Alex McColgan

They have been flying robotic cargo missions to the ISS since 2012, which has meant Boeing has been playing catch-up to match a similar launch schedule to SpaceX.

With time though, those costs should also be reduced.

This competition in the industry is good, because cheaper manned missions to space should mean a greater capacity for more missions in the future, which is great news for space enthusiasts.

To give you some comparison about the costs involved with space travel.

NASA is still working on their own launch vehicle called the SLS.

This will be more than just a taxi service for astronauts, it's designed to shift a serious amount of cargo far out into our solar system too.

However, if you include all the R&D costs into each of its expected flights, we are looking at over $2 billion per launch.

compared to SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, which Elon Musk claims would only cost NASA $150 million per launch.

Now, the SLS would get a little less than twice the amount of cargo to low Earth orbit, 130 tonnes compared to Falcon Heavy's 70 tonnes.

However, we are seeing signs already that maybe the private sector can do it better.

We are still in early days yet.

In the coming years, seeing the reliability of all the craft will be one of the most important factors to decide whether one way or another is the most successful path or not.

but the fact that there are now options will be crucially important for the future of spaceflight.

So, well done SpaceX and NASA, and good luck Boeing and the teams behind the SLS and all other space agencies around the world.

Let's make this upcoming decade one to remember for space travel.

When you think of the space race, you probably imagine the tense Cold War era battle between the US and the Soviet Union.

But what if I told you there was another player in the game?

While the superpowers wrestled for space dominance, a small and newly independent nation started developing its own ambitions of reaching the stars and beating the big dogs to it.

The story of Zambia's space program is a great example of humanity's overpowering curiosity to explore and understand the cosmos no matter where we're from, and how far we're willing to go to do so.

It's also a reminder that history is shaped by those who get to tell it, and it isn't only the loudest voices that leave the biggest legacies.