After more than forty years of manned spaceflight, we are beginning to see children of early space travelers following their parents into low Earth orbit.
If all goes well, next year will see Richard Garriot, son of former astronaut Owen Garriot, fly to the ISS on a Space Adventures tourist ticket. Owen flew one of the Skylab missions, plus an early shuttle flight. SA tickets aren't cheap, of course. Richard made his fortune in the computer game industry.
Perhaps predictably, Richard says he has always dreamed of flying into space. While his dad was in the astronaut corps trying to beat the Soviets to the Moon, Richard will fly a Soyuz to the ISS. Looked at one way, that's progress. It also means, however, that he will be flying what is essentially an updated forty-year-old spacecraft-- and doing so because there is no better option. That is not progress.
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