Starlight carries not only energy but momentum. Comet tails, for example, are the result of light blowing dust off the comet's core. It's not a lot of juice, but it's enough.

The force on a solar sail is gentle, if not feeble, but unlike a rocket, which fires for a few minutes at most, it is constant. Over days and years a big enough sail, say a mile on a side, could reach speeds of hundreds of thousands of miles an hour, fast enough to traverse the solar system in 5 years. Riding the beam from a powerful laser, a sail could even make the journey to another star system in 100 years, that is to say, a human lifespan.

We're pretty damned far off from a person riding the light to whatever planet Avatar is set on, but it's still a pretty neat idea. [NY Times]

Click on this image to see the full picture.

When JJ Abrams said that he wanted to put some Star Wars into Star Trek, apparently it also applied to the scale of spaceships (and matching viewscreens.) And while the new Enterprise doesn't even reach half of the 1,600 meters—that's a mile long—of an Imperial Star Destroyer, it's still amazingly big compared to the 288 meters of the old Enterprise. Maybe now you would be able to take down an Star Destroyer with a couple of these.

The battle I would really want to see now, however, is not the old Star Trek vs Star Wars (we already know who would win that one.) No, you know what I want to see.

Yes, Starbuck vs Uhura. In a chocolate pudding pit.

Maybe Galactica vs Enterprise too, but that's a distant second. [Thanks to David B. from Bad Robot Productions]

UPDATE: Since we did the original ISS comparison, the specifications for the new Battlestar Galactica have changed. After the end of the series, one of the visual effects guy shared information about the actual size of Adama's new ship. It measures 1,438.64 meters. Almost a mile, so it's bigger than the new Enterprise and less than 200 meters shy of an Imperial Star Destroyer. I changed the graphic to display the old Galactica, which has the correct size. [Thanks to the readers who pointed this out]

Will Whitehorn has worked at Virgin for 22 years. Before he ran Galactic, which he named, he did search and rescue for Sir Richard Branson's world-record-attempt balloon flights, and flew helis for British Airways. I got him on the phone for a few minutes to talk about space travel.

How'd Virgin get into the business of civilian space flight?
Sir Richard has always been into space. In the '80s, he was in touch with Gorbechev about getting into the Soyuz. And his first movie produced was The Space Movie [commissioned by NASA to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Apollo mission].

But Virgin Galactic's origins began with a conversation between me, Buzz Aldrin and Sir Richard Branson in the winter of 1996. We asked him why the American space program never launched crafts from air. Buzz explained that the US had the X-15 project in the '60s and they did test launches from a balloon before, and that the US did these experiments when Buzz was a pilot for the Navy in the '50s.

In 1999 we decided to register the name Virgin Galactic, not knowing where we'd find a spacecraft.

In 2003, Steve Fossett and Virgin cofunded the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer, a plane Fossett would [use to] circumnavigate [the earth] on a single tank of fuel, setting a record. I was watching Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites build the flyer, and noticed he had a small spacecraft in the corner of his factory—it being the ship [SpaceShipOne] that Paul Allen was funding for the [Ansari] X Prize.

That's how we found our ship builder.

How are your customers going to be prepped for space?
There's a three-day training program in our New Mexico facility where, among other things, they'll get G-force training. We've tested 100 of them already using a centrifuge, so they'll understand the forces. If you look at the WhiteKnightTwo [launch vehicle], the starboard hull has an identical cabin to the space ship [see below], and the WhiteKnight has the unique ability to be an astronaut training vehicle, creating forces up to 7Gs. And it can be used as a zero-G flying plane, so passengers can experience G forces and zero G. When White Knight is bringing SpaceShipTwo and its load of passengers into orbit, it is also training the next day's travelers in its hull.

What's the in-flight entertainment going to be like?
The in flight entertainment system won't be like a normal entertainment system. Every customer will have a record of their flight. And lots of data: They'll see how many G's they sustained on the way up, they'll see what time they've arrived, etc. Of course, the best in flight entertainment of all will be the view of the Planet Earth; you'll be able to see the blue planet and the blackness of space while you're weightless.

When's the price coming down to $10,000?
Once the program gets regularized, and we get enough volume, we will be able to reduce the costs. But we believe after 3 to 5 years, we can get it down to $100,000 from $200,000. We can get it down to $100,000 but don't think we'll get it down to $10,000. UPDATE: Sir Richard Branson believes that in his lifetime, the price will be affordable for the average middle class family.

Gravity doesn't go on sale.
Gravity doesn't give you a discount.

Have you already started engineering the zero-g airsickness bags?
NASA already makes one. They're easy to get. But of our 100 customers that we put through the centrifuge, none felt ill from the test.

What other plans do you have for Virgin Galactic?
It's also an industrial and scientific system. We'll bring scientists into space to do microgravity experiments. And we can launch small unmanned rockets or satellites into space, up to 200 kilos, much more cheaply and safely than ever before.

Why should we send people into space?
Stephen Hawking believes that too many scientists in the '80s and '90s got into the mindset that we could just send robots into space. But he said it's wrong to think that way, because humans need to explore. And we now know enough about our planet that we know that a catastrophic event will happen in the next few thousand years—volcanic or otherwise—which would have the propensity to wipe us out. We have to have the ability to leave the planet, and we're only going to be able to do this if we develop manned space flight.

Get Me Off This Rock: Gizmodo's week long dedication to the idea of human life in space.

There's also the matter of the major planets all somehow appearing in the night sky alongside the Moon, but whatever. The pics are cool, in a steam punky, biplanes-in-space kind of way, and all those people on the open air observation decks sure have a great view! [Infomercantile via Dark Roasted Blend]

You can hit the guy's blog for new concepts, or buy his 2007 book—$19.77 isn't a lot for all those vehicles plus the impossibly hot women Daniel likes to draw as pilots and pit crew. The vibe, as you can see in the gallery, is somewhere between Star Wars and Firefly, with a touch of Talladega Nights thrown in for good measure.

[Daniel Simon via io9]

The plane will be designed to carry 12 tons of payload into orbit and return safely, without having wasted $100 million worth of throwaway rocket. The company behind this hybrid shuttle is Reaction Engines, which just got a million euros in funding to prove that its "air breathing" Sabre engine can work.

According to the BBC, the key to this engine is a super-cooler, which takes gasses entering the intake at 1000 degrees celsius, and drops them to -130 degrees C in 1/100th of a second, thanks to "arrays of extremely fine piping." God knows those rocketeers love their piping.

Though not much more is known about Skylon at this point, it's safe to say we'll hear more about it and other non-wasteful spaceships in the future. I just hope they keep that Hotblack-Desiato-meets-Naboo-cruiser look. [BBC News]

The Hamster Rocket Ship Funhouse allows your furry little rodent to pretend he has all the opportunity of a NASA astronaut, while simultaneously making your hamster into a viable "pew pewing" device. As Captain Cricetinae takes to the skies, he will encounter all sorts of odd beasts (cats, dogs, scary children with firecrackers), strange new worlds (bedrooms, bathrooms, and various orifices) and exotic foods (well, pretty much just those weird pellet things and tap water).

And it's only $6. [Your Pets and More via Nerd Approved]

Etsy seller YOUgNeek created this $90 custom-made clock out of vintage Star Wars spaceships attached to a Sterling and Noble clock. The specific choice of vehicles is left to the whim of the buyer, but exactly what warrants the price is a mystery. Wouldn't anybody considering this clock already have a stockpile of little spaceships? And don't most people own glue? Here, I'll give my own instructions for creating this exact same clock for about 1/10th the price.

1. Find clock.
2. Find tiny figurines.
3. Find glue.
4. Glue result of Step 2 to result of Step 1, using result of Step 3.
5. Thank me for my help in saving you so much money by sending me half of your profit. [Geekologie]

Yeah, it's just slowly trucking down the runway, but it's the first time we've actually seen this thing in any sort of action. The next step? The first flight, which is expected to happen around the 19th of this month. We still have a bit of a wait before it'll actually deliver SpaceShipTwo into space, but it's exciting to see progress being made. Now just drop the tickets, Virgin. I want to go. [FlightGlobal]

Photo Credit Alan Radecki

The whole thing is an interactive exhibit designed by Different Futures for the Sensapolis fun park, and it looks absolutely amazing. Inside there's a 3D theater, a lab, an alien breeding ground, a medical center and a warp-core, whatever that is. It's the kind of thing that I would have killed to go run around and play with when I was a kid. Hell, who am I kidding, I'd love to run around this thing now. The only thing that would make it cooler would be if it actually had the capability of launching off to distant worlds. [Wallpaper via PSFK]

What's the training like?
The program has yet to be announced, but we know it's a combination of real flight, simulated flight and centrifuge training.
What's the difference between your Virgin Galactic and Virgin America rides?
The different flight profile of each, but in some ways it flies like any jet...although some portions of the launch of SpaceShipTwo's reentry is glider-like. These planes also do +6Gs.
Is it like a Rollercoaster?
Well, a rollercoaster is more of an inverse G. [So, it's not similar]
What qualification did you need to become a Galactic pilot?
3,000 hours of flight time, and a variety of plane experience, since we also have to fly Gulfstreams to sometimes take customers to and from the spaceports.

Rich, you are a lucky bastard.
[Giz at Virgin Galactic Launch]

Actually it's a flight simulator for pilot training. Virgin America pilots will be trained to fly Virgin Galactic flights, which makes them the luckiest commercial pilots in the country.

Before the ship rolls out, I might as well scribe a few of the details we learned earlier.
• WhiteKnightTwo is completely carbon fiber composite, save for the engines and landing gear.
• We were flown out from LAX on a new Virgin America plane called, "My other ride is a spaceship"
• Virgin American is 30% more fuel efficient than other domestic airlines.
• Virgin America is giving away a ride on Virgin Galactic to one of its customers in a contest called "The Race for Space"

Bob Morgan, Lead engineer at Scaled Composites, is speaking now.

He's said that the vehicle is triple the weight but has capacity for 12 more passengers. The plane's cabling system is also carbon fiber.

They're unveiling it now.

Burt and Sir Richard are doing a Q&A now...

• WhiteKnight and SpaceShipTwo can launch higher in altitude than the first ships, but the SpaceShip can't grab enough atmosphere any higher than the previous launch point, so can't go as high this way. So they drop the SpaceShip payload at the same altitude.
• As far as bases go, after New Mexico, they'll open a spaceport in Sweden, and they're talking to Spain and the Far East.
• Who can go on this? Because its suborbital, we can make the flight only 2-3Gs instead of 5Gs and so older people like Sir Richard's parents, Stephen Hawking and others are going to try going.
• Food? Their solution is not feeding you at all. Probably for vomit concerns.

• The wingspan has no seams, its one piece tip to tip. Composites don't bolt together well, so they don't use them.
• This is about seeing the curvature and beauty of the earth and experience weightlessness.
• 270 people are signed up and many have begun training in centrifuges to resist G forces.

More Facts:
• The first ships will be called "Spirit of Steve Fosset" after Sir Richard's friend and his mother, "Eve"
• SpaceShipTwo is 60% done.
• Similar construction and design to SS1
• Will carry six Passengers and two pilots; could carry 11, but Sir Richard only wants to sell window seats.
• Whole fuselage used for passenger cabin
• Reclining seats to max cabin space in zero g and re-entry.
• SpaceShipTwo can do 6Gs front to back, and 3.8Gs head to toe.
• Zero G WILL be out of seat. I hope they have tethers.
• WhiteKnightTwo can ferry SS2 coast to coast in the US.

• Hugging the WhiteKnightTwo is emotionally satisfying, but the hull tastes dusty.
• The port cabin is a mockup with painted windows.

[Giz at Virgin Galactic Launch]

The original idea was to use a camera and let the wheelchair user negotiate the passage of the wheelchair onto his or her vehicle's forklift attachment that lifts the wheelchair aboard. However, after this method proved to be too difficult, they went with plan B. This used an onboard computer that recognised the LIDAR system, used by the Jules Verne. It bounces laser light off two reflectors that are placed in the arm rests of the chair, keeping tabs on the chair's position and lining it up with the lifting device.

With a 97.5 percent success rate in tests, the project, a collaboration between researchers at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, and a company called Freedom Sciences, is expected to go into production. The price is expected to be around $30,000. [NewScientist]