Flying into space will one day become a regular thing. And Commercial Spaceflight Federation president Michael Lopez-Alegria (left) says it could start this year. The $765M (in ’12) commercial spaceflight industry has over 100 private companies employing 6,000 people, who make suborbital and orbital spaceflights a realty for regular citizens and governments that haven’t had space access. Since ‘06, over $2.5B has been invested in the industry. Meanwhile the US government has to rely on Russia to get its astronauts to the International Space Station at $70M per seat. (We send six astronauts a year.) Michael is here with CSF assistant director Sirisha Bandla and executive director Alex Saltman.

Michael, a former astronaut, has been to the International Space Station three times and served as the ISS commander for seven months. The DC-based federation’s role is to advocate for more funding for NASA and work with the FAA on industry standards and regulations. One of the federation’s challenges is the lack of commercial spaceflight data to develop logical passenger safety regulations.

Michael, who was born in Spain but grew up in Southern California, wasn’t always a fan of non-astronauts going into space. He now supports it after going to the ISS with Iranian-American business woman Anousheh Ansari in ‘06. After spending eight days with her, he realized the impact she was able to make by telling her experience through blog posts. Not only would spaceflight be for leisure but people could participate in science and tech experiments, says Michael.