i asked virgin's ceo george whitesides when the price will come down. >> the reality is that they costp front. it's cost a lot to build this vehicle and develop this program. as any business you needs to amortize through your ticket prices. you have a very successful business underlying these economics so that's what we're going to do as we amortize the development costs. not to get too technical -- >> i'm a financial journalist. >> we'll be potentially able to lower the cost. that's not going to happen immediately. we actually have a big backlog. we'll see what happens but long term the vision is to bring prices down. >> the united states has the most developed private commercial space industry in the world and the biggest government funded space program out there but that is not deterring other countries from making bold leaps where other men have gone before. mary snow reports. >> reporter: the european space industry erupts into cheers and hugs. traveling four billion miles over the last decade its aim to collect information about the earliest days of the solar system. >> here we a