Google party plane watches spaceship go down in flames

It's good to be the Googlers. Part of Larry Page and Sergey Brin's sweetheart deal to park their fleet of private jets at Nasa's Ames Research Center involves letting the space agency use their Gulfstream V for so-called "scientific experiments." What that really means: Getting a front-row seat for some really bitchin' real-time space porn. A European space freighter, full of trash from the International Space Station, was sent down from orbit to burn up in the atmosphere early this morning over the Pacific Ocean. A Gulfstream owned by H211 LLC, the flight-operating company through which Larry and Sergey own their party planes, participated in observing the event. "It was decided to postpone the reentry by three weeks so that the reentry would happen at nighttime for best viewing conditions," two researchers wrote in an article on Space.com. That raises one key question. More »

Jeff Bezos getting spaced out in middle age

Amazon.com topper Jeff Bezos possesses an estimated personal wealth of $9 billion. He's come a long way, too. Born to a teenage mother and a disappearing dad, Bezos also survived the dotcom bust. But according to a weekend profile in the Times, all the success has gone straight to Bezos's head and exploded it. The man is nuts. As in, he's trying to monetize space travel. More »

Land on moon, collect $30 million

One-upping the $10 million non-profit X Prize for commercial space travel, Google is offering $20 million to the first private enterprise that makes it to the moon. Of course, this is a Google venture, so the winner has to compete some secondary tasks to get the prize. Once they're done with the main bit of landing on the freaking moon, prize seekers must take video and walk some specified distances. Google offers bonus prizes for finding ice, spotting Apollo equipment, and surviving the lunar night. Great, the next lunar landing will play like an episode of Survivor.

A fire breaks out at a Mojave airport building belonging to Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan's space-rocket company. Two people are dead, four are critically injured from the incident, which a local fire inspector blames on nitrous oxide. [CBS2.com]

Spider Jerusalem award: The best blurb in journalism

Tech journalism is boring. It's hard to make a world of chips and software exciting without sounding like a Wired cub reporter or a BusinessWeek bubble-blower. More »

Esther Dyson addicted to Zero G

Having run out of trendy locales to visit on Earth's surface, philosopher-futurist Esther Dyson takes a zero-grav trip in G-Force One: More »

Valley players: Elon Musk, rocketman

My God, it's full of stars! The Valley is crowded with big-league bigshots, and each deserves a testament to their lasting contributions to technology: in other words, a fake trading card. More »

Google in space — and in Houston

The world is not enough: All of Google's heavy petting with NASA will pay off when the two hop into bed. More »