| abstract
| - Spaceflight in the 21st Century was marked by two periods of rapid expansion and one of complete stagnation. The first period is often known as the end of the first Space Age; the second is universally known as the Kessler Syndrome; the third is known as the Golden Age of Space Flight. The end of the first Space Age was marked by the brief existence of a dynamic private space industry, led by four companies: Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace, and Blue Origin. These four companies pioneered new methods for space travel that would later come to shape the Golden Age of space flight. Virgin Galactic at its height was the largest space tourist company by volume, sending over 100,000 people to space in 2014 with their groundbreaking SpaceShipTwo space plane. While air-launch technology would be eventually be abandoned, the wing feathering that SpaceShipTwo used to renter the atmosphere safely would become the main way for manned craft to enter the atmosphere. SpaceX was the first private company to achieve orbital flight, and replaced the Space Shuttle as the primary means of NASA to send cargo and astronauts to the ISS. By 2014, the Falcon X had entered service, and was carrying much heavier payloads to orbit, enabling the deployment of more robotic explorers to the solar system. SpaceX ultimately contributed to important discoveries in heavy-lift technologies and general launch systems. Bigelow Aerospace was instrumental in the deployment of inflatable space habitats, that would prove to be essential to off-world stations and long range craft. Prior to the Kessler syndrom in 2015, Bigelow had five stations orbiting the Earth. Of all these companies, Blue Origin was the only to survive the "Space Bust," the economic collapse limited to the aerospace industry after the Kessler Syndrome. This was largely due to the company's array of military concepts, and their development of the Stratollites that would come to replace satellites. Blue Origin was known for developing nano-satellites and inexpensive launch systems that relied heavily on hypersonic air-breathing propulsion technologies. These technologies were eventually repurposed for military and in-atmospheric operations during the Kessler Syndrom and eventually placed back into space technologies. In the late 2030s and early 2040s, the International Space Agency, formed in 2039, began launching a number of multi-national sponsored debris cleaners to orbit to remove the heavy particles that made spaceflight impossible over the last two decades. By 2042, largely thanks to advances in materials sciences, space debris was down to pre-1960s levels, and new laws mandated that all further craft leave as little debris in space as possible. A new network of nano-satellites were placed into orbit, providing a free global communication's network and positioning system. With the creation of the ISA, and the rebirth of space flight, the Golden Age of Space Flight came into being. A number of former astronauts and former defense contractors established new companies to compete with Blue Origin, or at the very least supply new technologies for a space industry. Government investment spurred a slew of adventurers to the Moon and various asteroids to supply the Earth with the minerals it so needed to survive and grow the global economy. Spurred by this need for minerals and overcrowding on Earth, the ISA began pushing for more long range space programs. By 2049, humanity had landed on Mars, by 2055, humans had reached the Jovian Moons and established long term gas mining facilities. By the 2060s the Moon alone, had a population of over a million people and Mars was reaching half a billion. In 2074, the ISA launched the Voyager III spacecraft to Alpha Centauri to explore Earth's nearest stellar neighbor. This first expedition confirmed one planet that humans could inhabit, with several cryospheres and other terrestrial worlds. Today the IEVs make regular runs between Alpha Centauri and Earth, supplying Earth's small colonies, and furthering exploration.
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