With an eye on the future of American spaceflight, US Defense agency DARPA has awarded contracts to three aerospace companies for the design of their Experimental Spaceplane Project (seen here in an artist's conceptual drawing). The goal of the project, dubbed XS-1, is the creation of a robotic spaceplane which will be capable of making frequent trips into space while carrying large amounts of cargo at a relatively inexpensive cost. More on the story at Space.com