The 100th Anniversary of Aviation Week gives us the opportunity to look back as well as forward. Most folks did not anticipate 100 years ago that today private companies would be launching private rockets into space, delivering private payloads for private entities. Anticipating the future is challenging; it requires a suspension of reality, like stories we tell our kids—or stories they tell us. However, unlike ours, our children’s imaginations are not yet limited by laws of physics or gravity.
Future space exploration raises many issues that we can only begin to consider today. In the year 2116, will booking a ticket on a rocket to Mars be as easy as catching a flight to Tokyo is today? As routine, commercial, human space travel becomes reality, it will raise a number of legal, social and ethical issues.
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