Many people dream of going into space and experience something unique. Perhaps, 20 years from now, space tourism will be as common as bus tours. Many modern scientists are working on designs of special space craft to travel to the stars and back. There is no doubt that space tourism will become very popular in the future.
Charles Simonyi, orbital spaceflight client of Space Adventures', asked in an interview "Do you foresee a day when space tourism is not just the province of billionaires - when it will be as affordable as plane travel?" answered "Yes, the only question is when ...".
Currently there are many projects connected with space tourism. Here are some examples of development in that field scheduled for the nearest and further future.
Mission to the moon
The new Space Adventures' mission offers the chance to travel to and circumnavigate the moon. It will last 8-9 days and will require 3 months of training. It takes 2-3 days to approach the Upper Stage (Block DM), 2-3 days to approach the moon, there's approximately a 45 minute observation of the moon from 100km-1000km above the moon’s surface, and will return to Earth in 2-3 days. Price per passenger is $100 million. Space Adventures are currently developing spaceports at the United Arab Emirates and in Singapore.
Buzz Aldrin (the second person to set foot on the Moon) stated:
"This mission is a unique opportunity for a private citizen to become one of the great explorers of the 21st Century."
Space Hotels
Space Island Group organization announced their distinct Space Island Project and plans on having 20,000 people on their "space island" by 2020, with the number of people doubling for each decade.
Space Island Group plans to construct the first hotel in space providing guests all the comforts found today on a sea cruise, offering a stay at the space hotel for $10,000 a week. For this to become possible the current costs of launching a ship into orbit will have to come down considerably. At present NASA spends between 300 and 500 million dollars on each launching related to the space station. This means that each kilo put into orbit around the Earth cost approximately $22,000. Both the Russian Soyuz and the NASA shuttle use vast quantities of fuel during launchings.
Sub-orbital spaceflight for everyone (almost)
Virgin Galactic is a company within Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group which plans to provide sub-orbital spaceflights to the paying public starting in early 2010.
It is planned that the spacecraft are to be robust and affordable enough to take paying passengers. The craft is projected to be a six passenger, two pilot craft. Its planned trajectory will overlap the Earth’s atmosphere at 21 kilometers, which will make it a sub-orbital journey with a short period of weightlessness.
The White Knight II aircraft will carry the SpaceShipTwo craft, which is released during flight at around 16 kilometers and then climbs to maximum altitude of 110 kilometers in order to go beyond the defined boundary of space (100 km). The time from liftoff of the White Knight II booster carrying SpaceShipTwo until the touchdown of SpaceShipTwo after the suborbital flight will be about 2,5 hours. The suborbital flight itself will only be a small fraction of that time. The weightlessness will last approximately 6 minutes. Passengers will be able to release themselves from their seats during these 6 minutes and float around the cabin.
Virgin Galactic is charging about $200,000 per person for the two-hour flight. The company has received $40 million in deposits from 280 customers. It’s estimated that the company had spent some $100 million developing its business, mainly in research and development of the aircraft.
You can book your place in space on the Virgin Galactic’s web page :)
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Questions
- If spaceflights were more affordable would you want to take one?
- Don’t you think that it’s unethical or too early to use space for making money instead of for example science experiments?
- Can you image that in the future going into space would be as normal as a plane flight?
It would be nice to have a chance to see the Earth from other perspective. Seeing 280 people already paid for the flight seem to be very profitable for the company in the long term. Within the next few years there should appear more companies in this market. Simultaneously space tours will be more accessible for average Joe - still long way to go.
ReplyDeleteWe already treat the space as a place for technological and science experiments. It's high time to start showing better ideas for making money in space than just selling plots on the Moon. It's over 40 years, during this time space organizations weren't impressive as much as we would like them to be. Spending hundreds million of dollars and getting almost nothing is frustrating. Hopefully new plan for the next 20 or so years will be more successful, but still we can make a much better use of them here, on Earth.
I'd like to take a spaceflight for two reasons: to see a tiny Earth and to experience low gravity. Floating around sounds very cool.
ReplyDeleteMaking money can raise funds for research so I don't see a problem in it.
I can imagine planes on sub-orbital flights, it's faster and most likely way cheaper.
It depends on what you mean by normal as a plane flight. Most people still can not afford for an pane flight. Maybe someday it will be faster way of transport. Fx: instead of 18 hours in plane, 4 hours in spaceship. I would like to take such flight if price will be reasonable.
ReplyDeleteI think that such undertaking make more since than most science experiments. What you think?
>Don’t you think that it’s unethical or too >early to use space for making money instead of >for example science experiments?
ReplyDeleteWell, in my opinion is great opportunity to earn some money FOR further science experiments.
>Can you image that in the future going into >space would be as normal as a plane flight?
Yes, I can. ;)
I very interesting in this topic. But I need better job to get money for this kind of vacation :)
ReplyDeleteIf space flights become more accessible and certainly cheaper I decide on a trip of the space in weightlessness spend only 6 minutes. Flight into space is a dream for most people in the world and my. Everyone watched "Star Wars" and "Star Trek". I am also convinced that in the future of space flight will be popular as in an airplane.
ReplyDeleteIt's astounding as to how high has Virgin's founder risen. From having a record company at 20 years old to space travel :)
ReplyDeleteWell, 200k isn't 20-30mil, so let's say it's a "bargain", but on the other hand, it's "just" for a 2 hour flight with a crowd of people. Can one call this a "ride" into space? :)
As stated before, I'm also up for such a flight :)
As for making money from flight, you know, people won't make it for free and also the larger amount of the profits I assume goes into research, so I agree with Adam, don't see anything wrong with it.
There wouldn't really be any sponsors if this business weren't commercially viable.
As for the future, yes I can imagine that the scene from 2001, a Space Odyssey movie will come true. I mean the scene were the businessman is in the orbital space port and awaits a flight to the Moon and calls his family by videophone to wish his daughter happy birthday. And all that was thought of in 1969 ;)