The Boeing Company is taking one giant leap forward in transportation services. A “Memorandum of Understanding” between the Boeing Company and Space Adventures Ltd. has been established to work on the future of transportation services to places in low Earth orbit (LEO). Boeing hopes to use the Boeing Crew Space Transportation-100 to man crew and goods transportation to the International Space Station (ISS) and future commercial LEO platforms.
Space Adventures, a US based space tourism company, has paved the way for privatised space tourism. Famous for sending wealthy businessmen into space, the company hopes to create a future market of commercial space travel and transport.
Although prices have not yet been set, a freight tariff would likely be astronomical (ahem). The priority for the moment is allowing a lucky, select few to take their place in of the seven seats on-board the CST-100. although the CST-100 is not scheduled to make its first journey until 2015, commercial shipping in outer-space is taking its first steps towards becoming a reality.
The most likely objects to be transported begin with will be provisions and the ashes of those wishing to be blasted off into space.