Commercial Space Industry

April 12th, 1961 was the biggest day in the space race. Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space after making a 108-minute orbital flight in the Vostok 1 Spacecraft. (Jim Wilson, NASA) Shortly after this and two months later an American went up into space, Pam Am Airlines decides to start selling tickets for a trip to space. Customers were placed on a waiting list and the ‘First Moon Flights’ Club was born – attracting more than 93,000 members over the next two decades” (Pan Am and the waiting list). Most space travel that has been done so far has been by the wealthy and private companies who would take Russian rockets to the International Space Station. The last private trip was in 2009 by a wealthy Canadian name Guy Laliberte, who went to space by the company SpaceAdventures. (Taylor Dinerma, Observer. 2015) The most promising I woud have to say would be the work that Virgin Galactic is doing, who is working pretty hard to make the dream a reality. Only 557 people have been to space and Virgin Galactic has been working to make it a reality; well for $250,000 a seat that is.  (Virgin Galactic, Fly with us.)

The U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, was passed November 16, 2015.  Which later got renamed to Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship Act of 2015. Which allows The US citizens to engage in the commercial exploration and exploitation of space resources. (SPACE Act of 2015.) This rule gives the companies conducting these space flights time to learn and if they do go up into space that it’s their own risk and that the government is not responsible.

I can see the Commercial space industry becoming more accessible to the public in about 20 years. We have come a long way since 1961, but even with the technology we have now and the test flights that are being done. I believe that companies still need to keep studying and understand as much as possible. It would be nice to one day to be able to go up to a ticket counter like you would do for any Airline and be able to purchase a ticket to go into space.

So in order to be qualified to be a pilot or to work in this field there are some pretty strict rules. For Virgin Galactic these requirements are as follow:

• U.S. citizenship.
• A current FAA commercial  pilot license and FAA medical clearance.
• Degree-level qualification in a relevant technical field.
• Graduate of a recognized test pilot school, with at least two and a half years of postgraduate flight test experience.
• Diverse flying background with a minimum of 3,000 hours flying, to include considerable experience of large multi-engine aircraft and high-performance fast jet aircraft and low lift-to-drag experience in complex aircraft.
• Operational experience in an aerospace aviation project or business.
• Preference given to those with experience in spaceflight, commercial flight operations or flight instruction(“Dozens apply for space pilot jobs”, 2011).

If you are not a pilot and wish to do something else, if you are an A&P, or mechanical Engineer, Electrician, Avionics, any metal or material expert you could probably find a job.

Refrences:

Dozens apply for space pilot jobs. (2011, April 13). Retrieved from

            http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/04/13/6466987-dozens-apply-for-space-pilot-

            jobs

Pan Am and the waiting list for the moon…. (n.d.). Retrieved from

            http://backstoryradio.org/2013/08/19/pan-am-and-the-waiting-list-for-the-moon/

Fly with Us. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.virgingalactic.com/human-spaceflight/

            fly-with-us/

Yuri Gagarin: First Man in Space ((2011, April 13). Retrieved from

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/sts1/gagarin_anniversary.html

2016 Could Be the Year Space Tourism Takes Off: Taylor Dinerman (2015, September 22) Retrieved from

                http://observer.com/2015/09/2016-could-be-the-year-space-tourism-takes-off/