Alex McColgan

This is significant, because it means the US is really back in the game now.

During this gap between the end of the space shuttle program and today, only the Russians had capabilities to send astronauts to space.

Every launch went via them and their Soyuz rocket, costing the US an estimated $86 million per seat.

Russia have put their price up over this last decade, perhaps cashing in on the fact that they had a monopoly on the market.

The lowest NASA paid Russia was $21.8 million per seat back in 2007, and the design of the Soyuz hasn't really changed since then.

Which brings us on to the second most significant part of this mission.

NASA has commissioned private contractors to build the next generation of manned launch vehicles and capsules.

The idea is that having some competition in this market will be a good thing for bringing prices down.

So, while the Russians have been charging $86 million per seat, SpaceX, on the other hand, will be charging about $55 million per seat initially.

As more orders come in, they expect to be able to reduce this price tag down further to the $10-20 million mark.

SpaceX can go so low because they utilise reusable boosters, which should reduce their overall cost considerably.

Another of the contractors, Boeing, are also testing their own capsule, although their price per seat will be considerably higher initially at $90 million.

SpaceX has had a big head start.

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.