This is pretty cool: the Lunar and Planetary Institute is planning a meeting about the use of suborbital flights. It'll cover research, passengers, public outreach, the whole schmeer.

The Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference will be held right here in Boulder on February 18 - 20, 2010. The speakers lining up are pretty good: my friend (and Apollo expert) Andy Chaikin will talk about passenger flight, former Shuttle commander Rick Searfoss, Pluto probe New Horizons chief guy Alan Stern, and people from NASA and the FAA will be there too. If you want to participate (I suspect some space gurus read this blog...) then there is a November 12 deadline. Hurry! I'm very interested in the use of space and near-space, so I'll probably wind up going too. I don't know what the future of space exploration will hold any more than the next space enthusiast does, but I'm pretty sure this will be playing a big role in it.