Hi everyone! During this week I would like to bring you some information about very quickly developing and interesting topic - space tourism. In my first post I'll write about its history and about most important events in this field.
What exactly is space tourism?
We can talk about it when someone is paying to fly into space. As you can imagine it's not very common these days. Opportunities in space tourism are currently very limited and only available for the chosen ones - very rich people.
In general
Only 7 paying passengers where sent to space (one of them twice). All flights where facilitated by Space Adventures - company founded in 1998 providing human space mission opportunities. The price for a flight brokered by Space Adventures to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft is $20–35 million. ISS is an internationally developed research facility currently being assembled in Low Earth Orbit.
Who's the lucky guy?
On April 28, 2001, Dennis Tito became the first "fee-paying" space tourist when he visited the ISS for seven days. He was followed in 2002 by South African computer millionaire Mark Shuttleworth. The third was Gregory Olsen in 2005, who was trained as a scientist and whose company produced specialist high-sensitivity cameras. Olsen planned to use his time on the International Space Station test his company's products. In September 2006 the first female space tourist, Anousheh Ansari, completed her 10-day orbital mission. Charles Simonyi, an ex-executive at Microsoft, became the fifth space tourist in April 2007. In 2008, game developer Richard Garriott became the sixth client to travel to the ISS. Guy Laliberté, first ever Canadian space tourist, successfully reached orbit on September 30, 2009. In 2009, Charles Simonyi became Space Adventures' first repeat client to launch to the ISS.
What if you want more?
On July 21, 2006 Space Adventures announced that it would begin offering a spacewalk option to its clients traveling to the ISS. The addition of the spacewalk, which would allow participants to spend up to 1,5 hours outside of the space station, would cost about $15 million and would lengthen the orbital mission approximately six to eight days. The spacewalk would be completed in the Russian designed Orlan space suit. The training for the spacewalk would require an extra month of training on top of the six months already required.
What people think?
A web-based survey suggested that over 70% of those surveyed wanted less than or equal to 2 weeks in space; in addition, 88% wanted to spacewalk (only 74% of these would do it for a 50% premium), and 21% wanted a hotel or space station.
Feel free to answer the questions below and stay tuned for the next part.
Questions
- What's your opinion about space tourism?
- Would you like to take part in a space flight?
- Do you think that $20 million is a fair price for a space flight?
Only 20 million dolars? I'll take two! ;-)
ReplyDeleteBut seriously it's something I'd like to do in my life, chances are extremely low but still it's good to have a goal :)
There are special trips organised for people who want to experience 0 gravity, that's cheaper but cool views are not included.
Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN77b9DqEbc
Space tourism is great but still we have long way to go with it and other options space-related, such as spaceships, fuel.
ReplyDeleteSpace flight? You can be my sponsor :) As of the price, space flights are extremely limited goods so even if they'd suggested $50 mln most people wouldn't complain.
Simultaneously, there's like 6-month training camp before you go. You are precisely tested whether you will be able to survive - that's why some of the candidates didn't succeed.
Hell, it's must be fun to be there.
Rafal, I really wish I could go to space during my lifetime. But it is not realistic! The price of a round-trip ticket: $100 million !
ReplyDeleteWho wouldn't want to go to the space ?
I'll wait few years until Jeremy Clarkson with James may invents some good and cheap way to travel to ISS.
ReplyDeleteThere's chance in next 3 years we'll lought at those who paid about 20$M.
I think that it's not worth that amount of money. Just imagine what else you can gate for that.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather learn to fly aircraft instead of flying into space. I can even buy a private plane.
But idea of space flight is great.
>What's your opinion about space tourism?
ReplyDeleteWell, I think it must be a great adventure, but ... there is very few people who can afford it.
>Would you like to take part in a space flight?
Definitely yes. I would love to see a Mars, even from far away. But that is just a dream.
>Do you think that $20 million is a fair price >for a space flight?
According to my knowledge. Yes it is. Just check out how much it cost to take 1kg in space.
>What's your opinion about space tourism?
ReplyDeleteIt is great and it is future of tourism.
>Would you like to take part in a space flight?
Of course YES!
>Do you think that $20 million is a fair price for a space flight?
If you have milliard it is ok but know for me it isn't fair price :)
I have read up about space tourism developments before and frankly I quite like the whole idea, so this presentation was a welcome suprise to me :)
ReplyDeleteBTW, did you guys know that Richard Garriot, one of the "space tourists", is actually the son of an astronaut? Look it up ;)
OK so time for Rafał's questions...
1: I think that space tourism is a great idea and I can see only improvements to this coming in the future.
2: That will depend how old I'll be when (and if at all) I can afford such a trip. Physical condition requirements and all that jazz. But in general, yes, I'd love to see space with my own eyes :)
3: Considering the current climate around space travel and missions, I think that 20-30 mil dollars is a fair price. Of course, no average Joe can afford such a trip, but on the other hand, isn't it just so expensive to put a person outside of Earth's atmosphere? I don't think that Space Adventures has an astounding profit margin on this endeavor :)
Space tourism at the moment is attainable only for the richest people on earth, but I hope that in time this will change and prices fall dramatically. $ 20 million, however, is for me the price too high does not tempt the present moment to fly into space;)
ReplyDeleteI think that space tourism can be interesting experience. I would definitely like to go on such a trip. Unfortunately I cannot affor it. 20 million dollars or even more is a really big sum and only few people can afford it. Is it a fair price? I don't know, if it covers all the costs of fuel, training and there are people willing to pay this amount I would say yes, it is a fair price. Maybe in future the price will fall down a bit so that more people can afford such a trip. Of course this will take a long period of time before this happens. However if I was offered to chose between a ticket to space worth f.e 20mil or the money I would take the money for sure. It would make my life here on Earth easier and the trip last only one week or so.
ReplyDeleteIf I had 20 milion dollars, I certainly would NOT spend it on space travel. Just think about it: how many places one could see, how many things one could buy, how many enjoyable experiences one could have, instead of loosing such great amount of money on space travel! I myself have at least 20 million better ideas on how to spend 20 million dollars. Besides space travel will get a lot cheaper in a decade or two.
ReplyDelete