We watched it from the causeway west of Cocoa Beach. It was a beautiful evening for it–all of the clouds had cleared. I may put up some pictures tomorrow, if they look worth it. Off to bed now, a little after 1 AM.

In the non-space publication PC Gamer in the July issue, we find that video game celebrity and fellow Austinite Richard Garriott will have a regular column where we will find out about his PC Games from NC Soft like Tabula Rasa and also “what one says to Stephen Hawking while riding the ‘vomit comet.'”

While technically he rode ZEROG non-vomit comet with only 12 parabolas (which doesn’t give me much hope for the space editing in the magazine), Garriott’s space persona includes being Vice Chairman of Space Adventures, the company that has the most space tourism cost of goods sold. He is also the son of astronaut Owen Garriott.

So welcome, Lord British! And keep up the good work bringing science fiction to digital–and analog–life.

Mark Whittington reads a prognosticative puff piece by various NASA officials, and thinks that it’s somehow a rebuttal to all the critics of the program.

What do you expect, Mark? That they’re going to say it’s not going to survive? It’s not like any of them are going to be around and accountable six years from now. Is there anything they could tell you that you wouldn’t believe? Did you know that the word “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary?

Well, at least he admits his confusion.

Despite the Bahamian low that’s supposed to bring showers to south Florida today, there’s an eighty percent chance of good weather for the launch tonight, so I think we’ll be driving up. Too bad it’s not an hour or so later–then it would be a night launch.

It looks like XCOR has the funding they need to build Xerus. Alan Boyle has the story of the changing, and maturing, nature of space startup funding. No more giggling.

Out Of The Cradle has the most comprehensive set of ISDC links so far.

And justified criticism of the Dallas Morning News, which doesn’t seem to think that this is important, even when it takes place in its own city.

Jeff Foust has a report on three of the talks at this weekends ISDC, on the importance of being willing to rethink plans, improvise, and make rapid changes to them. This is something that small private companies are a lot better at than large ones, or government bureaucracies, which is one of the reasons that they’re likely to beat NASA back to orbit post Shuttle, or on to the moon.

An interesting interview with George Whitesides, Executive Director of the National Space Society. I would point out, though, that NASA had nothing to do with GPS.

Instapundit has some more on space tourism and commercialization. I think he’s becoming a space blogger!

Taking off from the conference to St. Louis for a family barbecue. Thoughts on the space conference later. Meanwhile Instapundit has a few more posts, with more to come, as does Jeff Foust. And Leonard David has an article about space diving, which may be a killer app for cheap suborbital vehicles like Armadillo’s.