BBC News reports that the launch of the British military satellite Skynet 5 has been postponed due to a "last minute technical glitch." Apparently, the delay was caused by a fault found in the "deluge" system, which sprays water across the launch pad to keep it cool as the rocket lifts off.

According to the BBC, the Skynet spacecraft will deliver secure, high-bandwidth communications for UK and "friendly" forces. Skynet 5's launch is part of a multi-billion-pound project that aims to allow the Army, Royal Navy and RAF to pass more data faster between command centers.

Engineers are currently investigating the problem. Another launch attempt is planned for Sunday from Kourou, French Guiana. Nobody cared to comment on the possible connection between Skynet's launch delay and the sudden appearance of a naked Austrian bodybuilder in a Los Angeles biker bar.

Remember the old Jules Verne idea of sending people into space by blasting them out of a cannon? Like many a fictional idea, the whole concept's been given a chance at becoming a reality, courtesy of the US Air Force.

Launchpoint Technologies has just received a two-year, $ 500,000 grant from the said U.S. armed service, which involves them proving that it's possible to send non-living matter into space using something in the lines of a gigantic rail-gun

Going into detail, the plans call for the construction a 1.5-mile wide vacuum tunnel. Inserted into this tunnel is a 220-pound capacity sled, which will be driven along by powerful magnets in tube. The sled picks up speed, and as soon as it hits 6 miles per second, the sled is ejected into space by a launch ramp. And for those asking - yeah, it sounds a helluva lot like the Mass Driver facility featured in Gundam SEED.

And if the idea sounds iffy, or you guys were thinking "Why not just use a rocket?", the project's most promising feature is its low cost - the launcher is estimated to burn only USD $ 50,000 per shot, as compared to spending USD $ 5 million dollars for every rocket launch. The launcher's not expected to send up anything live, though, as the 10,000 G's created on launch will turn the next prospective rider into meat sauce...Guld from Macross Plus comes to mind.

“You could send a block of aluminum, water or even frozen mashed potatoes,” project leader Jim Fiske says about the possible cargo for the gun - probably as a means to resupply orbital vehicles like the ISS.  The Air Force plans to use  the launcher to send micro-satellites into orbit upon completion.

It's the stuff of science fiction and other flights of fancy: a literal link to space that will allow transport of cargo along its path. At the Space Elevator Games currently being held in New Mexico, however, the impossible is slowly making way to turn this idea into reality. At the very least, it's certainly trying.

16 teams have descended upon Las Cruces, New Mexico, to compete for US$ 400,000 worth of prizes as they attempt to make their own space elevator prototypes. The machines these teams have built must be able to climb a specially-designed tether 200 feet into the air without stalling or falling off of it. While some of the teams are working on making climbers for the tether, others are instead working on making the strongest tether possible, which is one of the other categories in the Space Elevator Games.

If you've never heard of a space elevator, then picture this: imagine unspooling a length of ribbon from the equator to an object in space, held in place by centrifugal force. Now, imagine machines designed specifically to travel along the path of the tether, carrying with it cargo and tools needed by future astronauts. The technology, while seemingly insane to pull off, could cut costs in trying to make rocket propulsion for supply trips to places like the International Space Station. That is, of course, if it succeeds.

If your curiosity is piqued, then watch the video below which shows off the German-made Turbo Crawler scaling the said tether. You can also visit the official Space Elevator blog to get real time information on the event as it begins its second day today. Enjoy!

They never said it was easy. The debut launch of Spaceloft XL from Spaceport America ended eleven kilometers above the ground when it decided to come back home the hard way. It had been carrying a small cargo of 50 experiments and other cargo and was supposed to distribute its payload about 110km above the Earth.

Engineers are still trying to find out what went wrong with Spaceloft. Their current hypothesis is "an unexplained aerodynamic effect" that brought down the six meter-long rocket. The company's still continuing with other launches planned this year, says UP Aerospace, which designed the rocket.

Spaceloft would have been the general public's first chance to gain access to space (even if it is only for small packages). UP Aerospace claims that it only takes a few hundred dollars to buy payload space on the rocket.

No, that's not a picture of the rocket exploding you see there. We're still looking for official pictures of the failed launch.

The Orion will be the bigger, but younger, brother of Apollo. It will have the same multistage rocket, crew vehicle, and lunar lander--but bigger and more high tech of course. When asked why there are similarities between the two shuttles; Patrick McKenzie, the Business Development Manager for the Orion Project at Lockheed Space Systems, said that the Apollo shuttle got the aerodynamic shape of the capsule dead on; the shape has been proven safe by NASA.

However, there will be some major upgrade in technology under the hood. They are planning to build an automated rendezvous and docking capability. It will also have a new design and material for the heat shield. They'll be using materials such as PICA [phenolic impregnated carbon ablator] and SLA [a cork-based ablative material].

They're also looking forward to developing better landing-impact systems. The capsule will be bigger than Apollo's: it can seat six crew members. The cockpit has been replaced by a modern "glass cockpit" design. The avionics systems will be up to current technology.

No more "Houston, we have a problem." The Orion will have a "dual fault tolerance" element. Two failures in the system? The Orion will still run safely. The system constantly monitors the other; if one fails, another takes its place. It may add more weight to the vehicle, but it'll make it safer.

When asked about the gap between the last moon mission and 2020, Patrick answers that the budget for lunar missions these days aren't that big as the last mission. He added that they are still in the process of developing the lunar lander, the Earth-departure stage, and lift vehicles.

So in 2020, we'll be grooving and jiving to the 60's Apollo look-alike Orion as it pushes itself from Earth's atmosphere to the moon.

"Let's build a Stairway to The Stars - and climb that stairway to the stars! It would be Heaven to climb to Heaven with you..." This suggestion was made in a popular song of the late 1930's by lyricist Mitchell Parrish (who also penned the lyric for another song that suggested outer space, Star Dust). An actual design was put forth forty years later by Arthur C. Clarkein his novel Fountains of Paradise - except that the "stairway to the stars" had actually become an elevator.

The idea actually goes back further than that, however.  As far back as the 1800's, a Russian visionary named Konstatin Tsiolkovsky suggested that humans might build a "celestial castle" in space at the end of a spindly tower that could be reached by humans in an elevator running up and down the tower's length.

Another Russian scientist, Yuri Artsutanov, wrote a paper in 1960 titled To the Cosmos by Electric Train that proposed a cable  be deployed from a satellite downwards until it could be attached to a base station on the surface.

The concept suggests once a payload is in low-Earth orbit - an altitude or about 100 miles (160 kilometres)  - it's  halfway to anywhere in the solar system. It's true -  despite tremendous advances in rocket technology, the first 100 miles are still the the most difficult.

With backing from NASA, a small group of entrepreneurs are attempting to bring Clarke's vision to life. Although it is unlikely to result in a workable space elevator any time soon, US company LiftPort has successfully unrolled a 1.6-kilometre-long carbon ribbon in the skies above Arizona. It was made using helium-filled balloons, after which a robotic climber successfully ascended part of the length. They plan to have an operating space elevator by 2018.

This fall promises some exciting developments. In October, companies will compete in the second round of the NASA-funded  Beam Power and Tether challenges to build a device that can ascend a 90 foot ribbon. Then, in December, Tethers Unlimited will deploy a 1 kilometer (about 3000 foot)  tether made from a Kevlar polymer. The purpose will be to test its durability under space conditions as a payloads ride along its length.

Can a lightweight cable ever be strong enough to stretch all the way into space? And even if it can, will it take an elevator into orbit any time soon? We can hope so, because the hard truth is that in terms of technology and cost, rockets are close to getting as good as they're ever likely to get as far as lifting payloads into orbit.

A working space elevator could reduce the cost of transporting payloads into orbit from $22,000 per kilogram to perhaps less than $1.50 per kilo (about $1.10/lb.)

Peter MacNeeley of the University of British Columbia, says  "With no rockets required, the cost of travel into space would be reduced by a thousandfold...this would literally open the gate to the final frontier."

The maritime province of Nova Scotia set aside 300 acres of government-owned land on Cape Breton for a $200 million dollar (USD)  spaceport.

PlanetSpace, the US-Canadian company that will construct the port, plans to develop and promote space tourism. Construction is scheduled to start within the next twelve months. The spaceport should be ready for its first suborbital launch by the end of 2008 or the beginning of 2009.

The suborbital flights will carry passengers on 15-minute rides into space. On the trip, passengers will get to experience four and a half minutes of weightlessness. Although this is a cutting-edge concept, the vehicle - Canada's Arrow Rocket - dates back over 60 years, to the German V2 rocket of World War II (to which it bears a strong resemblance). The moniker "Arrow" is a tribute to the old Avro Arrow jet fighter of the 1950s.

The province of Nova Scotia supports the plan, but there are still some regulatory hoops to jump through with Transport Canada, that nation's transportation regulatory agency. So far, however, they have been supportive. Geoff Sheerin, CEO of PlanetSpace, says that environment-friendly ethyl alcohol will be used to fuel the rockets. "Our fuel comes from corn," Sheering says. "Even if it gets in the water, it dissipates very quickly with no damage to the environment. It's a green rocket, so to speak."

India is beginning to awaken as a mighty economic force; scores of companies from all over the world making huge investments in the country and outsourcing millions of jobs to talented residents eager to take the opportunity.

The marketplace is not the only sign that India is slowly moving out from  the shadows and into the spotlight. India's space program is also making in-roads into territory that has traditionally been reserved for US and European companies.

Commercial and government space flights are planned for the near future that will initiate India into the exclusive club of space-going nations.

Madhaven Nair, one of India's most prominent rocket scientists and leader of India's civilian space agency the ISRO or Indian Space Research Organization, is involved with the Chandrayaan mission which is scheduled to send a satellite to orbit and map the Moon in 2008. This project was designed and undertaken by India to aid NASA in its quest to use the Moon as a stopover on its planned trip to Mars).

India has developed a totally self sufficient space program that will continue to grow in light of the unprecedented cooperation between nations in the uniquely human quest for the stars. The Chandrayaan mission will give us even greater details about every aspect of the Lunar surface once it launches the Chandrayaan-1 orbital satellite to the Moon. This information is something that NASA will need to safely begin making plans for an eventual trip to Mars. NASA's Mars trip would not be feasible without using the Moon as a launching point for the expedition.

NASA is taking on the tried and tested formula of the Apollo program that brought the first humans to the Moon way back in 1969, as they are faced with tight deadlines and uncertain budgets. The team has been ripping apart the Apollo to examine its ancient parts as a reference for the new rocket.

The new manned exploration project, called Constellation, is deliberately drawing upon lessons from the past as the space agency works to meet a congressional deadline of flying the Ares rocket by 2014. In fact, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has described the new program as "Apollo on steroids."

"We're not inventing rocket engines. This is an evolution," NASA associate administrator Scott Horowitz said during a visit to Marshall, which is in charge of developing propulsion systems for the new spacecraft. "You get the benefits of the heritage, but you also get the benefits of new technology to help drive down costs."

But will history repeat itself?

In the forefront of space exploration, Russia is reportedly set to launch two new orbital laboratories. The unmanned spacecrafts will be docked at the International Space Station when not venturing into the great unknown for three to four months at a time carrying out experiments that involve zero gravity, materials in space and biotechnologies. Upon returning to the ISS, the samples they have gathered will be sent back to Earth through small-sized landing capsules for further testing.

Russian space officials claim that this will not only create a potentially profitable research system but, in the course, eliminate the need for increasingly expensive multiple rocket launches. However, no exact date for the launch has been mentioned yet.