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In the absence of NASA's Space Shuttle Program, private companies are left to fill the black hole of space exploration. Now, 50 years after John Glenn orbited the Earth, some very different kinds of explorers are leading the way. 1.

Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day. PlayStation Vita Launching February 22, 2012 .

Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day. Apple Posts Quarterly Revenue of $28.27 Billion . Riding record Mac and iPad sales, Apple reported $6.62 billion of net quarterly profit, up from $4.31 billion the same quarter last year.

Early in August, Seattle’s Space Needle and Space Adventures launched a scheme that promised to let one lucky earthling cozy up with the stars, offering a trip to space as the prize in a contest open to the public.

We knew Virgin Galactic had hopes of using its capacious SpaceShipTwo-class reusable spaceplanes for more than just joyrides into zero-g, but NASA's new contract with the fledgling space company is a milestone for the entire business, as well as Richard Branson's wackiest venture. As Virgin notes, "this arrangement marks the first time that NASA has contracted with a commercial partner to provide flights into space on a suboribtal spacecraft." The decision came out of NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist, source of some of the most paradigm-changing pieces of news from NASA recently, and it's technically a further step in a program that's already seen NASA technology flights on low-altitude rockets

Qualcomm and the X Prize are offering money for a device that can spot diseases better than a doctor.

A troupe of blue-faced performers is taking its quirky act to a different Las Vegas Strip casino in the fall of 2012.