The UK–not the US–is the headquarters of Virgin Galactic, which Richard Branson hopes will create an entirely new tourism market–in space. Are private companies taking over this task because there are secrets NASA doesn’t want us to know? (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show).

In the Guardian, Robin McKie quotes commercial director Stephen Attenborough as saying, "Things are going incredibly well. (On the office walls) are computer graphics images, but next year we hope to replace them with photographs of the real thing: our first commercial flights into outer space."
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America is becoming the new Saudi Arabia, turning from an oil-consuming nation into a power producing nation. When Obama was elected, we were importing almost two-thirds of its oil. That number is down to below almost half and is still falling. What caused this? Fracking.

In the July 16th edition of the Financial Times, Edward Luce writes: "Those 5 million ‘green-collar jobs’ Mr. Obama once promised have been quietly forgotten. Most of America’s new jobs are on (gas) drilling rigs in places such as North Dakota, New Mexico and Ohio."
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Those of us who watch TV shows like "Mad Men" and movies like "Wall Street," assume that CEOs lead more stressful lives than the rest of us–but actually, the opposite is true. It turns out that heart attacks happen more often to the people who work under them. 
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