The CXV -- Crew Transfer Vehicle -- being developed by tSpace could provide an alternative platform for manned spaceflight, and would be useful both for private missions as well as a tool for NASA should its primary launch system be offline for years on end (as has happened twice with the space shuttle). Read the full story.

I make good on my book review promise, and take a look at Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow. There's also some thoughts on toddlers and Star Wars, news about the extension of the Atomic Swindlers CD giveaway, and a plug for the new scifi magazine podcast, Escape Pod.

Getting the Podcast

You can get the podcast in two ways:

• Download the MP3 directly
• Subscribe to the podcast rss feed using an aggregator (you only need to do this once; subsequent shows should download automatically)

For the last two weeks, I've been living in the past, accessing the Web and e-mail through a dial-up connection over a hardwired network. No cable modem. No DSL. No wireless. Just a low-speed 33kps modem connection that drops out every 20 minutes or so.