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| Artist's depiction of the Bigelow Space Station (via Wikipedia) |
In a news item entitled, "
Booking a Flight to Space, With Travel Insurance,"
The New York Times reports that commercial space flights will begin in 2012. Interested travelers can already book a flight with one of several companies, and they will even be able eventually to get flight insurance. It's a sign of the times and yet another indication of how much and rapidly the world is changing. A flight with Virgin Galactic, however, will cost you $200,000 for a sub-orbital flight that includes just five minutes of weightlessness. Even so, the company has a couple hundred people already signed up. The article claims that by 2017 near-Earth flights are going to be common and routine—that's just five years from now!
The next step will be a commercial space station, and one company, Bigelow Aerospace, is already working on such a station, construction of which is supposed to begin in 2014 according to Wkipedia (
here). According to space.com (
here), two Russian aerospace companies are working jointly on another project to put a commercial space station in orbit in 2015 or 2016. Which is to say, that in five years when commercial space flights become common, the companies involved will likely be able to offer customers not only the experience of space flight but actual places to go to as well. A sign of the times, indeed.
