On October 24 the US House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics held a hearing to examine the viability of microwave energy from space. They discussed the need to direct NASA to study SPS, since it is not working on this project, despite its promise to provide an economic return on taxpayers' huge investment in space. For a fuller report see http://www.nss.org/alerts/capsules/capsule17.html

The Final Report of the joint study carried out since 1995 by NASA and the Space Transportation Association (STA) in Washington DC is due to be published in January, according to Thomas F Rogers, the President of STA.

A new grant has been provided by the Japanese Ministry of Education to enable the team of Professor Hideo Matsuoka, Professor Makoto Nagatomo and Dr Patrick Collins to continue their field research selecting rectenna sites for the " SPS 2000" Project in equatorial countries. The SPS 2000 satellite is being planned to transmit 10 MW of solar-generated microwave energy from an altitude of 1100 km above the equator to a number of rectennas within +/- 3 degrees latitude.

The future of mankind's space activities is in business, not government, predict the attendees of this year's conference. Hosted by the Space Frontier Foundation, the sixth annual gathering took place in Los Angeles from November 7-9, 1997.

At the general assembly of the World Tourism Organization held in Istanbul in late October, a report was presented called "Tourism 2020 Vision" containing forecasts about the future of international tourism until 2020. Overall they foresee continuing rapid growth - today's 600 million international passengers growing to 1,600 million, and international tourism revenues growing from $423 billion in 1996 to $2 trillion in 2020.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

About 100 attendees from around the world came to Montreal for the first SPS meeting since SPS '91 in Paris. Since then 6 more years of rapid economic growth in many countries has demonstrated the ever-growing demand for electricity, and recent work on low-cost reusable launch vehicles (from the DC-X to X-33) has improved the prospects for reducing SPS costs.

At the opening ceremony of the Annual Congress of the International Astronautical Federation ( IAF, the leading international body representing the "space industry" world-wide), the President of the IAF is one of the people to make a speech. This year, the 48th Congress was held in Turin, and on October 6th Karl Doetsch, the current President, made a speech on this year's Congress theme "Developing Business from Space", which included the following comments:

The second annual X Prize Gala showed that more people are taking space tourism seriously. From the extensive media coverage to the famous new sponsors, Peter Diamandis' latest creation is gathering momentum with the public.

Bristol Spaceplanes Limited (BSL), a contender for the X Prize, opened its website today to coincide with the X Prize Gala. The site describes the company as well as its main projects: