Hello,
This afternoon, we had our annual astro-entusiasts meeting at a nearby observatory.
One friend spoke about the current state of the unmanned and manned space program in Russia (and also its future); another guy talked about his experience in launching rockets as amateur (apparently it's allowed in some places but the rockets can never fly above 3,000 m);
another friend talked about the latest Mars discoveries (it could be he lurks here but I'm not sure).
And there was the cherry on the cake: a friend had asked for and received the authorization, last january, to fly aboard the 0G Airbus at Bordeaux. His adventure took place in april, but there's a catch: he was asked by one experimenter to serve as a guinea pig for one of his experiments (one other guy was missing) and he had to attach himself, upright, while undergoing the paraboles and for the sake of the experiment, could NOT take a pill to prevent sickness.
As a result, he didn't move much, got sick after 6 paraboles (out of 31). But he said it was worth it (once on the ground after 2 hours, he felt fine.

Raoul