I heard that it snowed a tiny bit here yesterday…I missed it. I went with John to a CoVE opening at another college (in Lancashire); it was quite far away and I was gone all day. The opening was nicely done; it’s a very large school, in much more modern buildings than we have. They obviously have a LOT more money than we do. Anyway, we were at this champagne reception with guest speakers, one useless and one very interesting. The speaker was Steve Bennett, who is heading the Starchaser Project. They are competing for the X PRIZE, which is a “$10,000,000 prize to jumpstart the space tourism industry through competition between the most talented entrepreneurs and rocket experts in the world.” The $10 Million cash prize will be awarded to the first team that: 1) Privately finances, builds & launches a spaceship, able to carry three people to 100 kilometers (62.5 miles) 2)Returns safely to Earth and 3) Repeats the launch with the same ship within two weeks. Very interesting – fascinating guy, and a very interesting presentation. I would love to go…no matter what the cost or danger.