NASA plans commercial spaceflight

NASA's latest "spacecraft" can do little more than lumber across Earth's highways hitched to a trailer rig. \nBut that doesn't stop space transportation officials from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., from believing that a similar craft will orbit the Earth within the next 40 years, on a highway system in space that resembles the highway systems of Earth. \nStarship 2040 is only an exhibit, housed in a 48-foot trailer, and travels across the country to various campuses and community centers to give visitors a taste of what commercial spaceflight could be like 40 years from now. But while a real Starship 2040 hasn't been built yet, all of the technologies the exhibit displays are being studied at NASA now.\n"This isn't just science fiction," said Dr. Row Rogacki, director of Space Transportation at the Marshall Center, in a press release. "We intend to make a future much like the one demonstrated by Starship 2040 a reality." \nNASA also stated in a press release that it intends to make space flight as routine and affordable as air travel -- and those at the Marshall Center say they don't think reaching that goal by 2040 is impossible. Indeed, one of the main objectives of the Starship 2040 tour is for people to get used to the technology they would encounter as passengers aboard such a spacecraft. \n"Forty years sounds like a long time away, because it's easy for us to underestimate how much it's going to take to create safe, reliable aviation," said Karen Snodomick, an outreach lead for the Marshall Space Flight Center. "But we're working on real world technology right now that affects you and I -- not just problems that astronauts face, but technology problems that affect everyday people, and we're taking it through grassroots America with conferences and exhibits so people can get used to the ideas."\nSnodomick said a significant difference between a commercial "spaceliner" like Starship 2040 and the spacecrafts already used to send astronauts into space is that passenger training is not required. Instead of roughing it like space tourist Denis Tito, who recently paid $20 million to Russia to orbit the Earth, passengers won't be required to go through the required core astronaut training. Instead, Snodomick said, the goal is to make spaceflight as commonplace as flying on a plane.\nBut Marshal Center representative Rick Smith stressed that NASA is by no means planning to turn into any kind of interstellar airline. \n"As the market opens up, there will be more commercial opportunities in areas such as tourism and industry, and NASA is just helping the path to open up," Smith said. \nSmith said the technological challenges NASA faces in making Starship 2040 a reality include issues such as meal preparation and improving methods of how to go to the bathroom in space, as well as health concerns -- for example, right now astronauts in space must spend 2 hours a day exercising to keep their muscles from atrophying. \nJames Turner, another Marshall Center representative, said the main difference between the plans for a shuttle such as Starship 2040 and existing shuttles was the technologies designed for passenger comfort. \n"It's vastly different as far as creature comforts are concerned," Turner said. "There's space for exercise, living quarters, bathrooms, different computers."\nSmith added that the extent of creature comforts creates a problem when trying to make spaceflight affordable for everyone.\n"Right now it costs $10,000 for every pound we send into space," Smith said. "Our goal is to get down to $1,000 per pound, and then $100, and so on until space travel becomes affordable to everyone. But right now, every pound you send into space has got to do something." \nStill, Smith remains optimistic that affordable space travel will become available in the near future. \n"If you can get around the political problems, 40 years is not that far away," he said. "What's really fascinating about the exhibit is that the kids get so excited about it -- and they should, because they're the ones who are going to be doing it. In 40 years, the kids seeing this exhibit today will still be around, and they're the ones who are going to get to go up in space"