I was at the Kennedy Space Center this weekend,
Saw a lot of awesome stuff.

Now that the shuttle program is over though.
what do you think about the SpaceX private company that has been designing new travel machines and supplying things to the international space center?

The Dragon flew up some time ago.
And when I was there they were starting to work on the Falcon Heavy,
which is a beast.

Thinking of going there once it's ready for lift-off.
Should we be excited about private companies like SpaceX?

I think it is great! It's is much more cost effective than the shuttle program. It is also exciting to see a private company come forward and develop sufficient technology to ferry the cargo up to the ISS. NASA is definitely saving some big bucks here which will help them to fund other projects.

I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX takes tourists into space within a decade.

Lysholm wrote:

I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX takes tourists into space within a decade.

I thought that was the mission of Virgin Galactic.
But it would be cool if both companies either competed against each other or joined forces.
Who knows there may be a space observatory created with conjunction with the ISS or separate.
It would be cool to spend a day or two in space.
But then again it depends on how close you are to Earth since at a certain point the sun rises and falls every 90 minutes.

I like it, it allows NASA to go further besides low earth orbit and it wouldn't have to depend on other nations to carry astronauts to the ISS.