Discover Financial Services gets the chance to prove itself today when it spins off from Morgan Stanley and begins trading publicly on the New York Stock Exchange. Though analysts aren’t expecting the stock to see the same gains that MasterCard Inc.’s (MA) shares have since its initial public offering in May 2006, most are optimistic that the company will do well.

SPACE FLIGHT

The commercial space flight got a boost in June when investment group Boston Harbor Angels backed a private rocket company, XCOR Aerospace, which is developing a spaceship that will take off and land like an airplane. If all goes as planned, passengers will ride on the single-passenger Xerus and experience up to three minutes of weightlessness some 62 miles above Earth.