Remember the science-fiction tales that we used to read in our school days, thinking and believing in living a life full of adventures, as often done by the protagonists in the stories. Writers like jules Gabriel verne, Robert anson Heinlein, aurther c. Clarke and Isaac Asimov helped readers to move out from the humdrum world of reality and think of exploring new avenues. From the imaginative world of space to the deepest points of the sea, those books made us cross the veil of ordinary life and reach those dreams of imagination.It was surely a matter connected with imaginative explorations and dream when one thought of traveling to pace even a couple of years ago. The only way one could quench one’s thirst of reaching such unthinkable avenues was through science-fiction novels and of course through offering from Hollywood.

However, the advancement of life and technology has now made these tales become a reality. Travelling to outer space will soon be easy like visiting the continent. Several companies have started venturing in the field and making offers for such explorations. Space adventures ltd. Is one such space explorations company that is giving opportunity to enthusiasts to be a part of private spaceflight and space tourism.

“using proven equipment and working side-by-side with professional astronauts and cosmonauts, we are the first and only company to have sent self-funded individuals to space. Our clients have cumulatively spent close to three months in space and traveling over 36 million miles,” claims a company spoke person.

“space adventures’ mission is to open spaceflight and the space frontier to private citizens, and the company’s vision actually stretches far beyond space tourism,” a company statement says. “our goal is to benefit not only the private citizen who fly to space, but of space for all of mankind,” it adds. “space adventures had flown seven private citizens on eight missions to the international space station,” it said.

The company said former Microsoft executive charles simonyi completed his second mission in April 2009 and he became space adventures first repeat customer.

“you know, every part had its highlights, and they just kept coming and coming. Arriving at the space station, for example, I knew that that would be magic, and it was beyond my wildest dreams,” says charles simonyi.

Anousheh ansari, who was the first woman private space explorer, says: “by reaching this dream I’ve had since childhood, I hope to tangibly demonstrate to young people all over the world that there is no limit to what they can accomplish.” Dennis tito, who was world’s first private space explorer, says: “for me. It was like being in heaven—it was like being in a second life.”

Space exploration technologies (spaceX) on the other hand, has finished a crucial evolution of a prototype dragon spacecraft, that has been designed to carry people into orbit. The important milestone is part of spaceX’s partnership with NASA under a funded space act agreement to advance the design of crew transportation vehicles. Determining the act that whether layout will give chance to astronauts to manoeuvre effectively the vehicle was one of the primary goal of the tests. Many senior space shuttle astronauts and NASA engineers performed the evolution during a pair of two-day-long reviews.

“space exploration technologies (spaceX) made history when it dragon spacecraft became the first commercial vehicle to successfully attach to the international space station. Previously only four governments- the USA, Russia, Japan and the European space agency- had achieved this challenging technical feat,” the company says. However, spaceX says it is in the process of developing the capability to carry people to space.

“our first manned test flights will not occur for at least three years,” Kristin brost grantham, spoke person of spaceX say. Blue origin, on the other hand, completed a system requirements review (SRR) of its orbital space vehicle on may 15-16, this year.

Blue origin is maturing the design of the space vehicle in partnership with the NASA under the agency’s commercial crew development (CCDev) programme. The space vehicle will carry astronauts to low earth orbit vertically for launch and horizontally for re-entry, affording the launch simplicity of a capsule coupled with the re-entry advantages of a lifting body. “the biconic shape improves on traditional designs, showing continued spaceflight innovation,” says rob programme manager of blue origin.

“successful completion of the system requirements review praves the way to finalise our space vehicle design. Coupled with our resauble orbital laush vehicle, we are helping NASA   meet its needs for sending astronauts  safely and reliably to the ISS, while lowering the cost of human spaceflight and increasing the number of people who can fly into the space.

Private space travel got another major boost recently when the federal aviation administration(FAA) granted an experimental launch permit to virgin galactic, the world’s first commercial spaceline, vehicle developer, scaled composites, for its suborbital spacecraft, spaceshiptwo. And the carrier aircraft, white knight two. “this important milestone enables our team to progress to the rocket-powered phase of test light, bringing us a major step closer to bringing our customers to space,” george whitesides, president and CEO of virgin galactic, was quoted as sating. “ we thank the FAA of their timely issuance of this permit, and for their responsible oversight of the test program,” whitesides  added. So, gear up and get ready to move outside and explore space from a new dimension and closeness.