July 20 marks the 40th anniversary of humans first setting their feet on Moon's dusty surface. The Apollo program was a huge achievement for the time and inspired lots of optimistic sci-fi stories of mankind conquering our solar system.

In '2001: A Space Odyssey', Dr. Heywood R. Floyd calls her daughter from the trip to Moon and says he's sorry for missing her party, he sleeps in zero gravity, and eats neatly packed sandwhiches on a lunar vessel. Just like that.

I think it is fair to ask what the hell happened, or perhaps more suitably, what didn't happen. Why were there no Heywoods travelling between celestial objects eight years ago?

Certainly the technology has been sufficiently advanced for decades. And there have always been lots of people eager to go to space. Dennis Tito even paid 20 million dollars for his '2001 odyssey' to ISS, even though the trip was far from a pleasant and comfortable tourist experience.

Well, maybe this pondering is not important, for the space-age is still coming slowly but surely.

If all goes according to plans, within two years Virgin Galactic will begin tourist spaceflights that enable seeing Earth from space and experiencing zero gravity, with tickets priced at 200,000 dollars. That's too much for most Earthlings but still only a hundredth of the cost of Tito's trip, and as the flights become common and competition kicks in, the prices will drop down substantially.

After that? Well, who knows. There are lots of feasible space hotel and lunar base plans waiting to be realized.

What are your plans for space travel? Would you like to float in zero gravity or hop on the surface of the Moon? How much would you be willing to spend on space travel?