Military officials have recently expressed an interest in "near space", the realm between the upper atmosphere and low Earth orbit. Taylor Dinerman describes why near space is so interesting and the role suborbital vehicles can play there.
The cost of building and launching spacecraft is prohibitive for students, but there is still a way to give them the experience of spaceflight. L. Paul Verhage reports on balloon-launched ?near spacecraft? being built and flown by amateurs across the US.