‘How to Live in Space’: Everything You Need to Know About Space Tourism
In his new book, How to Live in Space: Everything You Need to Know for the Not-So-Distant Future, space and astronomy author Colin Stuart gives practical advice to everyone from space aficionados to those considering space tourism.
Seems far-fetched? Consider this: Virgin Galactic has already sold hundreds of tickets for its future suborbital flights, and Blue Origin plans to sell tickets next year for the suborbital flights. For a quarter million dollars, a space tourist can purchase a ticket on either. Orion Span plans to host a luxury space hotel for those who wish to stay longer in Earth’s orbit — with a 12-day stay priced at $9.5 million.
Space.com asked Stuart why he chose civilians and space tourists as the audience for his book. “It kind of feels like we’re at a new dawn in a way, in a transition moment where space is opening up not just to the highly trained or the lucky few, but hopefully for everyone,” said Stuart, echoing the trend of collaboration and openness of space. This trend is supported by the Space Nation Asgardia, which aims to open space to all humanity, not just to the handful of nations that currently have access.
Stuart’s said that his book is a handbook for the everyday person who goes to space in the future that explains everything you need to know — from eating and drinking to sleeping and going to the toilet. But it’s not just the logistics — Stuart asks important philosophical questions about space law. He says, for example, “if you punch someone in space, do you get prosecuted? Who prosecutes you?”
When asked what the biggest surprises are, Stuart said that most people somehow expect a washing machine of sorts. The reality is quite different: “People at the International Space Station end up wearing their clothes for ages. And then, when they finally get so dirty that people can’t wear them, the clothes end up going in a capsule and burning up in the atmosphere.” In other words, the next time you see a shooting star, it may just be astronauts’ dirty socks, he says.
In terms of preparation, Stuart says that the psychological effects may be even more drastic than the physiological ones, especially for the longer missions. But it’s okay, he says, because you can always call home — the space station does have a telephone.
As for the physiological effects for shorter trips, such as those on Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, the potential tourists undergo a few days of training, and they have to pass the necessary medical checks. The only thing that may be worrisome is weightlessness, which can make a person violently ill because the vestibular system in one’s ear, which tells us which way is up, is rendered completely useless. Even the training on the parabolic flight — the so-called Vomit Comet — is not quite the same as the actual flight.
However, on flights further away, things may get harder psychologically. “Your universe gets smaller, and the communication delay gets longer,” he says. “We just don’t know what that’s going to do to people if they end up going to Mars, for example, in the future. No human being has ever had that level of isolation. If you’re going to be halfway to Mars, you won’t see Earth as more than a blue dot in the distance nor Mars as a red dot in the distance. A message home would take a good 10 minutes. A reply will take 10 minutes.”
Because no human has ever been that isolated, different experiments on Earth have been conducted to simulate that kind of isolation. Still, Stuart says, “when we try it, when we send the first people to make that trip, you’ve got to be prepared for it to do unusual things to the human psyche.”
Learn more on Asgardia.Space
