Sorry for posting more bad news, but remember that company that wanted to explore and mine asteroids?
They had a project and a website
named NEAP [Near Earth Orbit Project].
Well...That NEAP website URL is no
longer available. Conclusion: NEAP
has bit the dust.

Other commercial space-projects and programs aren't doing much better.

(1) Kistler Aerospace has abandoned
any firm dates to launch their rocket on a suborbital test flight; that's assuming the rocket has even been assembled or built.

(2) LunaCorp? What have they done lately?

(3) JP Aerospace? They've only attempted
balloon flights recently.

(4) Bigelow? Still "Pie in the sky".

(5) Project HAL5? They almost reached
space with a balloon rocket, a few years ago. The only project that has achieved
its partial goals.

(6) Rotary Rocket? Tom Brosz can tell you more about this one; at least it was built and lifted off the ground.

(7) MirCorp? Not even the Russians
believe Jeffrey Manber's plans are anything more than "paper projects"
so far.

(8) X-Prize? Sometime 'next year', sometime the year after that, or the year after that, or the decade, etc...

No wonder "SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN" magazine, in the April issue, ridiculed
these amateur and commercial space-projects as failures: The magazine actually concluded that the "Space Race" is dead. Yes, Tom! They actually used
a photo of the Rotary rocket [and mentioned the defunct project as an example] as part of their negative editorial.
If I were you, Tom Brosz, I would write a very indignant letter to SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN magazine.

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But I think it's not all bad news!.... In England, Steve Bennett's NOVA rocket, regardless if it launches the first British male into space, will be the first 'amateur' rocket to reach space [100km+ up]; an unmanned, fully-fueled testflight of NOVA is imminent.

And the project that is my favorite, and one I'm participating in, formerly known as "Encounter2001" has successfully ground-tested the unfurling of the solar-sail that will propel human DNA to the stars.

Jacob