Comany Press Release:

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

From "The Rapidly Changing Face of Computing", a weekly technology journal providing insight, analysis and commentary on contemporary computing and the technologies that drive it, available at http://www.digital.com/rcfoc/:

"Hotel Mir: The American Plan" by Harvey Wichman, Director of the Aerospace Psychology Laboratory, Huntingdon Beach, California published in Space News, included the comments:

An article in December's "Wired" magazine entitled "Reality Check: The Future of Hotels" asked the question: "Might we one day blast off to soak in whirlpool spas in outer space?" It published comments on the idea from three hotel industry professionals.

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.

An article in Space News by Brenda Forman, a US aerospace consultant, criticized what she called "hype factories" for "pumping out rosy space tourism packages and splashy public announcements." She did so because "...it is not possible to make an honest offer of a space tourism package."

By the year 2000, 20 nations will be operating their own remote-sensing spacecraft - including Australia, Brazil, Malaysia, South Africa, Korea, Taiwan and Thailand - according to a report due to be published later this year by the Aerospace Corporation and Euroconsult. As a result, the international Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) is trying to rationalize these systems and reduce overlap.

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.