Why the Idea of Average People Owning Spaceships in Sci-Fi is Ridiculous—or Isn't
Science fiction is full of stories where the protagonists are individual adventurers, travelling the stars in their own personal spacecraft. However, is it really plausible that the average person in such a setting would be able to own and operate a spaceship of their own?
The Characters in These Stories Are Generally Far from “Average”
The characters in these stories are generally far from "average." The Doctor, for example, stole his TARDIS from a Gallifreyan repair bay. The TARDIS is an obsolete Model 40 scheduled to be scrapped. TARDIS are either assigned for field use or stolen by renegades such as the Rani and the Master, who were able to do so with suspicious frequency and ease. They aren’t “owned” in the regular sense of the word.
In the Star Trek universe, Kirk is not the owner of the USS Enterprise; he is assigned to it. Similarly, Picard gives a shuttlecraft "on extended loan" to Scotty. The Hansens, characters in some Star Trek series, apparently obtained a ship for their study of the Borg, although the specifics of how they acquired it are not detailed in the story.
The Exception: Serenity and Millennium Falcon
The privately owned small merchant ships found in science fiction, like the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars and the Serenity in Firefly, are based on the "tramp steamers" that were common from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. These were small cargo ships whose owner and captain were usually the same person and often had no more than a dozen crew. They worked routes that were unprofitable for the major shipping lines, delivering specialty cargoes and frequently engaging in a bit of smuggling on the side.
Such ships still exist but are a lot fewer now, largely thanks to changes in the shipping industry during World War Two: larger port facilities and standardized shipping containers are probably the two main reasons that big lines have taken over so thoroughly.
Costs and Profitability
Assuming that the cost of shipbuilding and the relative profitability of operating a small space freighter are in line with their seagoing equivalent a century ago, it’s not ridiculous at all for the average person to own a spaceship. Whether or not this makes sense is, of course, up to how the author sets up the fictional universe where the ship and crew ply their trade.
Conclusion
The question of whether average people can own and operate their own spaceships in science fiction is not as absurd as it might initially seem. While many characters in popular science fiction series are far from "average" and their ships are often procured through theft or assignment, the concept of a privately owned small freighter is not entirely out of the realm of possibility. The cost and profitability of such ships, as well as the specific circumstances of the fictional universe, all play a role in determining the feasibility of such a scenario.