Science Fiction comes true

The announcement has been made: The Spaceship Company will begin construction on its private commercial spaceship manufacturing facility. The Spaceship Company already has a dedicated launch facility. This new fabrication facility is a joint venture between Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites. NASA plans to rely on private space companies like this one for a significant amount of its future missions. Private companies will be contracted to deliver payloads to NASA space stations and even deliver satellites to orbit. The Spaceship Company is the first private company in this field to be developing at this level. It will almost certainly be one of NASA's private contractors.

Thinking about this development is boggling my mind. I remember reading science fiction stories, only a decade ago or so, where human society had commercial space flight. But none of the stories were set in the year 2010 or 2011, they were set much farther in the future. The future is roaring towards us at an ever increasing rate. It's exciting and frightening at the same time... but mainly exciting!