T-MINUS … TO BLAST-OFF

The countdown has started: 2020 could well be the year when Branson, Musk or Bezos-inspired inter-galactic journeys will be possible. More than the touristic bit, such travel will augur well for aviation, when a flight from New York to Shanghai or a Sydney-London/New York will be done in about 60 minutes.

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Simply put it is a Wright Brothers sort of adventure, costing a billion bucks more, though. A hundred years ago to get man to fly was the adventure. Today, however, it is that burning desire to catapult people through space and bring them back to terra firma – safe.

The Brothers W were called loonies, but their adventurous successors are luckier. They are feted and adored for their single-minded obsession to conquer the final frontier: Space. And nothing, mind you, nothing deters them – fatal accidents, regulatory obstacles, limited market acceptance, competition, insufficient economics, and liquidity constraints.

If anything keeps them going, it is that incandescent hope that “all will be well” when man finally soars over space. As Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, best known for predicting trends in the transportation sector said: “Taken together, we think the risks are offset by the potential scale of the reward.”

That the risk-reward equation is getting closer and better was evident when NASA recently announced that 2020 could well be the year when the space industry truly takes off. But it will be an expensive ride: a $250,000 ticket for a 10-minute joyride and in the case of at least one of them – Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic – a stylish new jumpsuit that you can take home as a memento. “Space Tourism’s goal over the next year: be safe, stay funded,” Jonas said in a note to investors and added, “We believe the key catalyst over the next 12 months will be sending even one customer to space and returning safely.”