Space Flight!

The news today is all about the Spaceship One first commerical flight.
If he can fly it again in two weeks he should get the X-Prize ($10 million).

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ss1/status.html

But even if he does, the real progress may come from one of these two
guys. The SpaceshipOne can only reach 100km and has to come right back
down - it doesn't have enough horizontal velocity to get into an orbit.
John Carmack, the guy who wrote the Doom & Quake video games, is still
working on a low-pressure liquid fuel engine that actually descends on
its own exhaust like in the old 40's movies!

http://armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home

And these guys are producing blimps that lift you very high, high enough
to start an ion engine that runs on solar power, and over the course of
many days can achieve a real orbital velocity.

http://www.jpaerospace.com/