Fly me to the Moon

For a nail-biting few minutes, radio contact with Crew Dragon was lost as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere at 20 times the speed of sound. Temperatures soared to 1,900C before it released four parachutes and splashed down safely off the coast of Florida.

The mission to the International Space Station (ISS) and back has made history. Not only was this the first ocean landing since 1975, the Nasa astronauts were the first passengers of a spacecraft supplied and operated by a commercial company, SpaceX.

The decision by the US space agency to hand over the responsibility for building rockets, shuttles, and capsules to private companies will change space travel forever. As Nasa focuses on the bigger challenge of deep space, commercial companies are rushing to find creative and affordable ways of taking more people into orbit.

Long before it was remotely possible, humans dreamed of visiting the Moon. Victorian science-fiction writers, like Jules Verne and HG Wells, wrote about adventures there, decades before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their first steps on its surface in 1968. By 2000, the first long-term space inhabitants arrived at the ISS.

In a fraction of the time it took humanity to invent the steam-engine or the aeroplane, we have made huge strides into space. But science fiction also predicted that, by 2020, we would own flying cars and be travelling to Jupiter. Many sceptics believe that the idea of a summer holiday in space is still years away from becoming a reality.

Not according to companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Space Adventures.

They are about to hit warp speed and turn space into big business. Until now, only the world's richest countries could afford the eye-watering costs of space missions. So far, only seven multi-millionaire tourists have paid for their own trips to space. But, as companies design reusable shuttles, the price of space travel is set to fall.

Last week, Virgin Galactic unveiled a six-seater "space plane" to give passengers a 90-minute taste of zero-gravity, with breathtaking views 100km above the Earth. The first flight takes off in months - but, at $250,000 (£199,000) a seat, it is still only for the super-rich.

Meanwhile, Space Adventures plans to take two tourists to the ISS late next year, whilst SpaceX says commercial flights to the Moon could begin as early as 2023. Asked about the ticket price, founder Elon Musk admits it won't be a "trivial amount". But he believes it will become rapidly much cheaper.

And other companies are already designing what we will eat and where we will stay in space - as well as the luggage we will use. To many experts, it does look as though the era of mass space tourism is about to begin.

So, will Moon tourism be normal in 20 years' time?

Of course, say some. The history of flight gives an idea of where we are heading. The first commercial plane took off in 1914 and, by last year, there were over 100,000 flights a day. As companies compete to get us into zero-gravity, holidays in space within the next two decades will be as common as trips to Disneyland.

Others say, not so fast. The comparison with air travel is misleading. We travel by air to get to our holiday destination faster, not because we love flying. Until there are colonies in space, intergalactic tourism will be just an extreme sport for the super-wealthy.