Commercial Space

April 28, 2001 Dennis Tito went to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz capsule for eight days, starting the commercial space race. (Wall, 2011) The commercial space race has then become more competitive with different companies entering the race. Such companies include Virgin Galactic and SpaceX. Both companies aim to bring space travel open to more of the public. Unfortunately, there are problems holding it back from bringing space to the public. One such problem is the cost of space travel, SpaceX will cost about 20 million dollars in order to fly with them into space. (Space Tourism: How Much Should You Save For A Space Trip?, n.d.) This limits the potential buyers to the top 1%.  Other hurdles would be safety, space travel has never been the safest, making space travel safe would help ensure that the people are more comfortable going to space if/when it becomes affordable to the general public.

Comparing the regulations of space travel to air travel, there are far fewer regulations. The regulations for space travel are contained in Title 14 of the CFR’s. Specifically they are in parts 400-460. (Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, n.d.) Most of these regulations contain that information on launch sites, how to launch, re-entry, pilot qualifications, and safety. Most of these regulations came from the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984. (Price, 2010) I believe as long as safety is the number one priority and no compromises are made to safety, the regulations don’t need to be more restrictive at the moment. Since the industry is new, more restrictive regulations could prevent more companies from trying to start in this industry. If there are unsafe practices going on, then more restrictive regulations will have to be put in place to assure the public that safety is paramount.

I feel space travel at the moment is still at least 20 years away from the being affordable for the general public. It will make leaps in technology to make it more viable and reliability. Technology and interest in space has spiked, and with NASA not doing manned missions anymore, more people are showing interest in exploring space. Now that private companies are at the spearhead, space exploration and space tourism will be here sooner than if the government was front runner in the space tourism race. At first this will be a 1-time vacation sort of deal, but then later evolve into a means for fast transportation. This wouldn’t be viable though far beyond when space tourism is available for the general public.

To become a pilot to fly in space, they must have: a bachelor’s degree at an accredited college in engineering, biological science, physical science, or mathematics. They also must have 1,000 hours of PIC. They must have 20/50 eyesight corrected to 20/20 and a maximum blood pressure of 140/190. They also cannot be shorter than 5 foot 4 inches and 6 foot 5 inches. (Lethbridge, 2000)

Lethbridge, C. (2000). Spaceline: U.S. Astronaut Drafts: NASA Group 8. Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://spaceline.org/astronauts/stsqualif.html

Price, H. J. (2010, June 28). Fact Sheet: Commercial Space Transportation. Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=11559

Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=e88e980f1d8e363aa7e5e9247547e381&mc=true&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title14/14cfr417_main_02.tpl

Space Tourism: How Much Should You Save For A Space Trip? (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2016, from https://financesonline.com/space-tourism-how-much-should-you-save-for-a-space-trip/

Wall, M. (2011, April 27). First Space Tourist: How a U.S. Millionaire Bought a ... Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.space.com/11492-space-tourism-pioneer-dennis-tito.html