PRIVATIZING SPACE: The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting survey:

At a time when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) struggles to return its aging shuttle fleet to service and realign itself to implement President Bush’s blueprint for sending astronauts to the moon and beyond, several companies and interest groups are pursuing their own vision for putting humans into space more cheaply. “If we drive down the cost of transportation in space, we can do great things,” Mr. Musk insists.

The goal: to loft people and cargo at one-tenth the current cost. Building reusable rockets is only the first step. Industry sources say NASA, too, will have to buy services and hardware – at lower cost – from a broader cast of aerospace characters than the traditional players. And while taking the lead in high-risk human exploration of space, the government also needs to build an infrastructure in orbit – such as the space station – from which private companies could launch missions and conduct research.

“This is an optimistic vision,” acknowledges George Whitesides, executive director of the National Space Society in Washington, D.C. “But when you look at manned spaceflight at a broader level beyond the president’s space-exploration vision, that’s when it really gets exciting.”

Indeed. (Via Rand Simberg). I just got the latest issue of the Chicago Journal of International Law (not online yet, alas) which has a symposium on space law including a small contribution of mine. There’s a lot of very interesting stuff on space tourism and property rights.