Space Tourism: Lucrative Venture or Wishful Thinking?
‘Welcome to the dawn of a new space age’.
Richard Branson, a little dazed after returning from the edge of space, delivered his victory speech to the cheers of a small crowd of onlookers under the blazing sun at Spaceport America, New Mexico. The date was July 11th, 2021, and Branson (of Virgin Galactic) had just surpassed his rival, Jeff Bezos (of Blue Origin), in the so-called Billionaire Space Race. Who actually won that is still up for discussion; the whole ordeal had been — and still is — ripe with passive-aggression as both companies hoped to gain the upper hand in the emerging industry of space tourism. Virgin Galactic had rescheduled Branson’s maiden voyage for the sole purpose of beating Bezos to space; Blue Origin, which launched its founder about a week later, has often smugly pointed to its flight altitude of 100km above Earth, the internationally-recognized boundary to space (as opposed to the 80km — the American definition of the boundary — reached by Virgin Galactic).
But despite the potshots and bravado, neither company has made many inroads into space tourism. Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane VSS Unity has not flown since Branson’s trip; it turns out that the vehicle had strayed from its designated flight path and was subsequently grounded by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Before this was publicly announced, Branson had sold company shares worth $892 million, and it was this — in addition to allegations claiming that the vehicles are ‘rickety’ and unreliable — that caused Virgin Galactic to be hit by several lawsuits from its investors.
Though cleared to fly again since September 2021, stock prices have plunged to around $5 — compared to their July 2021 peak of almost $56 — and the company seems to be hemorrhaging money; the team is now focusing on getting Unity and its carrier plane Eve up to scratch, and plans to launch customers in 2023. Blue Origin, for its part, managed an additional five passenger flights since its inaugural one — with ticket costs as high as $28 million — but it too has been grounded since September 2022, when a booster failed during an uncrewed mission. The company also aims to restart customer launches in 2023.
Dangerous, perpetually delayed, and ridiculously expensive… it’s hard to imagine a riskier business to invest in. But according to a December 2022 report by Allied Market Research, the space tourism industry is expected to be worth $12.6 billion by 2031 — that’s almost as much as the amount forecast for small satellites (smallsats), which are versatile tools crucial to several fields including science and espionage. And despite the near absence of tourism flights, the potential is there.
Before the explosion of commercial spaceflight providers, space tourists would hitch a ride on government missions. The earliest touristic ventures can be traced back to the days of the Space Shuttle, where non-astronauts often referred to as payload specialists would launch alongside the professional crew. Some were brought along for PR — such as schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, who was killed during the Challenger disaster — while others’ participation was decidedly financially driven. Aerospace and defense company McDonnell Douglas, for example, paid NASA $40,000 a flight in order to get employee Charles D. Walker on to three shuttle missions. Also, senator Bill Nelson (now the NASA administrator), who coincidentally sat on the committee that decided NASA’s budget, took a spin in the shuttle in 1986.
The first official space tourist was American businessman Dennis Tito. In 2001, American space tourism company Space Adventures liaised with Russian space agency Roscosmos to allow Tito to fly to the ISS on a Russian Soyuz rocket — for $20 million. Tito received about a years’ worth of training, and despite pushback from NASA — who claimed that the rookie astronaut ‘would add a significant burden’ to the station and its professional inhabitants — he spent a week aboard the ISS, kicking off an age of commercial spaceflight (NASA has since officially opened the ISS to commercial ventures).
Space Adventures facilitated another eight tourism ventures with Roscosmos and its Soyuz rockets, pausing its services whenever the Space Shuttle went out of commission and Soyuz launches became the only way to access the ISS and could no longer accommodate tourists. But despite the promising beginnings of the industry, the majority of planned touristic projects — such as Space Island’s orbital stations or Armadillo Aerospace’s suborbital rocket — never materialized.
Scaled Composites, however, was the exception; in 2004, the company flew its spaceplane above 100km twice within two weeks, claiming a coveted $10 million reward from the X-prize foundation. A year later, Scaled Composites and Branson’s Virgin Group founded The Spaceship Company (which became Virgin Galactic in 2012 after a buyout by Virgin Group); Scaled’s original spaceplane/carrier plane design was inherited by the new company, and serves as the blueprint for Virgin Galactic’s modern launch vehicle.
It hasn’t been an easy journey for Virgin Galactic; after countless delays and setbacks — including a disastrous test flight that killed one pilot and seriously injured another in 2014 — Branson is somewhat behind in his goal to have launched 50,000 people by 2019. The company has claimed to have about 600 reservations for its flights, with tickets costing $250,000 a pop; more recently, the price was upped to $450,000, after which 100 more tickets were sold.
And that’s dirt cheap compared to the millions charged by Blue Origin or the rumored $55 million a head for a ten-day stay on the ISS facilitated by SpaceX and Axiom. As described here, the growing industry also contains companies offering lower-cost (and altitude) options such as the space balloons of Worldview and Space Perspective, but these will still set you back anywhere from $50,000 to $125,000 — plus, most of the infrastructure and paperwork for these fledgling enterprises will take years to complete.
For obvious reasons, expensive trips are harder to sell. According to Craig Curran, the owner of Deprez Travel in Rochester, New York — which has a branch dedicated to space travel — most of the Branson or Bezos ticket sales are a result of ‘peer-to-peer networking’, and would usually not be made through a travel agency. But Curran states that Zero-G flights, wherein a modified plane flies in parabolic arcs to mimic the sensation of zero gravity, are among his most popular products; these come in at around $8,200, which is significantly cheaper than anything else on the market.
Looking at the rest of the space industry, it is clear that such cheaper options might just be the key for tourism. For the moment, those might not include orbital or even suborbital trips to space, but as the spaceflight industry grows and its technology develops, that could change. SpaceX and its reusable boosters are a classic example of this process: their frequent turnover enabled by the reusability allows for cheaper flights, meaning NASA pays $55 million for a seat on the Falcon 9, compared to the roughly $80 million per Soyuz seat. SpaceX’s still-prototypical gigantic Starship rocket could cost as little as $10 million per launch (maybe even just $1 million), though the rocket’s high development costs might drive this up. Still, such progress — even on a smaller scale — could eventually make space available to a broader range of customers, and the trend is already well underway in the sector.
This pattern of cheaper, more efficient launches could mean that touristic excursions might one day consist of more than just a quick hop to space or a short stint on the ageing ISS; in fact, several companies are already banking on this possibility. Among them is Axiom; the company has been contracted by NASA to build a module for the ISS, which is to be launched in 2025. When the ISS deorbits, this module will detach and form the basis for a new, commercial station to be used by governments and tourists alike. NASA has provided preliminary funding to three other companies developing commercial space stations that would provide a domestic replacement for the ISS: Nanoracks, Northrop Grumman, and Blue Origin. All three projects place an emphasis on scientific and touristic dual use; Blue Origin’s proposed station Orbital Reef even describes itself as an orbital ‘business park’ that can be leased and used for whatever one’s heart desires.
Another option for a longer stay in space becomes feasible with larger spacecraft such as the Starship; like a cosmic cruise ship, it can accommodate up to 100 people and incorporate ‘large common areas… and a viewing gallery’. The rocket has already been selected by several touristic ventures including the dearMoon project (a week-long lunar flyby mission with a crew of nine non-astronauts, sponsored by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa) and the third of the Polaris missions (an ‘effort to rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities’ sponsored by American billionaire Jared Isaacman, who already shelled out $200 million for the Inspiration 4 mission aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft); it could even come equipped with a ‘space bar’ and host live music. Compared to touristic space stations, this option will likely be cheaper (if SpaceX’s optimistic price predictions are to be believed) and less of a logistic hassle, since no preexisting orbital infrastructure and docking maneuvers are required.
The ultimate prize in terms of luxury is reserved for Orbital Assembly, who plan to put a five-star hotel complete with artificial gravity and concert venues into orbit by 2030. The ring-shaped Voyager Station, which could accommodate 440 guests, would be pretty much indistinguishable from your average luxury hotel on Earth apart from one thing: the views. To fill the long wait before its launch, Orbital Assembly also have a smaller station — Pioneer Station — in the works, which could be operational as soon as 2025; the station would only have space for 28 people and its concept is more akin to the business park-like function envisioned by Blue Origin.
Speaking of Blue Origin: the company’s overarching goal is to preserve Earth and its resources by moving industries and a generous portion of life itself into space — or more specifically, giant space stations mimicking a terrestrial environment. Meanwhile, SpaceX plans to use Starship rockets to establish colonies on Mars and beyond in order to ensure mankind is less dependent on Earth. While such endeavors might benefit Earth in the distant future, they will take thousands of rocket launches to achieve, and those aren’t exactly great for the environment on Earth. This dilemma has not gone unnoticed by the industry.
As explained here, a prime concern regarding the environmental impact of rocket launches is the black carbon — or soot — emitted by rockets fed by fossil-fuel based propellants, such as the RP-1 (refined kerosene) used by SpaceX’s Falcon 9. During launch (and reentry), black carbon released into the upper levels of the atmosphere can remain in the stratosphere for years, where it absorbs sunlight and radiates it back out as heat. This warming of the atmosphere could also affect global jet streams and circulations, resulting in changes to ozone levels in the northern hemisphere. But it’s clear to see why rockets like the Falcon 9 use the stuff; though not the most efficient, it’s cheap, dense, safe, and easy to store.
NASA’s go-to fuel is liquid hydrogen: the diva of rocket fuels. It is everything that RP-1 is not; it is the most efficient fuel and emits only water vapor, but is costly to create and a pain to store. It requires the coldest of environments to remain in its liquid state, so extensive insulation is needed (especially as the frigid temperatures make everything around it brittle). Due to its low density, those insulating tanks need to be huge. And God forbid your rocket springs even the smallest of leaks; hydrogen will not only escape through it, but might even decide to explode. In short, it’s not the best option for launching paying customers in quick succession.
Since RP-1 is environmentally unsustainable and liquid hydrogen is, well, liquid hydrogen, several companies now turn to a somewhat unorthodox fuel: liquid methane. A kind of ‘goldilocks fuel’, it can be stored at a similar temperature to its oxidizer (liquid oxygen), and is denser and easier to handle than hydrogen. ‘Liquid methane is where everyone is going’, says Matt Oehlschlaeger, an aerospace engineering professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Starship, Blue Origin’s planned heavy lift rocket New Glenn, Relativity Space’s Terran 1, and ULA’s Vulcan rocket are all planned to run on it. As explained here, methane takes second prize when it comes to environmental friendliness; when burnt by a rocket engine, it splits into mostly CO2 with a little water vapor and nitrogen oxides on the side (the latter is also harmful to the atmosphere but is also emitted by hydrogen-guzzling rockets). CO2, though a toxic substance in its own right, could one day be captured and used to create more methane for rocket fuel, making the machines essentially carbon neutral. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has offered a $100 million prize to whoever can develop this CO2 capture.
These developments — if they become a reality — would not be possible without the demand for a future in space, of which space tourism is a big part. Increased commercial commitment to solve issues like the above leads to a rate of innovation not feasible by government programs alone, and these benefits could help the rest of the industry become more sustainable. That’s not to say that rockets will ever actually be good for the environment — but it seems like spaceflight is here to stay, and mitigating the damage it does is already becoming critical.
And while space tourism will remain an elite experience for the time being, even a small uptick in accessibility is important; the domain of space, while strategically critical, is controlled by the few entities that can reach it. Sparking new interest by means of space tourism could not only grow the entire sector, but increase the scope of who gets a say in it. So, as the billionaires trade insults and chase each other into space, they might just be doing the world — and what lies beyond it — a favor.
Originally published at https://notrocketscience.substack.com on March 12, 2023.
