The turn of the millennium has brought a new dimension to the Space Age – one that was undreamed of only a few years ago. Thanks to a combination of visionary entrepreneurs and an ailing Russian spaceflight programme, space tourism is now a reality that is set to take off dramatically in the near future. In this entertaining and fully-illustrated talk, Professor Fred Watson outlines what we might see as space tourism evolves into a mainstream branch of the industry. He argues that the new venture is not merely an expensive diversion for the very rich, but a necessary step in humankind’s emergence as a space-faring species.
The Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo spaceplane (central fuselage) resting under its mothership, White Knight Two, inside a hangar in Mojave, Ca., USA.
Image: Virgin Galactic/Mark Greenberg via Wikimedia Commons
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