Former NASA Astronaut: Commercial Space Travel Is 10 Years Away
Mike Massimino, the former astronaut who became the first man to tweet from space during one of his two space flights, says companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin are close to sending paying customers to space. These companies are "the best hope we have for a thriving space program," he tells Cheddar in an interview Thursday.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/spacing-out-with-mike-massimino).
British officials and space scientists said Tuesday they were disappointed but not deterred after the first attempt to launch satellites into orbit from the U.K. ended in failure.
The small coastal town of Montecito, California -- home to celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and Rob Lowe -- has been evacuated as a result of extensive flooding in the area and surrounding canyons after more than eight inches of rain fell in just 12 hours on Monday.
Virgin Orbit's "Cosmic Girl," a retrofitted Boeing 747 plane, is scheduled for a horizontal launch into orbit Monday night from the United Kingdom's Spaceport Cornwall.
