A Journey into The Fascinating Development of Commercial Space Tourism
By Teshome Jenkins
06/18/2022
From time immemorable humankind has looked to the stars, marveling at the endless expanse of constellations and wishing to venture into the unknown. Luckily, with the advancement of technology humankind’s wish is no longer a shot in the dark, but rather a beaming light of opportunity illuminating new possibilities. Not only are we able to travel to space, but we are also now considering routine commercial space tourism for the ordinary person who is not an astronaut. Though this concept may sound wondrous, there are several concerns which need to be addressed first, including safety, finances, and more. Let’s take a deep dive into the mechanics of the exciting industry of commercial space tourism!
❖ How does it work, exactly?
The first mental imagery which pops into the minds of many when learning of space tourism is people floating in deep space, fully equipped in spacesuits, which couldn’t be further from the actual experience. The main difference between space tourism and space travel is that space tourism is meant for leisure and pleasure, as all tourism is.
Instead of making dinner reservations for your anniversary at a high-end restaurant, think of booking a flight into space with your loved one. Space tourism is slowly making space travel more accessible and affordable to the public at large. There are also different kinds of space tourism: orbital space tourism and suborbital space tourism.
While orbital space tourism involves extremely high speeds (17,400 mph), allowing a rocket to orbit around Earth, suborbital flights are much slower (3,700 mph) and tend to fly directly into space and then back down again. Suborbital flights are what space tourism companies such as Virgin Galactic are offering more commonly.
❖ Who is offering space tourism?
Virgin Galactic
One of the earliest companies offering the promise of space tourism is Virgin Galactic. Created by Virgin’s Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic was founded in 2004. On July 11th, 2021, Branson flew up to space with a crew of two pilots and three other passengers, becoming the first space tourist in over ten years. It was a 90-minute suborbital flight at an altitude of 85 kilometers.
Their website is simple to digest with an aspirational message. If you click the heading, “Why we go,” you’ll see a quote from Branson: “I really hope that there will be millions of kids all over the world who will be captivated and inspired about the possibility of them going to space one day.” The website also indicates that Virgin Galactic’s mission is to “open space to everybody” and states, “Until now, ordinary citizens haven’t had the opportunity to experience space for themselves.”
Virgin Galactic flights do not orbit the Earth. Tourists on these flights instead travel roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) high and then return to Earth after a few minutes of weightlessness. A flight on Virgin Galactic will initially cost around $200,000.
As mentioned previously, with these flights there will be no huge, monolithic rockets sitting upon a launchpad. Instead, passengers will board a small, airplane-like space vehicle that holds six people. This vehicle will be conjoined underneath a much larger aircraft.
The larger airplane will take off from a traditional runway and fly to an altitude of 50,000 feet. The space vehicle will then detach, thus firing its rocket engine to go from 50,000 feet to 340,000 feet. Once the rocket engine dissipates (burns out), passengers will then experience weightlessness and will be able to see the blackness of space with the Earth curving off down below. The experience in its entirety will require two days of training, and the flight will last approximately two and a half hours.
Blue Origin
The second space company invested in commercial space tourism is Blue Origin, founded by Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos. Just nine days prior to the Virgin Galactic flight, Blue Origin’s New Shepherd Rocket took Bezos and three other passengers to space on July 20th, 2021. The suborbital flight reached an altitude of 107 kilometers, higher than Branson’s flight, but the trip only lasted a mere 11 minutes.
The space flight achieved two new world records by having the oldest and youngest humans to ever have been to space onboard. One of the passengers, an 18-year-old student, was Blue Origin’s very first paying customer, though the price of a ticket has not been revealed. Blue Origin’s website is similar in some ways to Virgin Galactic’s, emphasizing a better future for children and the possibility of millions of people visiting and exploring space.
However, there is a bit more focus on Earth preservation, with Blue Origin mentioning the need to sustain new energy and material resources outside of Earth. There is also an emphasis on the reusable nature of launch vehicles as an attempt to improve cost and sustainability.
SpaceX
Space X, short for Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, is a company created by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. In the eyes of many, it would appear that Musk is behind compared to the other aforementioned companies since he has never personally travelled to space. However, it’s worth mentioning that Space X is heavily focused on longer orbital flights, which are much more difficult to carry out.
In fact, Space X launched the first-ever orbital flight crewed entirely by tourists from the Kennedy Space Center on September 15th, 2021 — an impressive feat to say the least. While one crew member by the name of Jared Isaacman was a billionaire and funded the trip himself, the other crew members were ordinary people, including a physician assistant and a community college professor.
To put financial matters into perspective, the flight probably cost Isaacman a minimum of $200 million. However, the mission raised $210 million for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in the process of the flight. The website of Space X is a lot more detailed and contains more ambitious plans for the future of space exploration.
While they discuss private space travel for the purpose of leisure (“Fly over your hometown, famous landmarks and other places meaningful to you”), they also discuss Earth-to-Earth transportation via space, the habitability of the Moon, and plans to create a human settlement on Mars.
❖ Advantages of Space Tourism
Currently, the biggest draw for commercial space passengers is the unforgettable, awe-inspiring experience, a new perspective of Earth, and the most breathtaking view humans have ever witnessed. Most of us grow up believing that we will never go to space, and the fact that going can become a real possibility for some is a grand achievement.
Interestingly enough, the experience of observing the Earth from space has a name: the Overview Effect. Basically, this is a cognitive change of consciousness where astronauts experience a newfound sense of duty and responsibility to protect Planet Earth. This realization could prove beneficial for the compassion of humankind toward the planet.
Another big draw of space travel for passengers is the experience of microgravity, where they will be able to feel completely weightless on the spacecraft for a short time. Although this may not change their perspective on Earth, it’ll definitely provide a euphoric experience.
❖ Disadvantages of Space Tourism
There are some pretty big disadvantages of space tourism that we’re going to take a moment to discuss. As you can imagine, there are some very real safety concerns when it comes to the combination of space travel and tourism.
Several aspects of space flight invite danger, with the two most risky being the rocket launch and re-entering Earth’s atmosphere upon descent. In 2014, for instance, the industry experienced a catastrophic failure when a Virgin Galactic flight test resulted in the death of co-pilot Mike Alsbury. While challenges can arise due to faulty equipment, the possibility of human error must be considered too.
Additionally, there are safety concerns about being in space for prolonged periods of time, and this needs to be addressed when discussing the possibility of people regularly entering space. For example, space radiation can cause terminal illness and behavioral changes, and isolation can cause mental health issues. Being in lower gravity can cause muscle and bone fatigue too.
Licensing launches and protecting other flying vehicles in the sky are also concerns. Space regulation is not a huge barrier of entry as of yet, but it’s important to ensure that rockets don’t collide with planes, drones, or helicopters, which would cause catastrophes, casualties, and damage in general.
There is also the concern of the environmental impact space tourism will have on Earth. Research shows that the carbon footprint left behind with repeated, short flights can be more harmful than long-haul flights, partly due to the fact that so few passengers can board a flight for space tourism purposes. Additionally, there are many ways space tourism can contribute to depleting the ozone layer.
CO2 emissions along with soot trap heat in the atmosphere, and rockets emit up to 10 times more nitrogen oxides than some of the largest thermal power plants in the world. This means that passengers touring space create between 50 and 100 times more CO2 emissions than a passenger on a long airplane flight. A depleted ozone layer generally means that greenhouse gases are able to heat up the Earth more easily, which in turn causes global warming.
❖ Is it worth it?
What conclusions can be drawn from all of this? Is space tourism a necessary and exciting scientific achievement, or is it the least sustainable tourism sector to have ever existed, favoring the exclusive minority of people who can afford a $200,000 space flight? Perhaps it is both. Personally, I have faith that humanity will find a balance in the two and continue to fan the flames of progress in the bustling industry that is space tourism. What do you think?
For more information on these topics, be sure to check out our other blogs at SpaceLab to learn more!
