One of the problems tourists visiting the ISS face today is that there is very little cargo capacity available in the Soyuz spacecraft used to ferry people to and from the station. To help potentially alleviate that problem, Constellation Services International (CSI) announced Thursday that it has signed an agreement with Space Adventures to allow future tourists to send more cargo to the ISS. CSI, which submitted a NASA COTS proposal earlier this year for its “LEO Express” cargo resupply system, would carry additional items, such as “significant research experiment materials, multi-media hardware and other supplies”, for future tourists to the ISS in advance of their stay. CSI anticipates that the LEO Express service would be ready as early as 2008, pending funding.

At ISDC Thursday night the Space Tourism Society, in conjunction with the NSS, gave out the 2006 ORBIT awards for those people and organizations who have done the most to support the space tourism industry. The official list of awardees actually excludes one person: Dennis Tito was a surprise winner of his new eponymous award, which went to orbital space tourists Greg Olsen (in attendance) and Mark Shuttleworth (not in attendance.) Still, the list of awardees encompasses a large fraction of people who have made major achievements in space tourism to date. With so many big names getting awards, though, it makes one wonder who will be left to get an award next year…

Burt Rutan was the luncheon speaker Thursday at ISDC, and his his extended speech (which lasted close to an hour counting Q&qmp;A) he fired some shots at pretty much everyone else involved in the space industry, including NASA, FAA/AST, and other ventures. For some summaries of comments, check out the articles at SPACE.com, MSNBC, and the AP. (I may write a summary article of my own later, when time permits.) A sample zinger from Rutan, which generated perhaps the most “ooooohhhhh”’s from the audience: “Some people are still chasing dreams, and even name their ships appropriately”—a barb aimed at SpaceDev and its Dream Chaser vehicle design.

You might think that Rutan came off as a grumpy old man—an industry curmudgeon of sorts. He prefaced many of his sharpest comments with words like, “I’m here as a humorist.” Still, I suspect many of his comments stung, especially in those cases where his words had a ring of truth. Still, he received rousing ovations from the audience on a number of occasions. He stuck around long after his speech to sign autographs and have pictures taken with people, and if you ever doubted Rutan had a soft side, here’s proof:

During the Q&A session after his speech Thursday morning at the ISDC, Elon Musk of SpaceX divulged some details about the development of a manned capsule the company has been quietly working on. “It’s been a low priority because obviously we have to get the booster right before,” and his voice trailed off to some laughter from the crowd. “We’re putting the cart before the horse.” He revealed that work on the capsule has actually been on hold for some time. “We stopped work on our prototype manned capsule a little over a year ago because it was way ahead of the booster.” Winning a NASA COTS contract, he said, would accelerate the development of the capsule: with that funding he believes the capsule would be ready to fly in 2009. “If we don’t, then it probably gets delayed by a couple of years” to around 2011, he said. He added that without the COTS funding SpaceX would develop a “scaled down version” of the capsule “with a little less capability.”