Private spaceflight has made significant progress since Dennis Tito’s self-funded visit to the International Space Station in 2001. Milestones include SpaceShipOne’s flight to space in 2004, Virgin Galactic’s space tourism plans, Bigelow Aerospace’s private space station, and SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket launch in 2008. SpaceX is also developing the Dragon capsule for human crew launches, with NASA hoping it can fill the gap left by the Space Shuttle program.
Since Dennis Tito, an American investment manager and former employee of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, self-funded visit to the International Space Station in 2001, the field of private spaceflight has seen exciting progress. Every year there is another milestone and no doubt this article will become obsolete as time goes on. However, let us try to describe the progress in private spaceflight that has been achieved since November 2008.
One of the most historic moments in private spaceflight was achieved on July 21, 2004, when SpaceShipOne, a 5 m (16.4 ft) wingspan spacecraft built by Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites, climbed over 100 km (62 mi) of altitude, the international definition of space. The craft reached this altitude in two separate flights over the span of two weeks. It set several records, including the first privately funded manned vehicle to reach space and the first privately funded vehicle to exceed Mach 2 and 3. Although making a spacecraft capable of reaching orbit requires about 60 times more energy than has just reached space, this is the first step towards privately funded space tourism and exploration.
Later that year, in December 2004, Virgin owner Richard Branson announced that he would license the SpaceShipOne project to Virgin Galactic, a new space tourism company based in New Mexico. The company is building a fleet of five vessels and plans to begin offering flights in 2010, pending extensive safety testing. The flights will cost $200,000 United States Dollars (USD) each. Over a hundred spaceflight enthusiasts have already signed up, including celebrities like William Shatner and Sigourney Weaver.
On July 12, 2006, there was another major milestone when Bigelow Aerospace launched Genesis I, an experimental private space habitat. This was the first private space station in history. Genesis II was launched on June 28, 2007. Bigelow Aerospace founder Robert Bigelow has offered a $50 million dollar “American Space Prize” to the company that can develop a reliable and safe orbital launch vehicle for commercial spaceflight to an orbiting hotel.
On September 28, 2008, after three failures, another milestone was achieved, the first orbital rocket launched by a private company, Falcon 1. The company that builds Falcon I, SpaceX, aims to supply rockets worth $7-8.5 million. to pop, which is relatively cheap in the world of spaceflight. The company is also developing the Dragon capsule, which it says will be used to launch human crews on Falcon rockets into orbit. The demonstration flights will take place between 2008 and 2010, and NASA pins its hopes on SpaceX to build a launch system capable of carrying astronauts to the International Space Station after the deactivation of the Space Shuttle program and before the Orion Crew Vehicle is developed.
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