounding the identity of the scrolls' authors, and the particular perspective (or would that be perspectives?) represented in the documents.

To help put those puzzles together, scientists are using tried-and-true tools - including the recovery and analysis of artifacts found at the Qumran site and within the caves - as well as sophisticated "CSI"-style methods such as multispectral imaging and DNA analysis.

For example, minute samples from the parchments - which, after all, are animal skins - can yield genetic fingerprints to show which fragments should be grouped together. That will help reduce the Dead Sea Scrolls' grand 50,000-piece puzzle into smaller, more manageable puzzles.

Stan Orchard / Pacific Science Center

Pottery and pieces of silver were found near the archaeological site.

The displays surrounding the core of the exhibit provide museumgoers with that scientific context - but with a personal context as well. Hoards of silver coins, found in the Qumran vicinity, bring to mind the "30 pieces of silver" mentioned in New Testament accounts of Jesus' betrayal.

For Indiana Jones fans, there are replicas of the mysterious "Copper Scroll," which promises gold and silver to the person who can figure out the scroll's baffling directions. (No one has succeeded in finding the treasure - assuming that it ever existed in the first place.)

Other artifacts include the dyed textiles worn by Qumran residents, their hairnets and combs, even their sandals. "When you look at sandals that someone wore, you start to get a real connection to the people who wrote the scrolls," said Diana Johns, the project manager for the Seattle exhibit.

"Discovering the Dead Sea Scrolls" began its U.S. tour in Charlotte, N.C., and will be at the Pacific Science Center through Jan. 7. Then it moves on to Kansas City, Mo., and San Diego. For more information about the exhibit, check out the science center's Web site, as well as these previews from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Seattle Times.

Orbital Sciences Corp., the company that was supposed to provide guidance (and a few million dollars as well) for Rocketplane Kistler's bid to build a new orbital spaceship for NASA, says it's parting ways with the team. However, Rocketplane Kistler's president, Randy Brinkley, told Space News that his company already has lined up a replacement strategic partner that will serve at least as well. A couple of months ago, the Orbital-Rocketplane relationship looked as if it would serve as the paradigm for bridges between "Old Space" and "New Space." So what happened?

The speculation from folks such as Transterrestrial Musings' Rand Simberg is that the rules of the rocket game are shifting somewhat. Orbital had been a partner on Lockheed Martin's team for NASA's Orion moonship, and when Lockmart won that multibillion-dollar contract, Orbital may have decided it was better to concentrate on the Orion product line rather than Rocketplane Kistler's K-1 craft.

Or it might merely have been the kind of business conflict that often arises when two companies think they should be in the driver's seat of a joint venture. After all, Orbital had its own ideas about how to fill NASA's needs for resupplying the international space station - and it may have tried to adapt some of those ideas for the Rocketplane contract, even though NASA took a pass on them the first time around.

If nothing else, the Orbital separation illustrates that the course toward truly affordable spaceflight will not always run smooth. It's worth noting as well that Lockheed Martin is also a member of Rocketplane Kistler's team, so there's still an "Old Space" connection.

Here are Rocketplane Kistler's "talking points" for its side of the story, which Rand posted last night, and which I received independently even later last night:

• In June 2006, Rocketplane Kistler and Orbital Sciences initiated discussions regarding a strategic relationship in which Orbital would have both a significant role in the development of the K-1 and a significant financial interest in Rocketplane Kistler.
• Rocketplane Kistler has been very pleased with the programmatic and technical interfaces with the Orbital personnel.
• However, in recent weeks, Orbital has conditioned investment in Rocketplane Kistler on changes to the K-1 Program that Rocketplane Kistler does not believe are in the best interests of Rocketplane Kistler and would be inconsistent with the goals and objectives of NASA in entering into a Space Act Agreement with Rocketplane Kistler.
• As a result, Rocketplane Kistler and Orbital have decided to terminate their strategic relationship.
• As part of its planning processes, Rocketplane Kistler has anticipated the possibility that one or more of its contractors may elect not to participate in the K-1 program.  While the company regrets Orbital's decision, the decision will not impair the ability of the company to meet its obligations to NASA under the SAA [Space Act Agreement].  Among other things, we are increasing near-term RpK staffing plans for conducting SE&I-related [systems engineering and integration] activities that were previously planned for Orbital. RpK is also continuing discussions with several potential industry strategic partners who have recently approached Rocketplane Kistler about participating in SE&I and other development and operational areas of interest on the K1. We anticipate completing those discussions in the very near future and finalizing appropriate agreements that will provide the best strategic and economic value to Rocketplane Kistler.

• BBC: Planets have scientists buzzing
• Discovery.com: New, tough paper won't burn
• Popular Science: The fifth annual Brilliant 10 
• Discover Magazine: The final frontier revisited

How would you like to get an inside look at a child mummy? Watch the continent-wide "fireworks" of airplane flights at night? Visualize an elk's bugle? Get up close and personal with a Cuban banana cockroach? You can do all this and more online, thanks to the award winners in the Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

David Yager / University of Maryland

This portrait of a Cuban banana cockroach was created from multiple photos of a roughly inch-long (2-centimeter-long) specimen.

This year marks the fourth annual contest for graphical goodies, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The competition recognizes superb scientific applications in photography, illustration and informational graphics as well as multimedia.

To get the full flavor, you'll just have to click your way through this slideshow. You can see the imagery in all its glory, and download the winning videos and software to boot.

To whet your appetite, here are some short and sweet descriptions of the winners:

• Photography: First place went to "An Egyptian Child Mummy," by W. Paul Brown, Robert Cheng, Rebecca Fahrig, Stanford University; Christof Reinhart, Volume Graphics. After sitting for 75 years in the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, Calif., a 2,000-year-old child mummy was analyzed by researchers using state-of-the-art 3-D imaging technology. The team concluded that the child was a 4- to 5-year-old girl who likely died unexpectedly from an infectious disease.

  Second place: "Cockroach Portrait," by David Yager, University of Maryland at College Park.

• Illustration: First place went to "No. 64 - Still Life: Five Glass Surfaces on a Tabletop," by Richard Palais, University of California at Irvine; and Luc Benard. Mathematicians can conceive of innumerable surfaces that we cannot touch or see. They have long relied on their powers of imagination to picture abstract surfaces. Richard Palais and graphic artist Luc Benard used the magic of computer graphics to re-create these abstract surfaces in familiar yet intriguing settings.

  Second place: "A Da Vinci Blackboard Lesson in Multiconceptual Anatomy," by Caryn Babaian, Bucks County Community College, Newton, Pa.

  Honorable mention: "The Handwritten Letter 'e,' Visualized as a Canyon with Frost in the Lowlands," by Curtis T. DuBois.

• Informational graphics: First place went to "Hawaii, the Highest Mountain on Earth," by Nils Sparwasser, Thorsten Andresen, Stephan Reiniger; Robert Meisner, German Aerospace Center. Mount Everest may be the highest mountain on Earth above sea level, but it's not the world's tallest mountain. That honor goes to the Hawaiian volcano Mauna Kea. When measured from its base on the Pacific Ocean floor, it rises about 3,280 feet (1,000 meters) taller then Mount Everest. Geographer Nils Sparwarrer and his colleagues at the German Aerospace Center provide a panoramic (and informative) view of the Hawaiian volcanoes.

  Second place: "The Mona Lisa: A Montage of Scientific Images," by Louis Borgeat, François Blais, John Taylor, Luc Cournoyer, Michel Picard, Angelo Beraldin, Guy Godin, Marc Rioux, Guillaume Poirier, National Research Council of Canada; Christian Lahanier, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des musées de France.

  Honorable Mention: "Materials Informatics: Visualization of High Dimensional Combinatorial Data," by Matt Heying, Changwon Suh, Krishna Rajan, James Oliver, Iowa State University; Simone Seig, Wilhelm Maier, Universität des Saarlandes.

• Non-interactive multimedia: Two entries tied for first place. "Flight Patterns," by media artist Aaron Koblin of the University of California at Los Angeles, graphically depicts air traffic criss-crossing the mainland United States and Hawaii as a new-age fireworks display. "Body Code" is by Drew Berry of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, Australia; Jeremy Pickett-Heaps of the University of Melbourne; and François Tétaz. The animation, originally created for an art gallery, takes you on a wordless journey through the alien structures and molecular factories that keep us alive.

  Honorable mention: "A Short Tour of the Cryosphere," by Jennifer Brennan, ADNET Systems Inc./NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Waleed Abdalati, Horace Mitchell, Ryan Boller, Lori Perkins, Greg Shirah, Carol Boquist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Walter Meier, Ronald Weaver, Mary Jo Brodzik, Richard Armstrong, National Snow and Ice Data Center; Alex Kekesi, Cindy Starr, Tom Bridgman, Randall Jones, Marte Newcombe, Stuart Snodgrass, Eric Sokolowsky, Jarret Cohen, Brian Krupp, Global Science and Technology Inc.; Kevin Mahoney, Computer Science Corp.; Michael Starobin, Mike Velle, Honeywell Technology Solutions, Inc.

• Interactive multimedia: First place went to "Cerebral Vasculature of Craniopagus Conjoined Twins," by Travis Vermilye, Stephen Humphries, Andrew M. Christensen, Medical Modeling LLC, Golden, Colo.; Kenneth E. Salyer, David G. Genecov, Carlos R. Barcelo, International Craniofacial Institute in Dallas; Crys Sory, Children's Medical Center in Dallas. To evaluate the chances of successfully separating one set of so-called craniopagus-conjoined twins, a group of surgeons at the International Craniofacial Institute used an interactive tool developed by medical illustrator Travis Vermilye. The tool helped the surgeons postpone the separation of the twins.

  Second place: "AVES: A Real-Time Audio and Visual Sound Visualization Tool," by Jack Bradbury, Guillaume Iacino, Erica Olsen; Robert Grotke, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, N.Y.

  Honorable mention: "Cardiac Bioelectricity and Arrhythmias," by Flavio H. Fenton, Elizabeth M. Cherry, Cornell University.

Does all this leave you hungry for more? Check out the roundups for the challenges in 2005, 2004 and 2003 - and visualize science!

Hypothetically, Iranian-born space passenger Anousheh Ansari might have had a chance of changing the timing for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The start of the month is determined by the first sighting of the lunar crescent after the new-moon phase - and Ansari, a Muslim, would have had a unique perspective on the moon, unimpeded by Earth's atmosphere. There's usually a bit of debate over what constitutes a valid sighting, or whether a sighting is even strictly necessary.

But there was no need to draw Ansari into this year's debate: On her Weblog, X Prize founder Peter Diamandis quotes Ansari as saying that she hadn't had a chance to see the moon during the critical time. So that's at least one religious controversy averted...

• Space.com: Orbital leaves Rocketplane's spaceship team
• New Scientist: The end of wings and wheels? (via Slashdot)
• Science News: Temperamental monsters
• The New Yorker: Unstrung

Billionaire Robert Bigelow has provided more details about his grand plan to put a private-sector space station into orbit in the 2009-2012 time frame, sparking a buzz in the commercial space race. The fact that he's taking that task on isn't new - what is new is the fact that he's working with aerospace giant Lockheed Martin to do it. If the plan unfolds the way Lockheed Martin hopes, it could change the course of the new space race.

Bigelow Aerospace

Artist's conception shows Genesis space module.

To be sure, that's a big "if." First of all, Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace would have to follow up on the surprising success of its first inflatable orbital module, Genesis 1, with an equally successful Genesis 2 test early next year. Then it would have to develop a larger-scale module, currently code-named Sundancer.

Bigelow has contracted with SpaceX, an upstart "New Space" company, for a Falcon 9 rocket launch that could put the 19,000-pound (8,600-kilogram) Sundancer into orbit. SpaceX's current manifest lists that launch in late 2008, but Bigelow told me that the latest timetable calls for the Sundancer to go into orbit in late 2009 or early 2010.

"We would not be ready in '08, and I'm not sure they would be, either," he said.

The Falcon 9, which is still in the design and development phase, isn't the only rocket in the running. "That is a potential lifter for our payload," Bigelow said. Lockheed Martin's Atlas 5 or the Russian Soyuz or Proton rockets could conceivably be used instead.

The Sundancer could provide an orbital destination for as many as three people. And by 2012 or so, Bigelow plans to launch an inflatable module roughly twice as big as the Sundancer, known as the Nautilus or the BA-330. Linking up the Sundancer with the Nautilus and a propulsion/service module would create the equivalent of a five-bedroom house in orbit, accommodating up to nine people.

Bigelow Aerospace could offer space stations on a turnkey basis for use by orbital hotel operators, commercial researchers or even a new crop of national space programs (in accordance with U.S. export restrictions, of course ... I don't imagine there'll be a Bigelow-built Iranian space station, for example).

The biggest "if" of all has to do with how to get all these people into orbit. That's where Lockheed Martin enters the picture, joining SpaceX, the Russians and possibly other players such as Rocketplane Kistler.

Right now, the Atlas 5 is a great rocket for unmanned missions - but it's not yet approved for carrying human passengers. In fact, NASA concluded that it wasn't worth trying to get the Atlas 5 or its Boeing-built competition, the Delta 4, cleared for human spaceflight - which is why the agency is developing a whole new family of rockets, the Ares.

Now it turns out that Bigelow Aerospace is going to work with Lockheed Martin to see whether the Atlas 5 can be cleared for human spaceflight, as an option for delivering passengers to Bigelow-built orbital destinations. Robert Bigelow and Lockheed Martin's George Sowers announced the agreement Thursday during the Space 2006 conference in San Jose, Calif.:

"Initially, the two companies will focus on exploring the technical requirements for the human-qualified launch services needed to transport commercial crew and cargo to expandable orbital space complexes. Bigelow and Lockheed Martin will examine the production and supply of Atlas rockets and comprehensive data describing flight safety and performance. Potential business models and business plans will also be discussed. Following this initial stage, each company will evaluate the feasibility of proceeding with a program to develop a human-qualified Atlas to meet the expected demand."

The agreement doesn't oblige Bigelow to pay any money out to Lockheed Martin - rather, Bigelow will let Lockheed know what it needs, and Lockheed will try to figure out how to fill that need. Eventually, the Federal Aviation Administration would have to sign off on the Atlas 5's use for human spaceflight.

Safety is the key factor, of course, but cost also enters into the picture. Bigelow has targeted $10 million as the per-person price point for sending up orbital space travelers. That's significantly lower than the current published rate for a Soyuz ride to the international space station, which is already significantly lower than Lockheed's current rate..

Lockheed's hope is that more frequent launches will introduce economies of scale, bringing down the cost per launch. That's Bigelow's hope as well.

"It certainly can be a stimulus to their vehicle - and they kinda need that," Bigelow said of Lockheed Martin. "The American launch industry is not as robust anymore."

In the past, space-race handicappers had assumed that Lockheed Martin and the other big aerospace companies weren't interested in serving the low-end market for space travel. If nothing else, this week's agreement signals that they could indeed get interested. In fact, one of the papers presented at Space 2006 lays out Lockheed Martin's concept for a spaceship that could be launched atop an Atlas 5 toward an orbital tourist destination (PDF file).

Bigelow told me that it's only natural for the big aerospace companies to be taking a more entrepreneurial approach to spaceflight, in light of the new space vision set forth by the White House, NASA and the President's Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond.

"What they did is just really open the doors," Bigelow said.

And it's only natural that it takes a while for the new vision to sink in: "It takes time to turn a 1,000-foot oil tanker," Bigelow said. "That tanker doesn't turn on a dime."

Could a seemingly slow-moving aerospace "dinosaur" like Lockheed Martin really provide safe, reliable space travel at the price points being targeted by the entrepreneurial "mammals"? If so, that could send at least some of the mammals scurrying for cover. In the future, Lockheed Martin could compete for low-end contracts to resupply the international space station as well as the high-end contract it's already won to design NASA's new moonship.

All this has space-race watchers scrambling to review the odds on their betting sheets. But that's not necessarily a bad thing for "New Space" entrepreneurs and their fans. In fact, this could be seen as a way of encouraging the kind of competition that those entrepreneurs say they relish.

"There will be inevitable bumps and failures along the road," consultant Charles Lurio observed in an e-mail commentary, "but I'm much more hopeful than I'd have been just a few years ago that this 'New Space Era' is here to stay, and can be shared by the spunky new firms with those of 'Old Space' who are brave enough to shed their old ways."

Here's a sampling of other news and commentary making its way through the blogosphere:

• NASASpaceFlight.com reports the deal in advance.
• Transterrestrial Musings' Rand Simberg recaps Bigelow's announcement.
• Space.com provides further details.
• Selenian Boondocks' Jonathan Goff looks at the deeper implications.
• The Chair Force Engineer looks into what this means for NASA's game plan.
• MarsBlog's T.L. James marvels at the conversion to the alt-space gospel.
• And, as always, Clark Lindsey's RLV and Space Transport News keeps current on every twist and turn of the commercial space race.

• Anousheh Ansari Space Blog: Space smells like burnt cookies
• NASA: Surprises from the edge of the solar system
• 'Nova' on PBS: 'Mystery of the Megavolcano'
• The Economist: Learning without learning
• Technology Review: How to be human

• NOAA: Ocean cooling hints at 'speed bump' in global warming
• Discovery.com: Alpine Iceman bled to death
• The Guardian: Plants grown from 200-year-old seeds
• Wired.com: Take an interactive bionics tour

Two more companies say they are setting aside seats in their yet-to-be-built suborbital craft to give teachers a free ride to the edge of space: The Space Frontier Foundation reports that Masten Space Systems has signed up for its "Teachers in Space" program, and the chairman of the Canadian-American venture PlanetSpace told me he wants to participate as well. It's just the latest small step toward a giant leap in out-of-this-world educational opportunities.

The privately organized Teachers in Space project got off to a good start in April, when Armadillo Aerospace, Rocketplane Kistler and XCOR Aerospace announced their participation.

Eventually, the Space Frontier Foundation would like to see a federally funded $20 million program to put teachers on suborbital spaceships - which would help prime the pump for private enterprise in space travel. For now, however, organizers are happy with every privately donated seat they can get.

"Rides to space are what we're about," Bill Boland, project manager for Teachers in Space, said in this week's news release. "Masten Space System's generosity means another teacher will have the experience of a lifetime. It's great to have them onboard."

Masten is hard at work on an unmanned XA-1.0 rocket that can take payloads the size of soft-drink cans up to altitudes in excess of 62 miles (100 kilometers), with manned flight as a goal for the 2009-2010 time frame.

"We want to democratize space," said Michael Mealling, Masten's marketing vice president. "We want to encourage K-12 students to be in close proximity to the kind of science only NASA has been able to do until now. By flying their teachers we can create a direct connection to these kids in a way national space programs could never do. We can make it something they experience and can relate to in the form of someone they respect and work with everyday."

The Space Frontier Foundation hasn't announced a deal with PlanetSpace quite yet, but company chairman Chirinjeev Kathuria told me he's already on board with the idea of setting aside a seat on a future Canadian Arrow flight for the Teachers in Space project.

The idea of using space-oriented experiences for educational purposes isn't new. For years, NASA has been offering parabolic flights on its "Weightless Wonder" jet (also known as the "Vomit Comet") to teams of students and teachers with heavy-duty research projects.

More recently, Zero Gravity Corp. set up a less rigorous educational zero-G program for teachers that evolved into Northrop Grumman's "Weightless Flights of Discovery." This month, I participated in the program myself and lived to tell about it. There's a story today about yet another educational zero-G program, targeted at international students rather than teachers.

Suborbital spaceflights promise to kick the experience up a notch - with that weightless sensation lasting for minutes rather than seconds at a time, and a fantastic view out the window. Note to spaceship builders: Your passenger cabins should be bristling with video cameras pointing inside and out, to record the experience from multiple points of view for the take-home DVD.

Then there's the orbital experience. Over the years, NASA astronauts have devoted a lot of effort to demonstrations that use the weird environment of microgravity to teach the finer points of physics. Unfortunately, the space agency's first attempt to put an actual educator in orbit ended with the death of elementary-school teacher Christa McAuliffe and six full-time astronauts in the 1986 Challenger explosion.

Ever since then, Idaho elementary-teacher Barbara Morgan has been waiting for her chance. Morgan was McAuliffe's backup for the Challenger flight, and NASA promised her that if educators were ever again allowed to board the shuttle, she would be first in line. That's why Morgan was brought into the astronaut corps in 1998, as NASA's first educator astronaut.

At one point, it looked as if Morgan would finally get her flight in the fall of 2003 - but once again, tragedy scrambled the schedule. Just recently, NASA confirmed that Morgan and her crewmates would fly to the international space station on the http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/sts-118/index.html" target="_blank">STS-118 mission, scheduled for launch no earlier than June 11, 2007.

Since Morgan's selection, three more educator astronauts have been selected, but it's not clear whether any of them will fly on the space shuttle before the fleet is retired in 2010.

Will there be a privately organized "Teachers in Orbit" program to follow up on zero-G flights and the suborbital "Teachers in Space"? Or will the educational work be taken on by deep-pocketed civilians such as telecom entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari? (She's due to speak with students at George Washington University on Friday over an orbit-to-Earth communication link, and participate in a variety of educational events after her return.)

What does an educator bring to the outer-space experience that an astronaut or a millionaire can't offer?

Teachers, here's your chance to speak out. You don't even have to raise your hands: Just leave a comment below.

Update for 8:45 p.m. PT: After checking the schedule, I revised my listing for Anousheh Ansari's school contact.

Organizers of next month's X Prize Cup announced today that their ticket window is officially open for business, with prices ranging from $10 for daily admission ($5 for kids and students) to $250 for a VIP ducat with access to the flight line, food and an open bar. Active military personnel can get in for free (check the Web site for details).

The headliner for the Oct. 20-21 event at the Las Cruces Airport in New Mexico is the Lunar Lander Challenge, during which rocket teams will vie for $2 million in NASA-backed prizes. To figure out the favorites, check out Robin Snelson's Lunar Lander Challenge Weblog, where she's tracking every twist and turn in the buildup to the X Prize Cup.

The $400,000 Space Elevator Games, another one of the NASA-supported Centennial Challenges, will play out during the X Prize Cup as well. For the straight dope on the space elevator movement in general, and the games in particular, click on over to the new and improved Space Elevator Reference and Ted Semon's Space Elevator Blog.

But wait ... there's more. Event organizers promise these other highlights:

• High-powered rocket launches
• Earth-shaking static engine firings
• Astronaut trainer fly-overs
• Flight and astronaut simulators
• Educational activities for kids
• Chances to meet and speak with Astronauts
• Spaceship and robot display area

There's a bit of a trade-show aspect to all this as well: You'll hear more about future plans for the Rocket Racing League, a new spaceship concept from Canada's Da Vinci Project and the orbital exploits of millionaire space passenger Anousheh Ansari. You just might catch a glimpse of yours truly as well. If you do, be sure to say hello - I'll be the bespectacled geek hunting furtively for a high-speed wireless connection.

• Concord Monitor: Aliens made them famous
• Improbable Research: M.C. Escher in Legos
• Astronomy Cast (via Bad Astronomy Blog)
• New Scientist: Space on a shoestring (via Slashdot)

Blue Origin, the secretive spaceship venture backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, has won an experimental permit from the Federal Aviation Administration, opening the way for rocket tests to begin at the company's West Texas test site and spaceport-to-be.

FAA spokesman Hank Price confirmed that the agency's Office of Commercial Space Transportation on Friday issued the permit required for the initial rounds of testing on the 18,600-acre site, currently under construction on Bezos' ranchland about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Van Horn, Texas. The permit is good for a year and can be renewed, Price said.

FAA

An FAA environmental report included this drawing of a vertical- takeoff rocket, but Blue Origin says it hasn't yet finalized its vehicle design.

He deferred to Blue Origin for further comment. A spokesman for Blue Origin, Bruce Hicks, confirmed that the permit was issued.

"We appreciate the FAA's diligence in issuing the experimental permit, which allows us to move forward with our plans as outlined in the environmental assessment," Hicks told me.

Hicks declined to expand upon the venture's plans for test flights, other than to refer to the detailed environmental assessment drawn up in support of Blue Origin's permit application (PDF file).

Experimental permits are part of the regulatory scheme set up by federal spaceflight legislation approved almost two years ago. The permits allow private ventures to conduct testing of new manned spacecraft - including piloted tests - but they don't allow those ventures to take on paying passengers. For commercial flights, licenses must be issued to the spaceship operator as well as the spaceport.

In this case, Blue Origin is building the rocket ships as well as providing the launch pad for the flight tests. The company had to go through the months-long environmental assessment process, as well as assessments of the venture's national security implications and its safety procedures.

The issuance of a permit was virtually a foregone conclusion, after a public hearing in July turned up no objections and the FAA issued a clean bill of environmental health in August.

With permit in hand, Blue Origin can proceed with plans for unmanned testing at the West Texas site. The company said in its environmental assessment that up to 10 rocket tests could be conducted this year, using a remote-controlled vehicle that would rise no higher than 2,000 feet (610 meters) during flights lasting less than a minute.

Over the next couple of years, the tests would become increasingly ambitious, leading to piloted flights in the 2009-2010 time frame. Blue Origin's environmental assessment calls for suborbital passenger service to begin in 2010, with roughly one flight per week.

Those flights would be conducted in a conical, remote-controlled rocket ship called the New Shepard, which would blast off vertically and rise to an altitude beyond 62 miles (100 kilometers), the internationally accepted boundary of space. At that height, passengers would see a black sky above a curving Earth, and feel a few minutes of weightlessness.

Blue Origin's flight plan provides for two descent options - either a rocket-powered vertical landing, or a separation of the passenger capsule from the propulsion module for a parachute landing.

The launch vehicles would be built at Blue Origin's production facility in Kent, Wash., just south of Seattle, then trucked down to the West Texas site. Sharon Clamp, a staff member at Kent Planning Services, told me that the production facility was still tying up some loose ends in the inspection and permit process. For example, she said the go-ahead had not yet been given for rocket firings at the engine test stand in Kent.

Bezos has said he started up the rocket venture - which is financially separate from Amazon.com - to follow up on a childhood dream of spaceflight. He hasn't been specific about how much he's invested in Blue Origin since its founding in 2000, but records indicate that more than $20 million has been spent on the Kent facility alone.

Blue Origin's potential competitors include Virgin Galactic, Rocketplane Kistler, PlanetSpace and Masten Space Systems, as well as a Russian-American venture involving Space Adventures, Prodea and the Russian Space Agency, among others. All these players have been looking toward the 2008-2010 time frame for the start of passenger service.

• NASA: Looking for NASA's greatest fan (via HobbySpace Log)
• Science News: Battle of the hermaphrodites
• New Scientist: Antisocial robots go to finishing school
• The New Yorker: Untransformed