1Space travel was once considered the exclusive privilege of national governments and their carefully trained astronauts.
2Over the past two decades, private companies have completely transformed the economics of reaching orbit.
3Reusable rockets, which land upright after each launch, have dramatically slashed the cost of every mission.
4Wealthy tourists can now purchase brief suborbital flights that carry them just beyond the atmosphere.
5For a few minutes, these passengers experience weightlessness and gaze down at the curved Earth.
6Private firms now regularly ferry both cargo and crew members up to the International Space Station.
7Some ambitious entrepreneurs now speak openly of building permanent human settlements on the Moon and Mars.
8Critics, however, question whether such distant colonies could ever become truly self-sufficient and genuinely safe.
9Governments around the world are writing new rules to manage this rapidly growing commercial industry.
10Whoever ultimately leads, the business of spaceflight will profoundly shape humanity's future among the stars.