There are many good space news sources available, they include SpaceRef, Space.com, NASA Watch, The Space Review, Spaceflight Now etc. I'm compiling a list of all space news sources and assigning them an authority ranking based on several criteria including traffic, update frequency, citations etc. and your input on the following question would be very valuable.
My question for the community is what alternative or non-mainstream sources do you find useful? Post a comment or email me (marc.boucher < AT > hyperix.com) with your top sources and alternatives.
Interesting idea. Since I run Spacetoday.net I have a pretty omnivorous space media diet, both mainstream (however that may be defined) and not. In addition to the sites above I would recommend these sites:
NASASpaceFlight.com
Newscientistspace.com
RLV and Space Transport News (hobbyspace.com)
Universe Today
AviationNow.com
SkyandTelescope.com/news
This excludes "mainstream" media that cover space well (such as Florida Today, Houston Chronicle, Orlando Sentinel, etc.); these publications all now have space-focused blogs as well (The Flame Trench, Deepspace, The Write Stuff).
One issue I do see in calculating an "authority ranking" is distinguishing between quantity of traffic and quality of traffic. A niche space site may get far less traffic than a mainstream media site, but the niche site may have a far larger fraction of "influential" readers than a mainstream site - something that, at first glance, would be difficult to determine. An interesting challenge!
You make a good point and it is an issue we're working on.
>One issue I do see in calculating an “authority ranking” is distinguishing between quantity of traffic and quality of traffic. A niche >space site may get far less traffic than a mainstream media site, but the niche site may have a far larger fraction of “influential” >readers than a mainstream site - something that, at first glance, would be difficult to determine. An interesting challenge!