Space Tourism At The Cusp

Though it has taken longer than people wanted, space tourism seems on the verge of breaking out beyond millionaires buying time on ISS. Virgin Galactic may well begin commercial suborbital flights in 2013, if not sooner. XCOR Aerospace could begin test flights for its two-seater Lynx spacecraft next year. Other companies aren't far behind.

Bigelow Aerospace is taking a slightly different tack. It is planning an orbiting hotel to be launched later this decade. Presumably, the presence of a tourist destination in space would spur vehicle developers to build ships that could reach orbit. In case that doesn't happen quickly enough, however, Bigelow is teaming with Boeing to develop the CST-100, a craft intended to carry up to seven people to and from orbit. A scale model of the CST-100 is being tested in a NASA wind tunnel this month, and Boeing wants to be flying the real thing by around 2015.

Of course, if a disaster were to occur early on, the entire notion of private spaceflight could be discredited for years or decades in the public mind. Assuming the industry can establish itself before that inevitable first accident, however, the current decade could become a pivot point in human history.