Private orbital flight.

[Comga]

We are ready have Point to Point Sub-Orbital travel for Cargo, they are called ICBM's

hmmmm. I think the intent here Jim is to have the point to point cargo carrier arrive at its destination without going boom! 

For once Jim is being the smart aleck,  AND making a good point.

There has been consideration of delivering some hugely time critical cargo by converted ICBM.  It never goes anywhere because it is wildly impractical. The packaging needed to ride an ICBM is so complex and constraining that is it simpler to carry it unpackaged on a plane.  Either that or the cargo has to sit on a missile at constant readiness.  Not exactly the FedEx business model.

Similarly, while SS2 might be able to move at great speeds,  it could only go a couple of hundred kilometers given the energy in the system.  For that , it spends an hour or so getting to altitude at a less than earth shattering speed.  And the current cost is $200K.   So you wind up with a very expensive short range transport with a mediocre average speed.  Lose, lose, lose.  Let's be practical.

[HMXHMX]

We are ready have Point to Point Sub-Orbital travel for Cargo, they are called ICBM's

...

Similarly, while SS2 might be able to move at great speeds,  it could only go a couple of hundred kilometers given the energy in the system.  For that , it spends an hour or so getting to altitude at a less than earth shattering speed.  And the current cost is $200K.   So you wind up with a very expensive short range transport with a mediocre average speed.  Lose, lose, lose.  Let's be practical.

$200K x nine, so $1.8M for a flight.  Thus even worse.  SS2 will never be used for such a thing, nor WK2.  That is not to say there can't be a design that closes the business case (see for example Lindey and Penn in one of more AIAA papers) but not with this architecture.

[Swatch]

I can't imagine anyone would think I was making a serious comparison between technologies separated by a hundred years. The Wright Flyer was the first successful privately-developed HTA aircraft.

Are you implying that there was a publically developed HTA aircraft before the Flyer?  (to me, the Flyer is Gemini/Soyuz and the Lilienthal gliders are Mercury/Vostok)

Comparing Dragon to the 707 is equally absurd. Commericial private airliners existed for decades beforehand.

Note, I did NOT say that only that some would.  I disagreed and said I would place it more in the realm of the Boeing Clipper.   (One of) The first commercial airliner(s) to make intercontinental flights a feasible business.

One of the big differences between air travel and space travel is, there was no huge government "air race" conducted in the 1850s from which the technology could develop.

You're right... about the 1850s.  But there's a certain Chuck that won a big prize that incouraged technological development of aircraft.  And there were government subsidies and contracts laid out in the teens, 20s and 30s that led to the development of the technology necesary for the Clipper and its ilk.

Ultimately, the biggest difference between commercial manned air travel and commercial manned space travel is, there's nowhere to go yet.

People said the same thing about aircraft when they were only for joyriding and a public novelty.  Those were the same people who thought ocean liners were the wave of the future.  But when you can do things such as orbit the earth in 90 min (less than your typical skip-hopper commuter flight), imagine how much faster point to point travel can be?  No, there may not be places to go into orbit yet, but there are plenty of places to get to on earth, and there are many entrepeneurs that would rather see this than than an industry based solely on tourism.
Admittedly (as stated in the comments above) there is not currently a system in place that makes this feasible, but who's to say some hotshot engineer won't come up with the right answer?  There is lots of work going on out there, just as there was in the dawn of the Aviation age.

[rpspeck]

Sooner or later Space X or some one else will succeed in orbiting a privately owned and operated manned space craft.

When this happens what do you think will happen in this area.

 Everything depends on what a corporation/consortium or other group can make a profit from.
 IMHO there is next to no chance that pure tourism will make private access to LEO profitable. It will be a small fraction of the business model of whomever gets started first.
 My bet is on Platinum mining to be the first profitable enterprise in space. Whether it will be from asteroids or the moon will be determined by whichever is the most cost effective.

I believe that "On Site Service" will become a profitable space industry far sooner than mining!  With several $ Billion a year going for GEO satellites (and 100 times that money dependent on the operation of the communications cluster), at lot is at stake.  Fixing a satellite, or even extending its lifetime by hooking  up an external “Propulsion Unit”,  could be worth >$100 Million (from the insurance company, if not from the parent corporation).

You can get a really good (and preferably compact, low mass) technician for $ 1 Million.  Many will do it for nothing but the free trip into space.  A fair number of these are adventurers who won't quibble about “flush toilets” or Wasabi for the food. Even with a cramped hole for a space capsule, and  just an even chance to make it back alive, you will get technicians willing to go. 

When you think in these terms you realize that a Falcon-1e  is big enough for the entire mission, including a <400 pound manned reentry unit and rockets for GTO, etc.

Beyond repair of existing systems, the POSSIBILITY of repair has a massive impact on design.  Slightly less conservative design – counting on a multi million dollar repair if necessary -  can enable doubled performance for the satellites!

People who loved to fly lived the rough, dangerous life of Air Show performers and Barnstormers, because that made possible the Euphoric Joy of flying!  The first “commercial” space operations will look at lot like those early days in aviation.