Space tourism: A trip to moon
“WHERE there’s will, there’s a way” will perhaps be the best way to say it all. It was a wonder of sorts as investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen , in association with Scaled Composites , flew in the first-ever private manned vehicle beyond the Earth’s orbit. Apart from being an individual rare achievement, this historic event is sure to throw open a whole new world of opportunities for private space tourism , a term virtually unheard of until a few years ago. The spacecraft— SpaceShipOne —test-piloted by Mike Melvill on the 21st June 2004, reached a record-breaking altitude of 328,491 feet (approximately 62 miles or 100 km), thereby making him the first civilian to fly a spaceship out of the atmosphere as also the first private pilot to earn an astronaut’s wings. On the successful completion of the mission, Scaled Composites founder and CEO Burt Rutan said: “Today’s flight marks a critical turning point in the history of aerospace,” adding that “we have redefined space travel...