I would not think that someone who had $100k to drop on a suborbital space flight would quibble much about an extra few grand or even an extra hundred grand. The folks with the disposable income to take a joy ride into space probably don’t think twice about that kind of money.

A company called Xtraordinary Adventures has announced that it is pre-booking suborbital space flights on its reusable Lynx spacecraft for $95,000. The company points out that its price is $7000 less than Space Adventures and $100,000 less than Virgin Galactic’s price.

A space probe launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is expected to land in the Australian outback late Sunday after a seven-year journey to a nearby asteroid. Scientists hope the probe will be carrying a sample from the asteroid which will mark the first time a spacecraft has returned to Earth with samples other than from the Earth’s moon.

The probe named Hayabusa landed on the asteroid Itokawa two times in 2005 and after its long return journey will be landing a remote desert in Australia. Among the team to find and recover the probe will be indigenous Aboriginal elders to ensure that the landing of the device did not damage any sacred grounds.

I haven’t worn a wristwatch in years, my iPhone is my timepiece of choice and many people are the same way. However, the wristwatch in some forms is still very interesting to me and Romain Jermoe has a new, very limited edition watch that is beyond cool.

The watch is called The Truth About Roswell and is being offering in a very limited edition run of only 9 units. The watch is from the Moon Dust-DNA series and pricing is unspecified, but sure to be expensive. It has mechanical movement and power comes from a winding mechanism. That means it has all those tiny gears and springs inside the case.

I haven’t written in pen for a long time, but had I had the Ray Gun pen, I would be writing in pen constantly, making pew pew sounds followed by explosions. This pen comes from a company named ACME and is clearly the best pen ever made.

The “Ray Gun” is a retractable roller ball with a “special ‘gun sight’-shaped clip,” a stand that completes the look and even some cool packaging. It was created by U.K. designer Ben Hall and will be available this month for $130.

You’re a geek and so are we. So we understand. Sometimes you just can’t keep all that love for Space Invaders to yourself. You have to slip it in her drink like a nerd roofie, hoping that it will pique her interest. Maybe she’ll ask what it is. You can explain and in the process make her a nerd too. Maybe you’ll play the classic game together.

Not very likely. She’ll probably just tell you to keep your dork ice in that Shirley Temple you’re sipping. Hey, you tried. Ice Invaders is a silicone tray that will make Space Invaders ice or let you bake your own aliens. It will be available this spring. Pretend your going pew pew pew as they melt in your girlly drink.

Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome has released something new and amazingly awesome in the “Moon Dust-DNA” collection. It’s a collection of 1969 timepieces that includes watches made from such things as moon dust, parts of the Apollo 11 rocket and even pieces actual spacesuits. Why 1969 timepieces? That was the year of the first moon landing.

The dials feature tiny craters with dust in them from moon rocks, the cases include bits of steel from the Apollo 11 space shuttle and the strap gets the same treatment, containing fibers from a spacesuit worn during the ISS mission. So if you want to get yourself several pieces of things that have actually been in space, this is a good way to do it. Pricing for the Moon Dust-DNA watches is also out of this world, starting at $15,000 and goes as high as $500,000.

If Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne and the like had had the opportunity to explore space, their gear might have looked something like this. Herr Döktor’s Vacuum Survival System, or ‘Space Helmet’ was apparently recently recovered from the archive at “Castle d’Arrogance”. There aren’t a ton of details, but from what I gather, it’s fully functional should you wish to leave Victorian England and explore space.

Some specs include a blown glass pressure bell, cast-iron body with brass and copper fittings, and externally mounted lamp. The chest mounted control box shows the temperature as well as illuminated internal and external pressure gauges. It’s a true work of art so awesome that it will grab you by the handlebar mustache and take you for a ride.

The WhiteKnightTwo is the aircraft that will launch SpaceShipTwo into suborbital space. Today in the Mojave desert, those who are still dreaming the dream unveiled the top-secret craft. The craft’s first job is to serve as a flight simulator next month for pilots. Pilots that will shuttle citizens into space and usher in a new era of space travel. Assuming everything goes as planned, it should begin flight testing at the end of September. Except for the engines and landing gear, the entire craft is made from carbon fiber composite.

According to Virgin Galactic, both ships will be ready for their first flight together in 2009 or 2010. Fittingly, Richard Branson and his family will be the first onboard. The space flight lasts 2.5-hours with five minutes of weightlessness before the ship comes back to Earth.

According to the Space Adventures tourism company out of Virginia, Sergy Brin, cofounder of Google, has put a $5 million deposit down for a vacation in space aboard a Russian spacecraft. The total trip will cost $35 million dollars and the launch date is scheduled for sometime in 2011.

Brin joins a small number of elite individuals who have both the desire to travel into space and more importantly the deep pockets to make it happen. Richard Garriott’s trip with Space Adventures is still coming up this fall. Brin’s $5 million deposit also makes him the founding member of a new Space Adventure club called the Orbital Mission Explorers Circle. The membership appears to work something like a vacation timeshare, but for space. Brin and any other new members that join get preferential options to the mission seats or can sell the seat to another space traveler if there schedule just doesn’t allow for traveling to space that day.

In a joint project, the University of Leicester and Doritos have been working together to create and broadcast the first commercial aimed squarely at aliens. You know, because they might be looking for a different kinda chip after all several millenia of the same old junk.

Maverick Professor and crazy as a bag of chips, Darren Wright says that “everything is going as planned” and that it’s sure to be “an historical moment for it is the first time that we will broadcast a message to the space, far beyond our Solar System.” The target seems to be alien consumers located about 42 light years from the Earth, in an area that’s virgin territory for Cool Ranch and the mystery flavor gimmick known as “The Quest”. I’m sure they’re itching to corner the market in that sector of space before everyone from Coke to Pringles starts sending their own spam.

You can see right off the bat that this is an ideal way to save space in your bathroom. It uses very little floor space and so the Vertebrae vertical bathroom system is a perfect multi-purpose bathroom unit for luxury apartments with a space shortage. The name obviously comes from it’s design.

It houses everything you expect to find in a regular bathroom, it even has showerheads, a sink, a cistern, a potty and lots of storage units. This has got to be the ultimate space saving bathroom design.

Sometimes the coolest gadgets in Sci-Fi are not gadgets at all. But robots. Here’s a look at some of the most memorable robots from sci-fi in no particular order. It’s not a complete list. Think of it more as a walk down memory lane. Because geeks love Sci-Fi and Sci-Fi has a long history of loving robots.

Chances are if you have this Star Trek Enterprise bottle opener lying around your home, you probably don’t have many female friends coming over for sleepovers. I believe this particular Enterprise with the oval hole in the saucer section is inspired from that episode where Shatner’s ego blew a hole in the command deck. The same episode where Bones said, “Damnit Jim, I’m a doctor not a Tribble vet aboard a floating bottle opener.”

Obviously, if you’re a Trekkie that likes beer you’ll want to spend the $24 to open your beer with this tiny starship, get drunk, then have a toy to play with.

We’ve seen some crazy awesome watches lately. Like the UR-202 for instance. But the DeWitt Concept No. 1 is something else again. It’s a unique one-of-a-kind timepiece that’ll set you back a cool $633,000 if you have a pile of cash that’s burning a hole in your bank vault. It was bought from an auction, sight unseen.

What makes it so special? According to the creators of the watch, this “gothic pirate spaceship of a watch is taking the steampunk oeuvre to new heights with its expanding riveted case, flying tourbillon, five barrels and a 21 day power reserve.” Yes, they know that the way to a geek’s heart is through his wrist. Steampunk and the mention of Gothic pirates don’t hurt either.

Here’s an interesting image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s an image of the variable star V838 Monocerotis which lies near the edge of our Milky Way Galaxy. Yes, it looks like the Firefox logo. The red area also resembles HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssesy.

I picture the starship Enterprise investigating and ultimately finding that this area of space is some higher beings hard drive. “I find this highly illogical Captain. Sensors are also picking up signs of Windows Vista, which indicates that the entire region is unstable and could implode at any time.”