Private missions to Mars
AMSAT, an amateur radio mission to Mars in 2009. They’re going to send a satellite to Mars at a cost of 10 million euro, to prove that a private company can also send missions to space. Of course, they already have a track record, having being involved with nine previous space missions.
Along with the Ansari X-Prize (which offers US$10 million to the first successful private space craft) things are really heating up for the private space industry. Space ownership is currently an interesting, but largely hypothetical question. But if people can jet off to the moon or their favourite asteroid for no more than a few hundred thousand dollars (cheap if you’re a decent sized company!!!) then we’re going to really have to start thinking about the implications. Will people need to file a flight plan with the U.N.? As unlikely as life on asteroids or in space seems, could quarantine become an issue? What sort of regulation do we need - does someone need to check every space craft for safety, just like our airplanes? We’ve seen that even NASA has their work cut out for them making space travel safe. An interesting time ahead for space travel indeed!
Thanks to Slashdot for the heads up, and to Google for the remarkably good automatic translation of the article.