It sounds like something straight out of a 1950’s sci-fi magazine, and every young boy’s ultimate fantasy… a vacation to space. Now on the heels of President Obama signing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2010 into law that dream is becoming a reality. With the decline in the economy space exploration is turning to the private sector for funding and there has been a resounding response.
PayPal founder, Elon Musk has started a company called SpaceX to supply the International space station for NASA. Other commercial organizations like Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace are testing their capabilities to send unmanned loads into space. It would be like your favorite pizza place delivering a pie without a driver.
But the plans don’t stop at shipping supplies; companies are already in place to ship people. Blue Origin in association with Amazon.com Inc.’s CEO Jeff Bezos intends to be a space taxi. Boeing will be offering space adventures which will carry 7 passengers from Earth to the International Space Station and back starting in 2015. Currently space tourism is limited to trips on the Russian-built Soyuz spaceship and costs about $200,000 for 2.5 hours but that’s considerably cheaper than the $3 million it cost to take a space trip in 2006.
With the commercial industry growing and the competition pushing prices down it’s likely that space will soon be a common vacation destination. At least that’s what British Tycoon Richard Branson and his company Virgin Galactic are hoping for. They recently opened the world’s first dedicated Spaceport in Upham, New Mexico. With the runway complete and the terminal nearly finished the spaceport is a major stepping stone for would be citizen astronauts and the companies that serve them.
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By Heather Fairchild - Heather is a multimedia developer, business owner and work-from-home mom.
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