do any of you think you will live to travel into orbit? Back in my dim and distant past I remember talking to an old local character (i.e. Drunk) as we looked at the moon as the Apollo astronauts were walking on it (yes that far back)and thinking that I would get up there.now approaching sixty barring a major lottery win and opportunity it's not going to happen but what of you younger hopefuls?
No, I can't foresee space travel becoming commonplace in our lifetime, and that aside I'm not looking to go out of my way to get up there. We are still a type 0 civilization at this point and theoretical physicists like Michio Kaku predict we are at least 100 years away from reaching type 1. There are a lot of hurdles to overcome in that transition. Terrorism and the worldwide political climate we face today are big ones. If we can't get along on this planet, we can't hope to come together to reach the next one. To be frank, I don't think we could handle the type of power we'd require at this point to do so without destroying ourselves.
SpaceX makes me very optimistic. Maybe I won't have money + courage for going too far above atmosphere but I might try reduced-gravity flight one day.
Elon Musk is the man to follow in the next decade. I´m getting pretty optimistic for this mars endeavor. For for earth-orbit, I think the New Shepard from Blue Origin is the most probable candidate. Their business model seems to go in that direction. The launcher is landing pretty well (the only way to get affordable voyages in the future)
Don't forget Jeff Bezos (of Blue Origin, the company which built New Shepard) - his enthusiasm for opening up the final frontier is at least as big but his pockets are at least six times deeper than Elon's... I think there is a good chance now that there will be affordable space tickets (to LEO, I guess, other destinations following later) in our life-times (say, the next few decades). I don't see a self-sufficient Mars colony being devleopped in the same time-frame, but you never know with Elon...
