sorry my dad put his research accidently this is mine
robert pufall

By Gene J. Koprowski | Nov 05, 2009
The latest trend in eco-tourism is completely out of this world ...
and right around the corner.
Routine commercial travel to outer space may be the norm as soon as
2012, as the next generation of spacecraft — designed by private
sector firms like Virgin Galactic, Orbital Sciences Corp., Space
Exploration Technologies Corp. and others — transport adventure-
seeking civilians into low-Earth orbit.
There, they can see the sun rise many times a day, and experience the
breathtaking curve of planet Earth that only NASA astronauts such as
Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin have previously seen. If they want to
extend their stay, they can check in to the solar system’s first
orbiting hotel, The Galactic Space Suite Hotel, set to open in three
years.
"There are more projects like this going on than most experts even
know about," Doug Raybeck, a futurist and an emeritus professor at
Hamilton College in New York, tells FoxNews.com. "There are a lot of
people developing this technology under the radar and they want it
that way."
As NASA retires its space shuttle fleet in the coming years, these
next-generation ships will also launch science experiments and
satellites into space, or to the International Space Station (ISS).
Here's just a sampling of cutting-edge spacecraft:
• WhiteKnightTwo is a jet-powered carrier that will launch the
SpaceShipTwo spacecraft; the two vehicles form a two-stage manned
launch system, and Billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has
already ordered a pair of WhiteKnightTwos. The ships will form the
basis for Virgin Galactic's suborbital fleet, which will charge space
tourists $200,000 a head for a 2-hour space flight. The first services
will operate from Spaceport America in New Mexico, though other
spaceports may open in the U.K. or Sweden.
• The Dragon, a free-flying, reusable spacecraft is being developed by
SpaceX for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.
Developed in 2005, the Dragon spacecraft consists of a pressurized
capsule for personnel and an unpressurized trunk for transport of
cargo.
• The Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle is NASA’s next-generation
spacecraft. It will transport crews to and from the International
Space Station, the moon and Mars and is being developed by Lockheed-
Martin and Orbital Sciences Corp.
Some technologies, still in the concept stage, are even more mind-
blowing, including spacecraft powered by "solar sails," which harness
solar winds to travel between galaxies a thousand light-years apart.
Thousand-year-long flights may seem absurd, but rocket scientists have
a solution for that, too. More on that topic in a minute.
"These technology entrepreneurs are on the verge of creating a new
economy, just like Bill Gates did with the PC in the 1980s," says
Patricia Hynes, director of the NASA New Mexico Space Grant
Consortium, and organizer of an annual conference on commercial space
flight, recently held in Las Cruces, N.M.
The Burgeoning Industry
Space buffs have talked about commercial space for decades; President
Reagan had an office of commercial space in his Department of Commerce
20 years ago. But a number of factors have converged, of late, to make
the visions something that can be achieved quickly.
First, experts tell FoxNews.com, new materials and space propulsion
technologies are enabling developers to build these spacecraft more
cheaply than before. Next, the federal government — facing
unprecedented debt from the Obama administration’s stimulus spending —
is hardly keen about funding NASA’s dream projects.
To keep its long-term systems planning going, the space agency is
working more in partnership with private-sector firms, which can use
money from investment bankers to get launch vehicles and spacecraft
going more quickly and cheaply than the government. "The smartest
thing they ever did is reach out to the business community," says
Raybeck, the futurist. "There’s money in them there hills."
This has given the U.S. a "five-year lead on the Chinese, and other
nations, in terms of the commercial space industry," says Hynes. "They
can't compete with us technically, financially or in terms of
regulatory structure."
The federal regulatory aspect emerged, publicly, for the first time at
the 60th International Astronautical Conference in South Korea. The
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the U.S. government agency that
regulates air flight, is now charged with licensing space launch
companies in the U.S.
George Nield, associate administrator of the FAA, space transportation
initiative, spoke at the show about these new rules.
"This is a very exciting time for commercial space transportation.
There are some very dramatic and far-reaching changes that are coming.
Up to this point, government agencies have dominated human space
flight efforts. Over the next few years, I expect that private
industry will play a key role in low-Earth orbit and suborbital space
flight," Nield told conference attendees. "This will require a launch
license from our office at the FAA. We are on the threshold of a new
era in space transportation…suborbital space tourism."
The FAA is working with "half a dozen space companies" on this now,
Nield indicates. There will be "hundreds" of commercial space launches
every year in the coming years, he adds, and that will "change the way
we think about space."
How Much Will It Cost Me?
According to the president of Virgin Galactic, Will Whitehorn, his
company is planning to carry people into orbit two times a day when it
is operational in the coming years. "This will be the experience of
their lives," Whitehorn indicates. Hundreds of people have already
booked for the first flights on Virgin.
Initially, tourism will be very expensive, around $200,000 per
passenger. "But costs will go down," John Lindner, a professor of
physics at the College of Wooster in Ohio, tells FoxNews.com. "And
services will evolve."
For example, passengers may be able to travel out to visit asteroids,
speculates space engineer Greg Matloff, a professor at The City
College of New York, in an interview with FoxNews.com. "But for
interstellar, and inter-solar system travel, you'll have to use the
resources of the solar system to make it viable," Matloff says.
Matloff reckons that those solar sails could be constructed out of
nano-technologies that would soak up solar wind and gamma rays for
power. Going to another galaxy would be quite difficult, however.
Robots would have to power the ships, as the trip would take well over
1,000 years. For humans to take such a voyage, they would have to
start off as cryogenically frozen zygotes, says Matloff, and brought
to life as the spacecraft neared its final destination.
American firms are not the only ones exploring this technology niche,
though they seem to have a big lead now. The Russians and the French
are eyeing future commercial space transportation too. Mario Delepine,
a spokesman for Parisian commercial launch company Arianespace, tells
FoxNews.com that his firm is already "starting to think about the next
generation of launch technology. This must be ready by 2025, roughly."
Though the global economy has hit a rough patch during the last year
or so, the space sector has grown 9 percent a year over the past
decade, more than three times faster than the economy as a whole
during that time. "We’re creating a new economy," says Hynes.
I've heard that there's a company making space travel available to
the public. If this is true, how much would it cost and what is the
name of the company? Jake
Kansas City, Kansas Dear Jake: We started with a search using the
phrase "commercial space travel," which pointed us in the right
direction.
Among the results for those terms were a pair of sites in Yahoo!'s
Civilian Space Travel category. That sounded promising! We immediately
launched an investigation.
Sure enough, the category was full of sites relating to shooting Mr.
and Mrs. John Q. Public into orbit. We eagerly browsed through
resources such as Discovery.com's Space Tourist, a page that describes
two companies that intend on taking passengers into space, plus
details the plans for a "Lunar Hilton."
We also checked out the exciting X Prize Foundation, which is awarding
10 million bucks to "the team that designs the first private spaceship
that successfully launches three humans to a sub-orbital altitude of
100 km on two consecutive flights within two weeks." The X Prize folks
are even sponsoring quarterly sweepstakes that offer sub-orbital
flights for the lucky winners. That might be a cheap way to almost
make it to space.
Of course, the best news came when we found a link within Civilian
Space Travel to Yahoo!'s Travel Operators > Space Tours category. As
of this writing, there are no less than six companies that want to
blast you into space.
We quickly learned that Space Adventures will charge you $98,000 for a
sub-orbital flight, but that's not exactly outer space, so we pressed
on. The U.K. company Starchaser will charge $200,000 to be the second
astronaut on their X Prize entry. Or, even better, you could win a
spot as the third passenger.
Those were the most accurate prices we could find. Our advice:
Bookmark the category and keep an eye on it. As the first civilian
space tour gets closer, set prices will appear and, hopefully, they'll
come back down to Earth.