Imagine you have traveled everywhere on Earth.
There is nothing new to see.
You’ve witnessed the Aurora Borealis from the North Pole.
You’ve climbed to the top of Mount Everest.
You’ve swam with sharks, safaried around the savannah and ran with the bulls.
The only place left to go is outer space.
And if you’re lucky enough to have some deep pockets, space tourism looks like it’s
just around the corner.
The idea of space tourism would have seemed like a joke a few decades ago.
During the 1960s, space exploration was almost completely under the purview of government-run
agencies.
Well, two governments to be exact: The U.S. and the Soviet Union.
The two superpowers competed in the 1960’s and 70’s in what is known as the “Space
Race.”
It was a test of each nation’s strength and intelligence, like much of the posturing
that occurred during the Cold War.
But over time, a different kind of superpower discovered space might be within their reach;
the big dreamin’ businessman.
Dennis Tito, the first space tourist, was just that: , an American business man with
no previous space travel experience who was the first to pay to go into space.
He apparently dropped $20 million to hop on board a Russian spacecraft, landing on the
ISS in April of 2001.
Experts often agree that this was the moment when the commercial space race began.
Tito inspired a generation of billionaires and CEOs to strive to reach the last frontier.
And in 2004, the U.S. government made this easier to accomplish, when it officially legalized
private space travel.
Before this, some laws had made it easier for companies to build spacecrafts and launching
pads mostly as they related to telecommunications and satellites.
But this bill made it possible for human space travel to become completely private.
And just six months before George W. Bush officially signed the 2004 bill into law,
the first privately-funded spacecraft left Earth’s orbit, partly financed by Microsoft
co-founder Paul G. Allen.
But the first real major opening for private companies to make their mark in space travel
came in 2011, when NASA officially ended its space shuttle program after 30 years of operation.
The Obama administration decided to axe the program choosing to direct more funding to
private companies looking to build new spaceships.
The move was intended to usher in an era of public-private partnerships between NASA and
private space companies.
The idea being that NASA would contract these companies to perform the duties its own astronauts
and engineers used to do, saving the agency money and providing a chance for the free
market to establish a sense of competition in getting to space.
And there were plenty who were willing to take on that challenge.
In the U.S., the industry is thriving.
In 2012, SpaceX sent the first commercially-built vehicle to carry cargo to the ISS, a task
which only government-run agencies had ever done before.
SpaceX has successfully launched and landed multiple rockets since and have even promised
to send two “space tourists” out to orbit the moon by 2018.
But not all missions have been successful.
Virgin Galactic had a major setback after a pilot died during a failed test flight of
one of its spaceships, causing concern that the tragedy might put their goal of creating
a vibrant space tourism industry in doubt.
Yet, less than two years later, things were back on track for the company that dubs itself
“the world’s first commercial spaceline.”
Over 500 people, including many famous celebrities, have already paid $250,000 for a future flight
into space that only promises a few minutes of actual time up there before the vehicle
reenters Earth’s atmosphere.
Virgin Galactic and Space X aren’t the only game in town, either.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has said that his space travel company, Blue Origin, could send tourists
to space as early as 2018.
There are still a lot of questions and concerns that need to be addressed before the private
space industry can fully...take off.
Virgin Galactic’s 2014 crash highlighted just how risky and difficult it can be to
build safe and successful space vehicles.
The risky nature of such endeavors, not to mention the lack of international laws and
treaties governing space, makes the prospect of running a viable space travel business
much more difficult.
Whether or not leaving space exploration up to a generation of big-dreaming entrepreneurs
is a good idea, it’s happening.
And it’s happening fast.
So now I guess all you thrill-seeking adventurers need to start asking yourselves, is the price
tag worth it?
How far will the industry have to advance for you to sign up?