Rocket Races!

Some time ago, I wrote a novel called Roger Zelazny's Alien Speedway: Clypsis. (It was a share-crop effort, based on work by the late Roger Zelazny and put together by the late Byron Preiss.) It was about a kid named Mike Murray, who travels to a future star system, Clypsis, which is dedicated solely to the sport of spaceship racing. It was great fun to write, and from the feedback I got from readers, fun to read as well.

Well...Fast Rewind to the present. This story on Space.com reports a planned annual event under the aegis of the "Rocket Racing League," featuring actual races of piloted "X-Racer stock rocket planes." The first races are planned for October of 2006, in the skies of New Mexico. This is so cool, I can't wait. Spaceman's luck, everyone!

But in the meantime, they're planning an exhibition of X-Prize competitors in Las Cruces, New Mexico for this weekend, Oct. 9. (Wish I could go.) And the X-Prize winner, Spaceship One, is about to go on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Wish I had my own private rocket plane to go to all these events!