Rutan's program is on track, possibly for an inaugural flight on Dec. 17, the 100th anniversary of the birth of aviation. Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, is leading a movement to create a new adventure-tourism industry that would take paying customers to space. His plans for such adventures are part of the "Next Frontiers: High-Tech Adventures" special report in the October 6 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, September 29). The ongoing series explores how technology is changing the way we live, work and play. In this report, Newsweek looks at the places technology can now take ordinary citizens, from the bottom of the ocean to the edges of outer space.

Stone reports that businessmen like Rutan, videogame maven John Carmack and millionaire finance-analyst Dennis Tito are involved in efforts that have produced real hardware. They seek to overhaul the economics of space travel, reducing the price and opening the door to regular folks who have dreamed of the final frontier since the exhilarating days of the Mercury and Apollo projects. "This is part of what human nature is all about, the desire to explore," Tito tells Newsweek.

Also in this "Next Frontiers" report:

Assistant Editor Mary Carmichael reports on the growth of underwater travel, including plans to take tourists to the depths of the ocean floor beneath the ice at the North Pole. Just five years ago, only three groups of people had ever seen any part of the ocean floor: scientists, submarine pilots and moviemakers. Today, the highest price most people pay for a trip to the ocean floor is a mere $40,000 or so, and no technical training is required. Thanks largely to the efforts of explorer Navy Capt. Alfred McLaren, underwater worlds have opened to the general public.

Ocean-based adventure travel has become Earth's hottest form of ecotourism, Carmichael reports. It's cheaper than spaceflight, fresher and more unique than rain-forest treks and risky enough to elicit the wide-eyed admiration of friends back home while rarely placing anyone in serious danger. Experiences include trips to shipwrecks, to the majestic hydrothermal vents, through thick polar ice on nuclear-powered ships. For warm-weather fans, there are Caribbean dive cruises on retrofitted research vessels; for the athletic, there are sea-kayaking trips; and for the less active, there are submerged hotels.

General Editor Susannah Meadows reports on adrenaline-driven teens, flocking to adventure travel with or without their families. Where there was once either plain old camping or the hard-core wilderness training of Outward Bound and NOLS, the '90s brought a new class of adventure-travel companies that flipped the philosophy from less to more. They're backcountry snowboarding, hiking across glaciers and swimming with stingrays. "Now kids are addicted to the rush, whether it's going on the next roller coaster or conquering the next mountain," says travel expert Emily Kaufman.

Also in the report, Senior Editor Jerry Adler reports on adventurer Steve Fossett's new quest: an attempt to set a new 24-hour distance sailing record in his 125-foot catamaran, considered by some the fastest sailboat in the world. Fossett-an unassuming 59-year-old businessman of no particular athletic ability-is a model for the 21st-century adventurer, one part Captain Cook to three parts Bill Gates. Fossett's also planning on flying his specially outfitted high-altitude glider into the stratosphere, which would set a new height record for unpowered flight. "I've chosen these sports-sailboat racing, gliding, ballooning -- and the fact that they're dangerous is just a disadvantage that I have to live with," he says mildly. "I don't enjoy the risks. I spend a lot of time trying to reduce the risks."

Next Frontiers: High-Tech Adventures" is a special report in the October 6 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, September 29.

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