SpaceX Tourist Flights may start as early as 2021

I expected this, it's basically a quick way to add revenue from re-usable boosters and Crew Dragon capsules. I will be curious to hear what the price ends up being, they price an F9 launch at $62M [1] where the person buying the launch supplies the payload. If they charge $70M (adding $8M for the use of Crew Dragon) then they would need $10M per passenger to launch at "list" price.

They also say you don't need a "pro" pilot on board since everything is automated but I'd hate to be on one of these where something breaks and the tower has to "talk you down" :-). All in all its going to be really interesting over the next decade to see how this plays out.

The Bigelow deal was in 2012[2] which was only 8 years ago. I'm guessing they are ahead of that timeline, but maybe not.

[1] https://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities

[2] https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/spacex-announces-dea...

I predict that when it happens, and it will happen, it will be at least 2 years later than the 2021 date. I don't have any special knowledge but I know that Musk is over-optimistic most of the time.

So the rich can burn all the carbon they can afford?