SpaceShipTwo: Coming Soon

The image above is an artist's concept drawing of SpaceShipTwo, one of the contenders to be the first spacecraft to offer passenger-carrying private spaceflight service. Virgin Galactic plans to have a fleet of five of these craft making suborbital flights by late 2009 or early 2010, with the next step eventually being fully orbital trips. You may remember SpaceShipOne winning the Ansari X Prize in 2004, a 10 million dollar prize given to the first organization to successfully put a reusable, manned non-governmental craft into space twice within two weeks.

The initial price for a seat on the first of the 2.5 hour flights is $200,000 but that should start to drop as civilian space flight becomes more and more common as a result of market competition and private industry innovations. These advances mean that it is entirely feasible and more than likely that everyday people, not just the military or the super-rich, will someday have the chance to travel into space within my lifetime. Again, just another suggestion to whomever draws my name in the 2035 Christmas gift exchange.