Tourist spaceflights to begin next year

Well, sign me up.

Virgin Galactic, baby of Richard Branson, and Blue Origin, baby of Jeff Bezos, have both asserted that they will begin tourist spaceflights next year.  No firm date has been set. Make of that what you will.

If you want a ride on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity, you'll plunk down $260,000 and take the spaceplane past the boundary into space, have a few moments of weightlessness, then land at the spaceport in New Mexico. Blue Origin's craft, New Shepherd, is interesting because it's more the traditional, rocket-and-capsule launch system. There is no capsule splashdown from space with this ride. Instead, parachutes and retrorockets guide it to a landing somewhere in Texas. Neither ride takes you into orbit.

Still, I should not treat this news with such disappointment. Were I able to somehow afford that enormous six-figure ride, I could return and say, "Space? Yeah. I've been there."

Plus, it's also a beginning. Even though the price tag is outside the household budget of most people I know, it may still generate more interest for space travel among the private sector and the public at large. Who knows what it may lead to? I keep thinking of that scene in 2001 where the PanAm (yes, I know they're defunct) spaceship takes travelers to a space hotel. Writers often muse of leaving town, checking into a hotel, and then without distraction they may power through their current work in progress. I can think of fewer locales more isolated and without temptations than space.

Think there could be funding for a Writer in Space program? I'm sure there are many who would like to send me there.

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