Good news, spacefans: the image up top is real. Virgin Galactic's rocket plane made history this morning, igniting its engines for the first time and hitting supersonic speeds. The achievement brings would-be passengers one step closer to a trip to the edge of space.

It's Yuri's Night! Tonight, space enthusiasts the world over will kick off celebrations to commemorate 52 years of human space exploration by recognizing the anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's historic flight into space (not to mention the 32nd anniversary of the very first Shuttle launch).

It looks way too good to be true, but this photo of Virgin Galactic's air-launched spaceplane is the real deal.

Tonight is Yuri's Night! The night space enthusiasts around world celebrate 51 years of human space exploration by recognizing the anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's historic flight into space (as well as the 31st anniversary of the very first Shuttle launch).

The Playboy Club might have failed on television, but could it succeed in space? Following Virgin Galactic's space tourism lead, Playboy is pondering its own space station luxury club, with amenities that include zero-gravity sex suites and human roulette balls.

Travel has long had an environmental cost: gasoline, jet fuel, spandex pants for bicycling. With space tourism soon to become a common occurrence, what will be the environmental price?

SpaceShipTwo, a Virgin Galactic plane, may be ready to make regular commercial flights to space within twelve months.

Here's Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two cruising over the Mojave Desert last Thursday. The VSS Enterprise spacecraft didn't travel into suborbital space but stayed affixed to its mothership. Virgin's planned price for a few minutes of suborbital views? $200,000.

Tonight marks a historic event: Virgin Galactic will unveil SpaceShipTwo, the first crewed commercial spaceship set to fly the extraterrestrial skies, at the Mojave Air and Spaceport. Get a sneak peek at the ship before its debut. [Gizmodo]

For those who felt that Virgin Galactic's plan of passenger spaceflight fell down due to the lack of provision for satellites, relief is at hand: The company has announced that they will be adding private satellite launches to their offerings.