Under the dramatic headline "Allegre Blasts Station, ESA Management" Space News (June 22-28) reported on some blunt comments by the French Space Minister, Claude Allegre. While complaining about a long list of things (including ESA, the European Commission, Britain, etc) he explained why the French government would not support crewed space activities:

Space Tourism was discussed in two places in the May 25 issue of Space News, both positive and negative views being expressed.

It seems that space tourism is becoming a topic of interest in the mainstream press. A recent article in the Los Angeles Times 'Gearing Up for the New Race to Space' discusses the X-Prize and how it's competitors will soon allow anyone to fly into space:

In a recent press release, Gateway computers, a major PC maker, announced that they will be the exclusive supliers of computer workstations to Vela Technologies Development, Inc., who is developing the Space Cruiser(R) System (SCS) space tourist vehicle. This is the company working with Zegrahm Space Voyages to offer tourist flights into space.

In a recent front page article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, titled

Aerospace America published an interview with Richard Christiansen, NASA's acting associate administrator of aeronautics and space transportation technology in which he discussed NASA's plans for space access, among other topics.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) which was given responsibility for regulating commercial space activities in 1995 (though the funding authority remains different from that of the rest of the FAA) has started a study on how best to merge the monitoring and handling of aircraft traffic with rockets and space vehicles that travel to and from outer space.

Richard Branson, Founder and Chairman of Virgin Atlantic Airways, spoke on the Discovery Channel on May 11 about his plans to offer space trips to the public, which he has mentioned before. "Never has the idea of space travel been more popular and most of us dream that we might just see the Earth from space during our lifetime. The exciting thing about technological development is that it can rapidly make the seemingly impossible become reality and nowhere is that more true than transport."

On May 8 an 8ft (2.4m) long model of Bristol Spaceplanes' "Ascender" spaceplane performed its first test flights, flying at upwards of 80 kph (50 mph). The model is being used to study the low-speed handling of the full-scale "Ascender" which is the size of a business jet, and will carry 4 people to space and back.

In a recent press release, The X-Prize Foundation unveiled the X-Prize