Boeing To Offer Commercial Space Flight In Five Years!

Buckle up, space nerds, and cue up the “Star Trek” theme song in your iPod. (Since that’s currently leading NASA’s contest to pick music for astronauts to listen to on the space shuttle’s next flight. Much cooler, though: space stoners have pushed Steppenwolf into second place.) Because, amazingly, some of you will be able to buy a ticket for a flight into low-earth orbit as soon as 2015. That’s very soon! (Although not as soon as the predicted discovery of Earth 2.)

As Reuters reports, the Boeing Company, in conjunction with Virginia-based Space Adventures will market passenger seats aboard the CST-100 space vehicle Boeing is developing for NASA.

The spacecraft could carry seven people and fly in low-Earth orbit as soon as 2015, Boeing said. The company added that potential customers could include private individuals, companies, nongovernmental organizations and U.S. federal agencies. Space Adventures said it had arranged for seven spaceflight participants to fly on eight missions to the International Space Station being built in space by the United States and Russia.

Ticket prices have not yet been set. I hope they’re less than the $35 million the Cirque du Soleil guy paid last year to blast up there out of Kazakhstan. I also hope they’ll serve honey roasted peanuts and tomato juice (which, for some reason, always tastes better in the air).

My choice in the NASA contest, “Rocket Man,” is way down the list, carrying just 0.2% of votes. But now that I’ll to be able to program my own tunes, from my own collection (iPods would be allowed on board, right? Why not?) I think I’d start off with Monster Magnet. Go stoners!