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Predictions for Commercial Space in 2009

February 2nd, 2009   By Matt   Filed Under Industry Space  

Clark Lindsey has posted an interesting article on predictions for commercial space in 2009.  As can be expected, commercial access to space remains a critical issue, and Lindsey outlines a number of companies that are making significant progress on this front, including CSA member SpaceX.

So, you may be asking yourself, is 2009 the year we see hundreds of people flying into space?  Probably not.  But 2009 will be spent queuing up for some amazing achievements in 2010.  Regardless of which milestones are achieved during a specific year or not, it is evident that an ecosystem of commercial space companies is getting closer to that critical mass where it truly becomes an “industry” and includes regular operations as well as R&D.

Commercial air travel made a similar transition during the late 1920s and 1930s when the concept of commercial passenger particpation transitioned from tagging along on air mail flights to dedicated passenger transports called “airliners”.  Luckily there are a few lessons learned from these early and exciting days of commercial air travel that we don’t have to relearn for our ventures beyond the earth’s atmosphere.

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