Commercial space flights for tourists could be a routine program someday soon. With that in mind, there is some renewed excitement surrounding manned spaceflight, and for people with a few million bucks burning a hole in their pockets, an opportunity to go up into low earth orbit is not a ridiculous vacation idea. But before you pack your bags, you should check out some next generation spacesuit designs that claim to be more comfortable than ever before.

• A skintight spacesuit took some MIT researchers several years to develop -- and its BioSuit still hasn't been worn in space. The result is still a very fashionable and functional outfit that looks like it could have been designed for a Star Trek episode. [url]
• Bill Elkins, a designer of some Apollo-era space suits, talks about some of the old space suit designs and his experience testing them out. Elkins also holds a record for remaining conscious while sustaining 16.5 Gs of force in a big centrifuge. [url]
• Final Frontier Design has recently completed a Kickstarter project that raised over $20,000 for creating a soft spacesuit. One backer spent $10,000 and will get a custom prototype suit -- which might become the most expensive Halloween costume ever. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

The future of manned spaceflight to other planets is a bit uncertain nowadays, but there are still plenty of people who are working on plans that could lead to people walking around on Mars before the end of the century. In the meantime, unmanned missions will have to suffice, but here are some quick links on traveling to Mars.

• Landing equipment on Mars that weighs anywhere near 40-80 tons (on Earth) is just out of the question using current technology. The Mars Science Laboratory weighs about a ton and it's about as big as we can go right now... and we'll see how it does later this year. [url]
• SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk wants to send people to Mars in 10-20 years. It would be interesting if a private company lands on another planet before any nation does. [url]
• Studying 12 generations of worms on the International Space Station could help us better understand how humans will survive indefinitely long trips in space. So Caenorhabditis elegans could be the first animals sent to another planet, instead of dogs or chimps. [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Manned spaceflight has obviously seen better days. There aren't that many ambitious spaceflights that actually have solid funding these days, but there are still a lot of plans and desire for manned space exploration to resume again. Here are just a few projects that might get off the ground.

• DARPA has $500,000 in seed money to get folks thinking about interstellar space travel. The 100-Year Starship Study will encourage discussion about what it would take to make a trip to another star system, and a lot of the proposals will be science fiction for a very long time. [url]
• The US Air Force has a "secret" mini space shuttle that might be able to take astronauts into space, and return them just like the retired space shuttle used to. The X-37B space plane could spawn a larger X-37C model that is twice a long, but the budget for producing these vehicles isn't exactly guaranteed. [url]
• The concept of using nuclear reactions isn't a particularly new idea for space propulsion, but NASA engineers are designing aneutronic fusion reactor schemes that could be useful for shooting satellites across our solar system more efficiently. Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup. They slither while they pass they slip away across the universe... [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Yesterday, we pointed out some links on space exploration. In honor of Yuri Gagarin's first spaceflight, here are some projects that are opening up other hard-to-reach places to the masses. Communism, FTW...?

• Drilling down a few kilometers below the ocean floor could reach the Earth's mantle by 2020. Parts of the Earth's mantle have erupted up from the ocean floor, but going down to get fresh samples might be more enlightening. [url]
• Recently, Virgin Galactic ostentatiously advertised for itself -- as well as its less expensive sister airline -- at SFO. However, there's a bit of a price gap between seats in 1st class on an A320... versus a ride on a sub-orbital-capable custom rocketship. [url]
• Sir Richard Branson also has a deep sea submarine called Virgin Oceanic. It's nice to be a billionaire... And adapting a chain of record stores for other business models seems to be possible, right? [url]
• To discover more interesting travel-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.