I’ve been reading a juvenile fiction novel called Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
which tells the story of a teenage girl living in the aftermath of a devastating asteroid hit to the moon. The moon is pushed out of orbit and the effects on the earth below are widespread. The character Miranda tells of the struggle to live in such a world where there is little sunlight, fires, flooding, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and most of all, very little hope. While the premise might seem almost impossible, people have been fascinated by the idea of the Earth being uninhabitable at some point and what we’d do next. Of course, we haven’t quite mastered the goal of being able to live on another planet, but people will always be interested in outer space and the idea of space travel for the average person.
When I came across the Spaceport America website, I wonder really how many people are seriously going to consider space travel once it becomes a commercial endeavor. Spaceport America is the first and largest company to begin promoting commercial flights to space. Not surprising, it is located in Roswell, New Mexico, the famed landing site of a UFO in 1947 and the home of further space exploration from that point on. New Mexico is considered ideal for a space program of this sort due to the large, open space, dry weather and government support. Aside from the Roswell incident, White Sands, New Mexico was for many years the home of a landing strip for the NASA space shuttles, and it now regularly hosts the X Prize Cup annual space flight exhibition.
And of course, we’ve all seen Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic team promoting space flight for the average person. (You can see more of Virgin Galactic here.) You can see all about the flights here and also book your ticket, which will run you a cool $200,000 (but you only need to give a deposit of $20,000 right now!).
Would you pay that much just for a short trip above the earth?
