Active / Adventure: Traveling to Space

During its first century, aviation has grown from the Wright brothers' tiny "Flyer" to become a globe-spanning activity which has changed the world we live in. However, after more than 40 years, space travel remains very different from aviation: whereas air travel is a huge, privately operated activity – as it started, thanks to the Wright brothers – space travel remains a government monopoly activity, as it started, in the USSR back in 1961...

This March I went to The Institution of Engineering and Technology's main headquarters in London, Savoy Place, to listen to a presentation by Robert Lainé, Chief Technical Officer for European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS). The presentation was on EADS Space's new launch vehicle for suborbital flights to 100km, designed specifically for the space tourism market that will be kicked off soon by Virgin Galactic...

Forty years ago it was “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Now it is a small step for anyone who dares. For the last four decades, space flight has been neglected as a primary conduit to human evolution. Popular opinion sees space flight as a sidebar to human development. Even NASA, with their use of aging, decrepit and obsolete shuttles, appears to believe the same. However, there is the Virgin Galactic program. Virgin has taken the initiative in commercializing space travel a...

Space tourism is a reality. Five tourists have traveled to the International Space Station (ISS) at their own expense and several companies are developing suborbital tourist vehicles (Virgin Galactic, Space Adventures, Rocketplane Kistler, Blue Origin). Not only does space tourism extend the freedom to travel into space for those with the means, it promises a profitable market to develop the launch vehicles necessary to expand life throughout the solar system...