Small steps.

Today at 8:40 AM, Virgin Galactic finally conducted its first fully crewed suborbital space mission.  Sir Richard Branson, three other passengers, and two flight crew successfully ascended to 86 kilometers above the Earth's surface, and safely returned to the Virgin Galactic spaceport.

Whether or not this was prompted by the possibility of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos beating him to the punch with his own flight on July 20th, Branson has undeniably accomplished his goal of launching the first passenger spaceship, and plans to restart ticket sales, which have been on hold since 2014's fatal test flight incident, which took the life of co-pilot Michael Alsbury.

How do we feel about Virgin Galactic's long-awaited first flight?

Logic says that there is no such thing as bad space travel – everything that broadens the boundaries of our ability to leave the planet is good.  Emotion says that Sir Richard is a dilettante, who has essentially created an expensive amusement park ride for his own entertainment and that of fellow billionaires. 

But, to be fair, the nature of exploration is such that for every Charlies Lindburgh who flies across the Atlantic solo, there will be countless people who desire to make the trip on less challenging terms.

Perhaps more appropriately, for every Commander Hadfield who endures a 5-G takeoff on their way to the International Space Station, there will be hundreds or perhaps thousands of people who want a more accessible opportunity to see Earth from orbit, to live their dream, to take one of the small steps that makes up the giant leap. 

To call those thousands of dreamers space tourists seems unfair, it somehow diminishes the experience, but that approach may well be the method through which commercial space travel actually becomes a practical prospect.  For all the talk about how exploitation of natural resources on other planets will be controlled, we’re a long way from mining the Moon or shipping minerals from Mars, whereas Virgin Galactic has actually demonstrated proof of concept for repeatable passenger travel to space.  

As of today, Sir Richard Branson has made space travel accessible to everyone - admittedly, right now to a very small definition of everyone, that being the number of people who can afford a $450,000 USD ticket, but that's how it starts, with a limited expensive service that eventually becomes affordable to the general public. It may be one small step, but it's a small step that everyone will eventually be able to take.

- Sid