A story or two below that one (same address) really caught my eye: • Nov. 19, 2004 | 5:30 p.m. ET Ups and downs for space balloon: JP Aerospace is changing course as it pursues its plan to create what it calls "the other space program," using balloons rather than rockets to get to the final frontier. **** Using a balloon platform as the first-stage 'booster' is probably the biggest consumables-saving strategy i've heard of yet. Also seems quite a bit safer for a large chunk of the ascent. Lacking the excitement of a rocket ship, however, it might not attract the "rich tourists", or even investor interest. C. --- utah-astronomy-request@mailman.xmission.com wrote:

From: Patrick Wiggins <paw@trilobyte.net> To: utah astronomy listserve <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:59:28 -0700 Subject: [Utah-astronomy] More on private spaceflight

This will be in Monday's News but since this sort of thing has been a topic of conversation here I figured a sneak preview might be in order.

Private Spaceflight Legislation Moves on to Senate

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961/

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