Who Wants to Go to Space?

Last month I read the book "2001 A Space Odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke and this month I am reading "Contact" by Carl Sagan. Through the years of my life I have developed a keen interest in the ways of the universe. I bought a cheap telescope when I returned home from my mission just to look up in the sky and see what is up there. I've seen the craters on the Moon, the rings of Saturn, and even the moons of Jupiter and it's famous,"Red Spot." The only nebula I have seen is the Orion Nebula for my telescope is very low power.

In the past few years I have discovered the private space industry is achieving what only three nations have in the world. Putting a man into space. Right now Virgin Galactic owned by Richard Branson is in the process of building a fleet of spaceships designed by scaled composites Burt Ratan. You may not know this but Burt Ratan's "Spaceship One" completed the first sub orbital flight by a privately funded space program back in October of 2004. The first 100 tickets were sold at $200,000 each.

Bigelow Aerospace has launched two trial inflatable "Space Habitats." Thats right, inflatable. He plans to have a fully functional space habitat for humans by 2011 and years following the habitat will be available for commercial use. A one month stay at
the space habitat will cost $15 million. Not a bad price considering a ten day stay at the International Space Station costs 20 to 30 million.

There are many other space endeavors in the private space industry. Alamogordo New Mexico is building a spaceport for the private industry. The Spaceport will be home to company's like Virgin Galactic and other privately funded space programs.

Who hasn't looked up at the stars at night and said,"I want to go there someday."

The following link is where you might someday make your first spaceflight.

http://www.spaceportamerica.com/photo-gallery/