“Nowhere is out of reach, even space!”

“Git’n ‘er done!” must be the operating phrase around the shops at Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan’s company that successfully built and flew the world’s first private aircraft to the edge of space. This craft, SpaceShipOne, reached the fringe and claimed the Ansari X-Prize while the other competitors watched from the stands or on their TV sets.

Greg Olsen was the third private citizen to orbit the earth on the International Space Station ( ISS). After training for five months (900 hours) at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Moscow, he launched on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the Soyuz TMA-7, on October 1, 2006, with cosmonaut Valeri Tokarev and astronaut Bill McArthur (Expedition 12). He then docked to the ISS on October 3 and returned to earth on Soyuz TMA-6 on October 11 with Cosmonaut Sergei Krikatev and Astronaut John Phillips (Expedition 11).

Since 1981, the National Space Society (NSS) has sponsored the International Space Development Conference, attracting speakers ranging from Dr. Buzz Aldrin, the second human to walk on the moon to Dr. Robert Zubrin, the man who wants us to walk on Mars. In between this A and Z have been some of the most prominent names in the development of technology, astronomy, electronics, law, space tourism, space solar power, and commercial possibilities on the next frontier.

Right now, there are two types of people who go to space, astronauts and tourists. They're easily differentiated in one respect: tourists pay for their journey. But when you consider how hard these tourists have to work before merely setting foot on the International Space Station ( ISS), you realize the word “tourist” is an oversimplification of the process that these adventurers currently undergo.

Insurance in the Next Frontier

By G.B. Leatherwood

by G.B. Leatherwood

by G.B. Leatherwood

by G.B. Leatherwood