And We’re Off!

The commercial space race hit a pretty big milestone! Yesterday’s SpaceX launch put the first commercial spacecraft with plans to dock with the space station into orbit:

I’m convinced that space travel, like the kind Virgin Galactic is planning, will become “reasonably” affordable over the next two decades. You can now book a space flight right on the Virgin site for $200,000. The form is actually quite funny:

“Book Directly with Virgin Galactic” or “Book with your Local Accredited Space Agent.” I love it. It’s an outrageous sum of money, but not nearly as outrageous as the $20-$35 million per trip paid to the Russian government by “tourists” over the past 11 years. And now there’s talk of $13,000 trips in the next decade from StarTram. Still an outrageous amount to pay. But after decades of lots of innovation with minimal commercial results, things seem to be changing. And more success in this space means more competition, which obviously means lower prices. I’m excited to sit back and watch.