The Cartifact project maps the presence of homeless people in Los Angeles with wierd, semi-organic effects.

You don’t think of Ohio as a place that gets in on private space access, but they’re trying to get PlanetSpace and their SilverDart rocketship to land or build rockets there.

It wouldn’t be late December on the intarwebs without the obligatory predictions regarding the year to come from all and sundry, qualified or otherwise. The LA Times, however, got John “EDGE.org” Brockman to round up some top-rank talking heads to speak their minds on the forthcoming twelve months. The seven pundits include Steve Ballmer, Chris Anderson and Brockman himself. Their opinion? We’ll be back in control.

While the rest of the world marks time before new year’s, the space industry is keeping busy. Today saw the successful launch of the COROT space-telescope satellite atop a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur. COROT’s mission is to look closely at star systems in an attempt to locate exoplanets.

The shuttle returns to earth without incident, though this close to Christmas, I’m surprised they didn’t stay up for an astronaut Christmas in space.