TAKE A RIDE ON A ROCKET

Here some pretty amazing footage taken from cameras aboard the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. Experience the ride from start to finish. We won't see this kind of thing anymore.

Whether or not you were a fan of the space shuttle program, the first privately-owned space cargo delivery business is almost ready to begin. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX plans to launch the first commercial cargo load of supplies to the International Space Station on April 30. After about 12 contracted cargo runs, SpaceX will start ferrying astronauts to the space station.

We'll be watching closely on April 30 and keeping fingers crossed that this will be a productive new step outward into space.

In the meantime Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic continues to sign up passengers for its planned tours to the edge of space. The newest to make a booking? Actor Ashton Kutcher will be Virgin Galactic's 500th passenger, if everything goes according to plan, though there's still no official start date for flights to begin. The ride is expected to cost about $200,000 per person for a flight about three-and-a-half hours in total (only six minutes of weightlessness).

The times they are a changin'...hopefully for the better.