Recently the FAA awarded the very first commercial license to a private company permitting the re-entry of a spacecraft into the Earths atmosphere from orbit. This license was given to a company called SpaceX. They are contracted by NASA to ferry cargo and crew to and from the International Space Station sometime in or after 2011 when the Space Shuttles officially retire from service. Trust me people, this marks the beginning of a new era in space everything! Up until now, anything regarding space was untouchable unless you worked for a government agency of some type or NASA. Basically unless your company had an acronym of some sort you were not going to do anything with anything outside of the Earths atmosphere. But here we have the very first company being given permission by way of a license to travel into orbit and back to Earth having absolutely nothing to do with any governmental agency. Sure they will be working for NASA in the very near future. But the point here is, if they wanted to, they could travel to space and back anytime they so desire. This has NEVER been possible before in the history of mankind.
So this brings us back to the idea of science fiction. We have all seen it, whether we have paid attention or not is another story all together. But we have all seen technology over the years that has only 20 to 40 years ago been something that was a fictional device as part of a fictional story. Now we have cell phones that can locate your position anywhere on the planet. They can show you another persons location anywhere on the planet in relation to your own. You can communicate with these devices in any way that is possible today; email, phone calls, social websites, instant messages and more. Matter of fact the cell phones of today do more than the devices they are born from in some of the best science fiction stories of the past. And cell phones are just one tiny part of the bigger picture. Look at all the technology that exists today. A large portion of that technology are things that were just a few years ago part of someones dreampt up fantasy story that we lovingly called science fiction. And now today we have a private company engaging in what used to be only possible by NASA, a governmental agency.
SpaceX will be making their test flight on December 7th. Their Falcon-9 rocket will carry their Dragon capsule into orbit and then back down for a splash landing into the Pacific Ocean. This test will mark the official beginning of their involvement in the space program. As I mentioned earlier the Space Shuttle program will end in 2011. At which point SpaceX is poised to pick up where the shuttle left off. And once this relationship between NASA and SpaceX proves to be successful, other companies will begin vying for spots in other programs. Soon private involvement in the space program will become commonplace. At the moment there are 27 registered "Space Flight Companies" in various stages of development. Some of them are even in the process of developing space stations! So needless to say, it will be rather interesting to keep watch on these companies and see what comes out of all this. With all the countries with satellites and various junk floating around in Earth orbit and now private companies joining the fray someone will have to regulate it all to ensure we don't create some artificial rings around our planet. Which could very well occur if we do not watch our step.
Either way this is a step in the right direction. At some point we will need to start exploring beyond our planet and start expanding our reach to the moon and other celestial bodies. Once we start doing this, we will truly be on our way to a better future. And with countries finally allowing the private sector to join the party we are guaranteed to see a much wider variety ideas and programs that will involve even the average private citizen. Given enough time and money, anything is possible.
