Commercial space travel here we come?
SpaceX will officially begin deliveries to the ISS later this year, transitioning to Cargo Resupply Services (CRS) with legally binding contracts and penalties.I'm firmly of the opinion that once there's money to be made in them there stars (asteroid mining anyone?) we'll start our outward expansion. What humankind as a whole won't do for the pure acquisition of knowledge and simply for the thrill of exploring unknown territories, they'll certainly do for a buck. And so it has ever been with new frontiers.
So, maybe it's time for me to get my CV up to scratch for that job on the Moon that I grew up thinking was a dead certainty. Mind you, I envisioned myself wearing a purple wig and a fishnet spacesuit, and there were hostile aliens involved, but I was working on the Moon, dammit, and that's what counts!
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I listened to an interview the other day with a woman connected with the company, and the interviewer asked her for a time line about passengers, and she responded that they certainly expect to be running trips for paying guests well within ten years.
She said of course it'll be expensive for the first few people but that it will come down in price quite quickly.
I didn't think she was just spouting advertising, because it's amazing how exponentially quickly things become accessible these days. (I remember those huge bricks of mobile phones super rich people had only a few years ago, and now we're all walking around with little computers in our pockets.)
Forgot to say, don't you just love that name - Dragon?
Ten years? If I wait for the cheaper flights,that'll be in about fifteen, I suppose. (I know what you mean about cheaper technology. I remember a university chemistry teacher moaning about how a huge calculator cost her a month's wages when, just two years later, small, slim models were as cheap as.)Anyway, that gives me time enough to save a few pennies and put 'must take one space flight at the very least' on my bucket list.
And I do very much love the name:)
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