Page 95 - https://downmagaz.net

soon as this year, costing around $250,000 per

person. Passengers will get to experience

several minutes of weightlessness and see

the earth and their home country from space,

and a reported 600 people from 60 countries

have already paid $100,000 deposit each,

including Jens Kyllönen, a 23-year-old Finnish

poker player, and John Creswick, a Canadian and

CEO of a mobile software company.

What’s particularly interesting about the SpaceX

and NASA pair-up is that it will make space

research and exploration more collaborative

than ever before, opening up opportunities to

both new and existing businesses who perhaps

would not have invested in technology and

innovation beforehand. Agencies are no longer

just sharing their data and resources, but they

are getting together to perform joint missions

and explorations. Indeed, the International

Space Station is the biggest sign of this

collaboration - the facility is set to retire in

2025, and though some have suggested private

stations could replace it, there’s already talk of at

least ten countries coming together - alongside

private players - to fund an ISS successor.

The collaboration also makes way for space

agencies to redirect their energies towards deep

space exploration and scientific research. It has

been more than 50 years since the Moon

landing, and though talk of taking humans

to Mars continues to escalate, many want to

get back to the Moon as the first step in that

direction. With many government-backed

space agencies starved of funding, private

players can inject investments and provide the

technological innovation and strategic planning

required to benefit private and public bodies.

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