SpaceShipTwo, the commercial space flight vehicle, has made it's first crewed flight on July 16th. It carried eight people over the Mojave dessert for a little over six hours.
In a few years, SpaceShipTwo may carry you, space tourist, into zero-gravity orbit for as little as 200,000 dollars a seat.
The basic concept is that SpaceShipTwo is carried via mothership 50,000 feet, where it detaches, and rockets into suborbital space 360,00 feet above the Earth.
Fantastic! I'm that much closer to becoming an astronaut.
The SpaceShipTwo is one of many commercial space programs underway, and the beginning of a new space race between companies instead of nations. Again, the line between Science and Science Fiction shifts.
