Space tourism is space travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. A number of startup companies have sprung up in recent years, such as Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace, hoping to create a sub-orbital space tourism industry.
Only through the exploration of the unknown can we continue to grow and evolve. Space is not only important for the future of transportation, commerce, and science; it’s also important for the future of imagination. We still know so little about space and how our understanding of it can benefit life on our planet. What is clear is that the ability for more people to cross the final frontier of space will be key to human advancement.
NASA has selected SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada Corp. to fly cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) starting in 2019, more companies are expected to join the race for commercial space services. Eventually the goal of these companies is to take ordinary citizens into space on commercial basis for education and recreational purposes.
Only 24 people have ever left Earth orbit and journeyed close to the Moon. The last people to walk on the Moon were Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, who left the Moon’s surface on December 14, 1972 and returned to Earth in their Apollo spacecraft. Since then no one has been closer to the Moon than low Earth Orbit.
Using flight proven Russian space vehicles will fly two private citizens and one professional cosmonaut on a free return trajectory around the far-side of the Moon. They will come to within 100km of the Moon’s surface.
The first commercial tour is being envisioned to take private citizen for a “circle around moon” tour and then slowly grow the space tourism market to additional tours including commercial space station visit. Intially these trip may cost a fortune, but as any other commercial project it will eventually get more affordable.
Over the next decade, Space Adventures will arrange flights to space for more private citizens than have made the journey since the dawn of the Space Age. Private Citizens will fly on suborbital flights, on voyages to Earth orbit and on historic expeditions that circumnavigate the moon. Flights will leave from spaceports both on Earth and in space, visiting private space stations, and aboard dozens of different vehicles. By continually providing newly available space experiences and improving existing ones, Space Adventures will continue to provide leadership to private spaceflight industry that it began in 2001 with the flight of the world’s first space tourist Dennis Tito.
Similarly Virgin Galactic comprised of hundreds of dedicated and passionate professionals — including rocket scientists, engineers, and designers from around the world — united in creating plans for the world’s first commercial spaceline.
Inter-galactic researches and space travel tests have paved the way for a safe outer space travel experience for non-astronauts. The current safety standards require operating companies to meet the FAA requirements and standards for safety of the public, both during ascent and during the final re-entry.
Some of the commercial plans are:
1. XCOR Aerospace
Vehicle: The Lynx rocket plane which can hold a pilot plus one passenger.
More Info: The Lynx will take tourists to suborbital space and will make four trips per day. XCOR has sold about 300 tickets at $95,000 each, which has given it enough funds to develop its spacecraft. The company’s CEO, Jeff Greason, says they are not aiming to get ahead of competitors in the space race and their battle is with economics and physics.
2. World View Enterprises
Vehicle: A pressurized capsule that is hauled up by a space balloon and parafoil.
More Info: The balloon trip will take space tourists to 100,000 feet above earth. The vehicle will float up into the suborbital flight and then glide back. The trip is expected to last for about four hours. Passengers do not need any anti-gravity training. They can enjoy refreshing beverages in the cabin.
3. Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Space Trip
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo will carry stars like Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio on an outer space holiday (www.virgingalactic.com)
Company: Virgin Galactic. It pioneers commercial outer space flights and the world’s wealthiest are naturally first in line to sign up, led by reel stars Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber.
4. SpaceX Dragon Space Trip
Company: Space Exploration Technologies
Vehicle: Dragon capsule. This is a free-flying and reusable spacecraft that made headlines last year for being the first commercial space vehicle in history to successfully attach to NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) through its robotic arms. It is used to transport cargo and crew, for in-space technology demonstrations and scientific tests. With the Dragon space trip, one can ride this famous space shell.
The Trip: The Dragon space trip is a kind of low earth orbital flight. It is in line with SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s mission of revolutionizing access to space. The trip is an orbital flight into a 370-kilometer orbit. (More revolutionary space flights are planned by Musk, including flights enabling human exploration and settlement of Mars in 10 to 20 years time under the company’s Mars One colonization project).
5. Zero-G Weightless Experience
Company: Zero Gravity Corporation
Vehicle: Modified Boeing 727
The Trip: Lasting some 90 to 100 minutes, the Zero-G space trip enables one to “float like an astronaut and fly like a superhero in weightlessness.” It consists of parabolic arc flights, which simulate weightlessness in space, much like the astronauts we see on space station interviews. The flight swirls the passenger to 15 individual parabolas, consisting of one Martian gravity simulation, two lunar gravity simulations and 12 weightlessness simulations.