Space tourism: Difference between revisions

Space tourism is the recent phenomenon of space travel by individuals for the purpose of personal pleasure. At the moment, space tourism is only open to exceptionally wealthy individuals, with the Russian space program providing transport.

After initial successes in space many people saw intensive space exploration as inevitable. In minds of of many people such exploration was symbolised by wide public access to space, mostly in the form of space tourism. While today those aspirations are best remembered in science fiction works, such as Arthur Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, during 1960s and 1970s it was a common belief that space hotels will be launched by 2000. Many futurologists around the middle of the 20th century speculated that an average American family of the early 21st century would be able to spend their holiday on the Moon.

The end of the space race, however, signified by the Moon landing, decreased the importance of space exploration and led to decreased importance of manned space flight. In the late 1990s some companies toyed with the idea of creating orbital hotels using discarded Shuttle fuel tanks or inflatable structures, but not much was done beyond feasibility studies.

Whilst it is argued that John Glenn was essentially a tourist on his 1997 Shuttle flight STS-95, commercial space tourism didn't start until the 21st century. Ironically, first real steps in commercial space tourism were done by Russian space companies. Faced with greatly diminished space financing, Russian space industry had to find original ways to fund the orbital launches. MirCorp started looking for potential space tourists to visit Russian MIR space station to offset some of the costs of maintaining it. Dennis Tito, an American businessman and former NASA scientist, became the first candidate. When the decision to dismantle MIR was made, MirCorp changed the plans and decided to send Tito to the ISS.

On April 28th, 2001 Dennis Tito became the first fee-paying space tourist, when he visited the International Space Station for 7 days. He was followed by South African Mark Shuttleworth. More individuals are keen to make the trip, such as boy band singer Lance Bass, who however had his trip canceled due to funding problems, and scientist and entrepreneur Gregory Olsen. After the Columbia disaster space tourism on the Russian Soyuz was temporarily on hold, as the Soyuz was the only available transport to the ISS.

The U.S. company Space Adventures has an agreement with the Russian Space Agency for a dedicated commercial flight to the International Space Station. The price for a trip on the Soyuz rocket is $20 million, and a launch date of 2005 is planned.

More affordable space tourism is viewed as a money-making proposition by several startup companies, many of whom are competing for the ANSARI X PRIZE. Most are proposing vehicles which would make a suborbital flight of around 90 minutes, peaking somewhere above 100 kilometres of altitude and giving the passengers several minutes of weightlessness, the view of a twinkle-free starfield and the curved Earth below. Projected costs are expected to be in the range of 100,000 USD per passenger. Some companies are hoping to launch commercial flights before 2005.

American motel tycoon Robert Bigelow have acquired the designs of inflatable space habitats from TransHab program abandoned by NASA. He is currently planning to launch first orbital hotel by early 2006.

Among the primary attractions of space tourism are the uniqueness of the experience, the awesome and thrilling feelings of looking at Earth from space (described by all astronauts as extremely intense and mind-boggling), status symbol, and various advantages of weightlessness — potential for extreme sports, unusual sex, health benefits, especially to elder people.

In long term the orbital tourist flights may be superceded by planetary and later interstellar tourism. Such possibilities have been explored in details in many science fiction works.

See also

• ANSARI X PRIZE
• Timeline of the future in forecasts
• Private spaceflight

External links

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1297924.stm
• http://www.energia.ru/english/energia/iss/soyuz-tm-32/tito.html
• http://www.spaceadventures.com/press/061803.html
• http://www.spacefuture.com
• Branson reaches for the stars in The Guardian
• The Space Tourism Site by The George Washington University Space Policy Institute and Department of Tourism & Hospitality Management
• [1] Space Tourism at Space.Com