A $225 million spacesport will be built in southern New Mexico... paid for by various government monies. Virgin Galactic, as part of a deal with the state of New Mexico, will make its mission control and world headquarters here in New Mexico. First flights from the spaceport are scheduled for 2008 or 2009. Until the Las Cruces/southern New Mexico spaceport is finished, they will use the Mojave Airport and Spaceport in California.

Yeehaw! Now if only I had a few extra hundred thousand dollars to go into space. I wouldn't even have to leave town.

Sources:
-Las Cruces Sun-News article
-Virgin Galactic article
-Space.com article
-NYNews Day article
-WallStreet Journal article

The media has been jumping all over a recent discover of a Kuiper Belt object in the outer part of the solar system recently. Until the official name is approved, it is known as 2003 UB313. It is being called a "planet" by the media, its discoverers, and NASA. The organization that manages naming and classifying objects, the International Astronomical Union, has yet to approve it. For the time being, the discoverers are unofficially calling it Lila (after a daughter of a discoverer) or Xena (yes, after the tv show). In this post and this post (both in apod), you can see an artist's rendition and a picture of the new "planet."

I dislike how the media is so quick to assign the label "planet." I don't think this object should be considered one. Yes, this object is larger than Pluto... but if Sedna wasn't, this planet shouldn't. Okay, I'm a bit taken with Sedna. Senda's a planetoid, estimated at 1/2 - 3/4 the size of Pluto. So it's small. As of right now, however, it's basically in an isolated part of space. It's thought to be part of the Oort Cloud, but that's all speculation. It's a bit weird for the Oort Cloud, however. It's much closer than expected. Despite that, it was not classified as a planet (part due to its size, I'm sure) because it's thought more Oort Cloud objects will be found in the future. With that logic, "Xena" should not be a planet becuase it's likely more Kuiper Belt objects will be found in the future around it. There are already many other Kuiper Belt objects near the size of Pluto. This is just the first to surpass the planet.

Also, happy birthday, s0rr0w. My computer's been off most of the day, due to my cleaning my room. *cough* I am actually cleaning. *cough*

It was not what I expected to hear at 7:30 in the morning, but the Spaceshuttle Columbia has been lost in its descent towards Earth. There are 7 astronauts aboard: 6 Americans and 1 Isreali. It's believed the shuttle was/is breaking apart.