Media attention begins for the rollout on Monday of the White Knight Two: Aircraft for space tourism to be unveiled - AP/International Herald Tribune.

Some items of interest:
/-- "White Knight Two will have the same wingspan — 140 feet (42.4 meters) — as the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, a World War II U.S. bomber"
/-- "SpaceShipTwo is only about 70 percent complete"
/-- "the earliest flights to space could be late 2009 or early 2010"
/-- "Virgin Galactic has pledged more than $250 million toward the project; about $100 million has been spent so far"

July 26th will mark the first anniversary of the tragic deaths of Scaled Composites employees Eric Blackwell, Todd Ivens and Glen May in a SpaceShipTwo engine test facility accident. Alan Radecki says "a ceremony dedicating a memorial plaque was held today at Mojave's Legacy Park": Remembering Eric, Todd & Glen: Scaled's Memorial Dedication - Mojave Skies - July.24.08. The message of the day: "Our sorrow is great, yet the dream shall never die!"

Michael Belfiore has obtained the exact times for the XCOR X-Racer flights at Oshkosh and the XCOR presentations about the Lynx: XCOR and Rocket Racing League at Oshkosh - Dispatches from the Final Frontier - July.24.08

The European Spaceward Association will be hosting the 2nd International Conference on Space Elevator Climber and Tether Design (flyer - pdf) in Luxembourg on Dec. 6-7, 2008. (Via The Space Elevator Blog).
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The 4Frontiers Corporation and several other Florida organizations are awarded space grants : NASA Florida Space Grant Consortium and Space Florida Award $375,000 to 17 R&D Programs - Space Florida

Rob Coppinger posts some graphics showing the changes in Ares I and V over the years: NASA's Ares rockets updates - Hyperbola
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Boeing and ATK will collaborate with Lockheed-Martin on DARPA's hypersonic Blackswift (HTV-3X) project: Boeing Joins Lockheed Martin On Blackswift - Aviation Week - July.24.08 .

Last I heard, though, there were budget problems for the project: Hypersonic Plane Hits Turbulence; Budget Cut, Testing in Doubt - Wired - June.12.08.

GLXP teams with US members will need permission from NOAA to take pictures of earth:
/-- NOAA Open Letter to Google Lunar X PRIZE Participants - Res Communis
/-- NOAA Regulations - The Launch Pad
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Here is a video interview with Jeff Krukin of GLXP team STELLAR at The Launch Pad blog.

(Here is also a recent item on Jeff's own blog that I've been meaning to post a link to : Would President Obama Give NASA A Non-Space Mission?)
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Leonard David reports on plans to develop a networking scheme for lunar science experiments from different countries: Lunar Networking: Multi-Nation Science on the Moon - LiveScience.com Blogs

The NanoSail-D solar sail, which will be on the next Falcon I flight, is the topic in this article: Solar Sailing in Space: NASA prepares to test a satellite that can be propelled by light particles from the sun bouncing off its sails - Technology Review (via spacetoday.net).
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A Japanese project investigates an unusual space solar power collection and transmission approach: Will Space-Based Solar-Powered Lasers Solve Our Energy Future? - Daily Galaxy
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Lockheed-Martin announces a successful demo of its High Power Hall Current Thruster (HPHCT) system: Lockheed Martin Team Demonstrates High Power Electric Propulsion System for TSAT Program - L-M - July.23.08. Find info on Hall Effect propulsion here and here.

The Music of the Spheres blog hosts this week's: Carnival of Space.

The cover article for New Scientist is about Rocket Racing and is written by Greg Klerkx: Rocket racing prepares for take-off - New Scientist - July.23.08.
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A reader points to a recent promotional video from Rocketplane Global: New Promo Video of Rocketplane Global’s XP - The Space Fellowship - July.16.08.
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SS1 appears again in Mojave: SpaceShipOne Returns to Mojave (well, sorta...) - Mojave Skies

The Odyssey Moon team in the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition announces Paul Spudis is joining them : Dr. Paul Spudis Announced as Chief Scientist of Odyssey Moon Limited - X PRIZE Foundation.

They are on quite a roll. This news follows the announcement in June that Alan Stern would join them and the announcement last week of a Second Customer and Second Mission.
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Space Prizes blog points to several space related competition news items: EAA Aviation Nation - Space Prizes
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Via Aleta in the comments here comes the following WK2 and Oshkosh X-Racer schedule update:

White Knight Two will have a rollout in Mojave [on Monday] with live coverage at Osh.

XCOR is scheduled to fly the Rocket Racer three times at Osh: Tues, Fri, Sat.

XCOR will give three talks on the Lynx, Mon, Sat and Sun.

A promotional item from the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS):

Fourth Annual Conference in October Caps “Space Week in New Mexico” with Business and Technical Success Stories
SPCS 2008 Focuses on Profit, Business Model for Personal & Commercial Spaceflight

Las Cruces, NM, July 23, 2008 -- The 4th annual International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS), set for October 22-23, will feature a range of experts speaking on the growing importance of developing profitable business models for human and commercial space enterprises.

The conference, to be held in Las Cruces, New Mexico, presents attendees with a valuable opportunity to network with hundreds of leading investors, vendors and industry experts from across the globe. After three years of rapid growth as the premier symposium for personal spaceflight opportunities, ISPCS has expanded to encompass the financial challenges and opportunities involved in taking humans and cargo into space.

Here' s another interesting Res Communis blog interview with a space lawyer : Interview: Pamela L. Meredith - Res Communis. For example,

Res Communis: Do you have any thoughts on how that law should develop? There is launch law and the law for the return.

Meredith: Yes, we do have regulations for launches and re-entries, but not for what happens in between with respect to the vehicle and payload, except in the specific areas I mentioned. There is not, as many other countries have, a sort of an “umbrella” legislation for space. In the U.S. we regulate each specific activity. So the question is, do we need regulation to cover new activities that are coming online? For example, the Google Lunar X Prize. It calls for non-government, private activity on the Moon. There are also private orbital ventures in the planning.

Whatever we do, the key is not to over-regulate, because that could stifle a fledgling industry. The key is to facilitate activity that is safe and consistent with national security and treaty obligations. The risk of not having some sort of regulatory frame-work is that, at some point, a number of regulatory agencies may decide to assert jurisdiction and that could halt a project or delay it severely. This is what happened to the first commercial launch company, Space Services, back in the early 1980s, before DOT (later delegated to the FAA) was made the focal point for licensing of commercial launches. More than 10 U.S. government agencies claimed jurisdiction over some aspect of the launch.

These are things we need to think about. The space law community needs to give thought to this.

Via spacetoday.net come these updates on SpaceX:
/-- SpaceX Prepares For Third Launch - Aviation Week
/-- Third Time’s the Charm? Elon Musk tries again to reach orbit, with hopes for low-cost spaceflight riding on the outcome - Air & Space Magazine

Some items of interest:
/-- The Falcon I launch window opens on July 29th
/-- The SpaceX website launch manifest shows five Falcon I launches but the article says there are seven that are booked. So there must be a couple not yet made public.
/-- A nine-engine test firing of the Falcon 9 first stage booster is planned for early August.

Both the XCOR and the Armadillo rocket racing vehicles will be at Oshkosh but it seems unlikely that the latter will fly: Rocket planes to ship for first demo race - New Scientist

Former NASA manager O. Glenn Smith backs space based solar power in a NY Times op-ed: Satellites With Solar Panels Can Beam the Sun's Energy to Earth - Op-Ed/NYTimes.com

Jeff Fousts points out some problems that Smith "glosses over": Editorial trifecta - Space Politics
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The motor for the Orion launch escape system has been successfully tested: Well, the Escape Engine Works at Least... - Parabolic Arc - July.21.08 . But Rand Simberg notes that the LES contributes to Orion's weight problems : The Cause Of The Ares 1 Problem - Transterrestrial Musings.
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A report on the recent Space Elevator conference: Redmond Space Elevator Conference: Not a joke - PNWLocalNews