VSS Enterprise

Space Adventures is not the only player in town. Virgin Galactic also offers space enthusiasts the opportunity to travel to the Earth's outer reaches. Richard Branson, Paul G. Allen and Burt Rutan have teamed up to create a new class of traveler who wants to "hurtle through the edges of the atmosphere" and "see the cobalt blue sky turn to mauve and indigo and finally black...Out will come the stars, clear and bright... even though it is daytime!" And what is the power source? Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and rubber, which Virgin Galactic claims is much safer than liquid propulsion systems or solid fuel rockets. And it seems folks are interested. Morethan $10 million has been collected from future passengers, and the waiting list includes William Shatner and Stephen Hawkings. The plan is to procure five spacecraft and send more than 700 people into space the first 18 months. Again, new ideas for the future. Let's give NASA and others a run for their money.

So You Want to Go Into Orbit?

While the traditional route to space orbit has been a long training program at NASA, the private sector is now opening up new opportunties. For example, Space Adventures has programs from low orbit in a Mig-25, a trip to the International Space Station, and even travel around the moon. Space Adventures sells itself as "the only company in the world currently operating commercial orbital spaceflight and will be the first to launch clients using a new breed of lower cost suborbital spacecraft currently under development worldwide." Let's hope this new breed of space travel continues to grow. While government programs have done all of the work to date (or through others on contract basis), it may be time to try new approaches. And why stop with the Earth. We need a race to Mars, and these low cost private options may be the way to do it.