Carnival of Space #146- Simostronomy Edition

This week's Carnival of Space has set up its big top right here at the Simostronomy blog. For those of you new to the Carnival, let me explain. The Carnival of Space is a collection of links to stories and articles from astronomy and space related blogs. Each week a different blogger or webmaster in the community hosts the carnival. It's a great way to reach a wider audience, showcase your writing, and get to know other writers in the field.The Carnival of Space is coordinated by Fraser Cain of the Universe Today. If you run a space or astronomy blog and would like to participate, write to info@universetoday.com. There is a complete archive of the Carnival of Space available here. Now let's grab a corn dog and some cotton candy and see if we can't win us a stuffed animal or something...The first ride to buy a ticket for in this week's Carnival is on one of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic.Phil Plait writes about the fact that this is part of the future that has arrived today on Bad Astronomy. Citizen astronauts heading for space., or as he puts it, "Barnstorming the final frontier".We've come a long way since ...