/sci/ - Science & Math

>>3699025
So going to space is one of your lifelong dreams and you're only now learning about the budget cuts and program shutdowns that have been going on for 10 years?

In any case, you'll have more of a chance in the near future than you ever would have had in the past thanks to private enterprise and the shift in the big acronym agencies towards funding enterprise instead of doing large in house projects.

Before you'd have had to go into the military as a pilot and be consistently the best in your class or luck out and get in as part of a scientific mission or a public outreach program and be the best of thousands of applicants.

Even now all you need is 200 grand and loose wallet strings thanks to guys like Virgin galactic and that figure's only going to drop in the future.

My favorite thing at the moment is the UK based SKYLON project which is developing a single stage to orbit spaceplane. (essentially take off from a runway, go to space, do something, land again on a runway, do everything again the next day.) It's everything the space shuttle wished it was and it's projected to bring launch costs down from £15,000/kg to ~£650/kg. They've just got a massive grant to develop the engines and hopefully we should be seeing launches in the next 15 years or so.