Space travel: closer than you think?

We all know about the various parallel efforts pushing forth into space tourism — Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX, to name a few, are developing multi-million dollar platforms to one day take the average civilian out into space. But we also know about the cost involved. Virgin Galactic has already taken hundreds of deposits at $200,000 each, a price that most people would find prohibitive, so while many space enthusiasts dream of the voyage, it simply can’t happen.

In Burt Rutan’s vision, however, it one day can. The famous engineer and entrepreneur now working for Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic forecasts an explosion in space travel in the next twelve years, with 100,000 successful flights and an ultimate price of $475 for a trip into space. That’s as much as a flight across the Atlantic.

Take a look at his discussion from Big Think below: