Astronauts who return home from space often comment on the spectacular view of Earth from space. With the advent of space tourism, you can now take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel beyond Earth, expanding your freedom to discover the unknown. Space tourism has allowed us to challenge the widely held belief that space is nothing but a vast expanse of emptiness that never ends. Continue reading to learn more about space tourism and its prospects.
What is space tourism?
Space tourism is another niche segment of the aviation industry that seeks to give tourists the ability to become astronauts and experience space travel for recreational, leisure, or business purposes. Space tourism is expected to solve the single most challenging problem holding up space settlement: safe and inexpensive transportation from Earth’s surface to Low Earth Orbit.
How much does it cost to go to space?
Commercial space travel remains the realm of the mega-rich. The only market for humans-in-space capable of sustaining thousands of flights per year is tourism if the cost is in the $100,000 range or less. If the price is below $10,000, millions of flights can be supported. Seven tourists have travelled to the International Space Station (ISS) till now. The publicized price was in the range of US$20–25 million per trip.
Who will take you to space?
There are several options and aerospace companies out there available for space tourists like SpaceX and Axiom, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, NASA, Boeing Starline, Space Adventures, and Orion Span.
What does the future of space tourism look like?
In the coming decades, space tourism may result in a high number of people travelling to space. For the foreseeable future, space travel is likely to remain prohibitively expensive. It’s also physically gruelling. Therefore, it’ll only be open to those who pass fitness exams and go through training programmes in advance of their flight.
