Dateline April 19, 2006, Space News from the Internet

• NASA has opened registration for five Centennial Challenge Competitions. They are:
  
  
  
  • Astronaut Glove Challenge, administered by Volanz Aerospace/Spaceflight America with a total prize value of $250,000.
    
  • Beam Power Challenge, administered by the Spaceward Foundation as part of the annual Space Elevator Games with a total prize value of $200,000.
    
  • Lunar Regolith Excavation Challenge, administered by the California Space Education & Workforce Institute with a total prize value of $250,000.
    
  • MoonROx (Moon Regolith Oxygen) Challenge, administered by the Florida Space Research Institute with a total prize value of $250,000.
    
  • Tether Challenge, administered by the Spaceward Foundation as part of the annual Space Elevator Games with a total prize value of $200,000.
  
  See the NASA Centennial Challenges web site for more information. Alan Boyle also has this story.
• NASA has given ATK Thiokol $28.6 million to continue development of the first stage of the CLV. This contract goes through September 30, 2006, then end of FY06.
• Eri Matsui, of Japan, has designed a wedding dress for zero-g. There is now a competition in JAXA to design a wedding dress for space.
• SpaceWorks Engineering, Inc (SEI) is conducting space tourism surveys. Go take it, have fun.
• Apparently, California doesn't want space tourism in their state. State funding for improvements at Mojave spaceport was killed in a senate committee session.
  

Eri Matsui's Wedding dress in Earth Gravity & Zero-G