For most of its history, all of space exploration and development has been an almost entirely government controlled affair, conducted at a governmental pace and defined by non-commercial objectives. For these reasons, although it achieved many early successes, the forward inertia eventually stagnated and further progress has been derailed.
With the exception of long range exploratory achievements such as the Mars probes and other robotic missions to the outer worlds of our solar system large scale near orbit projects have crawled nearly to a standstill. By the 1980's, even as early as the late 1970's, a commercial space presence also began to develop. However, two factors defined this presence and limited it severely.
The first of these was the governmental choke-hold on launching ability that has existed right up into the present; this choke forced all commercial space technology to travel through government controlled launch facilities and aboard government made launch vehicles in many cases. The costs for both are staggering and limited launches to those of the most important types of business and communications satellites.
The second major restriction on private space development has been a lack of incentives to create better, more efficient technology that allows private ventures with smaller resources than those of major governments to build space launch systems and facilities.
Both of these are now changing, and the entire future of space travel is in the same place as the internet was at the dawn of the 1990's, right as it shifted from government applications and control to commercial use.
The Arrival of Commercial Space Travel
In 1996 the X Prize Foundation, under Peter Diamantis, announced a $10 million prize to the first private team or individual who could send a manned spacecraft to the 100 km altitude that is commonly defined as the edge of real orbital space. It took until 2004 for a company called Scaled Composites to deliver the results and win the Ansari X Prize.The secondary result of the X Prize was an enormous surge in manned private space travel. From this spun off numerous private ventures, the most famous being SpaceShip 1 and Spaceship 2, developed by the same company that had one the X prize in partnership with Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines. Branson also formed Virgin Galactic, with a plan to send tourists into low orbit on SpaceShip 2 sometime in the next year.
Additionally, several other companies such as Blue Origin, run by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, are now making launch and flight developments for orbital space. One of the largest private space successes to date has been SpaceX, a launch venture started by Paypal co-founder Elon Musk in 2002.
Their long range plans include manned space stations and a private voyage to the Moon. However, their biggest success has been the contract given to them by NASA to privately handle all materials launches to the International Space Station now that the government's Space Shuttle program has been shut down since early 2011.
These are still baby steps being made and represent only a fraction of what is being done by private ventures throughout the world, but they have enormous long range significance.
What These Trends Mean for the Future of Travel
Space travel as a government controlled program for scientific and military expansion will almost certainly continue and for decades to come, but the focus of this continuation will be in the field of long distance robotic probes, military applications in near earth orbit and possibly further manned missions to the Moon as well as a manned voyage to Mars.Even if the United States government loses its political interest in pursuing such missions, other governments such as the Chinese, Indians and possibly Japan will almost certainly pursue such goals to a certain extent.
However, within the scope of commercial space development above the earth, near the moon and eventually possibly even the Asteroid Belt, we are going to see an explosion in commercial space ventures as private competition takes over and competes vigorously on development of cheaper methods, cheaper technology, fuels and materials.
The biggest near future applications of this will be in the area of travel. Within the next decades we are almost certainly going to see an expansion and price decrease in space based location to location trips on Earth; meaning that we'll see more and more companies offering services that allow at first only wealthier travelers the option of going from launch Points in the Mojave desert to destinations such as Japan or Europe.
This is something that will develop particularly well if designs like SpaceShip 2 become popular since the spacecraft is also designed to take off and land on the Earth more or less as a regular plane does.
These same private commercial developments will also advance to the point that private launch facilities, operating under much, much lower cargo costs per pound or kilogram will eventually supersede public facilities and become the defacto centers of entry into space for both government and private transport.
Other Future Trends
For the long run, as the commercial world openly advances and develops its own space travel efforts, even major ventures such as the above-mentioned Mars missions, Moon missions and remote exploration probes will, if not be actually operated by commercial interests, at least be managed by governments working in cooperation with the more efficient technology of the market place -as is happening already with SpaceX and its complete takeover (at a far lower price per launch) of NASA's shipping missions to the ISS.
ThomasAbout the Guest Author:
Thomas has written poignant articles for the travel industry for many years. In his spare time he reviews Hotels near Barrett Jackson like Thunderbird Suites and enjoys playing racquetball for his local team.
