Good News flows from several quarters relative to “Affordable Spaceflight”. The latest success of a SpaceX launch (the second Falcon-1 success to orbit) is at the top of the list. Many of us are counting on SpaceX to offer “rational” costs to orbit. All my estimates for Lunar and Mars expeditions are based on SpaceX pricing. Substituting the $137 Million cost for a “Space Launch Alliance” flight for a comparable $37 Million Falcon-9 would be very painful. News from “UP Aerospace” is mixed. The best news is that they are active and in business! See Active UP Aerospace link. Curiously, this Active web site is not found by a Google search, but only the dead link (without the .us. section of the URL) Dead UP Aerospace . Their May 2, 2009 SpaceLoft® XL flight was a “partial success”. After a perfect motor run (for 10 to 12 seconds), a “backup” ejection controller triggered premature payload separation. This occurred at 3614 mph vertical velocity (Radar Tracking Data = 5300 fps > Mach 5) and an estimated 30,000 feet altitude. The released payload normally will tumble, and may have deployed (and shredded) parachutes so it will not coast much higher. The intact airframe and excellent motor run (with higher velocity than the 2007 successful spaceflight), argues for future success. Bugs take longer to “wring out” with a very low launch rate. Jerry Larson Heading UP Aerospace) reported in December 2008 that he could launch a SpaceLoft® XL rocket for $200,000. He is getting traction with potential customers. An additional SpaceLoft® XL flight is planned for later this year, and lower altitude test flights for Lockheed Martin continue. New Mexico once again has a unique “Spaceflight” program, offered nowhere else in the country. The New Mexico Spaceflight Consortium is not only offering funding for student projects, it is flying them into space on the SpaceLoft® XL. The recent flight – now described as an annual event – carried a number of student projects. This batch did not make it into space, but were well tested with 16 to 20 g launch acceleration and even higher deceleration. These projects were recovered after parachuting to the ground. I am astonished, both by how well New Mexico works to get K-12 through Graduate School students personally involved with real spaceflight work (including at the X PRIZE Cup events), and the fact that no other state provides comparable opportunities! For those who thought events 40 years ago (Apollo 11 Moon Landing) would make it possible for you to personally fly into space – Rest Assured: Celestis will get part of you there! Some of your ashes can follow Star Treck's “Scotty”into space on a future SpaceLoft® XL flight. A step higher, in orbit, the news is also mixed. The success of CubeSats in demonstrating that very small satellites (and commercial grade electronics) can do good work in space has pushed many “Heavyweights” into related work. NanoSat work is planned or underway with NSF, DARPA, Army and Air Force Funding, as well as other national groups. Dr. Robert Twiggs (Stanford University) reports that competition from these “deep pocket” organizations has roughly doubled the launch cost for CubeSats. Cost is probably $80,000 instead of $40,000 for the 10 cm cube. But a side effect is that the added revenue from adding a handful of well proven “P-POD” units to a launch vehicle is now $1 Million. Several times that amount could be captured by a company flying to LEO with 100 kg of extra payload capability – a nice bonus with very little effort. “Bob” Twiggs is fighting back like a true “Technocrat”: he is prototyping the “PocketQub”. This is literally 1/8 of the original 10 cm CubeSat! Roughly 2 inches on a side, and < 120 grams. Given electronic progress in the ten years since CubeSat efforts began, this is not an unreasonable step (keep my ½ gram HDTV Camera in mind). The PocketQub has more volume and mass than modern cell phones, and even standard surface mount technology will pack a lot of hardware into its frame. Even the reduced power is not a problem with today's extremely low power electronics. It is unlikely that the cost to launch an experimental satellite will drop to $10,000, but $20,000 should be practical.