ABSTRACT
The era of space exploration will start when private sector vehicles, developed for a purpose, start taking passengers on suborbital flights, with reusable space travel systems based on low cost, coupled with reliability and safety, but not the highest performance. Private exploration and settlement in outer space or on celestial bodies is legal, both in the American and transnational sense. Entrepreneurs are now seeking to rescue human space exploration, from NASA's stagnant, decades-long monopoly. With for-profit enterprises seeking to carve out a new realm, the exploration and commercialization of space, the development of space as a tourist destination will likely soon become a reality. Beyond the development of space tourism and the value of exploration for its own sake human space exploration serves nine needs—economic and humanitarian. The dream of human space exploration, use, and settlement remains powerful.
