Space Tourism only for the super rich ones?

 

Space Tourism is space travel for recreational purposes and belonged for a long time to the domain of science fiction. Drawings of space hotel projects, science fiction novels as the hitchhiker of … made many dream for making a space trip for pleasure. Also the idea of going to Mars didn’t stop since the Mars stories of … and even before him. Yet in the old Roman stories as Lucillus” Trip to the Moon made many dream of realizing these trip and they were all a far precursor of modern space travel. These days professional space travel exists in testing aeroplanes, launching satellites and trips to the ISS. The aim of a stay in ISS is normally executing scientific work. And therefore they looked strangely up when the first space tourist Dennis Tito announced that he wanted a touristic stay in the ISS. Of course in the beginning most astronauts were just against a visit of a non-professional or tourist. But as Tito was a miljonair at the end they accepted his trip for twenty million of dollars. Afterwards Tito is no “zonderling” at all but a pioneer of a new dimmension in tourism. Today there are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism.

Sub-orbital space tourism

Scaled Composites won the $10 million X Prize in October 2004 with SpaceShipOne, as the first private company to reach and surpass an altitude of 100 km (62 mi) twice within two weeks. The altitude is beyond the Kármán Line, the arbitrarily defined boundary of space.[22] The first flight was flown by Michael Melvill in June 2004, to a height of 100 km (62 mi), making him the first commercial astronaut.[23] The prize-winning flight was flown by Brian Binnie, which reached a height of 112.0 km (69.6 mi), breaking the X-15 record.[

Orbital space tourism today

As of 2020, Space Adventures is the only company to have coordinated tourism flights to Earth’s orbit. The Virginia-based company has worked with Russia to use its Soyuz spacecraft to fly ultra-wealthy individuals to the International Space Station. The tourists included entrepreneur and space investor Anousheh Ansari and Cirque du Soleil co-founder Guy Laliberté. Those missions were priced at around $20 million each. The space industry could soon be headed for a tourism revolution if SpaceX and Boeing make good on their plans to take tourists to orbit.[35]

1. Dennis Tito

At the end of the 1990s, MirCorp, a private venture that was by then in charge of the space station, began seeking potential space tourists to visit Mir in order to offset some of its maintenance costs. Dennis Tito, an American businessman and former JPL scientist, became their first candidate. When the decision was made to de-orbit Mir, Tito managed to switch his trip to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft through a deal between MirCorp and US-based Space Adventures, Ltd. Dennis Tito visited the ISS for seven days in April–May 2001, becoming the world’s first “fee-paying” space tourist. Tito paid a reported $20 million for his trip.[36]

2. Mark Shuttleworth

Tito was followed in April 2002 by South African Mark Shuttleworth (Soyuz TM-34).

3. Gregory Olsen

The third was Gregory Olsen in October 2005 (Soyuz TMA-7). In February 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard. After this disaster, space tourism on the Russian Soyuz program was temporarily put on hold, because Soyuz vehicles became the only available transport to the ISS. After the Shuttle return to service in July 2005, space tourism was resumed.

4. Anousheh Ansari

In September 2006, an Iranian American businesswoman named Anousheh Ansari became the fourth space tourist (Soyuz TMA-9).

5. Charles Simonyi

[37]) In April 2007, Charles Simonyi, an American businessman of Hungarian descent, joined their ranks (Soyuz TMA-10). Simonyi became the first repeat space tourist, paying again to fly on Soyuz TMA-14 in March 2009.

6. Richard Garriott

British-American Richard Garriott became the next space tourist in October 2008 aboard Soyuz TMA-13.

7. Laliberté

[38] As of 2020, Canadian Guy Laliberté is the most recent tourist to visit the ISS, flying in September 2009 aboard Soyuz TMA-16.
Originally the third member aboard Soyuz TMA-18M should have been the British singer Sarah Brightman as a space tourist, but on May 13, 2015, she announced she had withdrawn from training.[39]

Since the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011, Soyuz once again became the only means of accessing the ISS, and so tourism was
once again put on hold. On June 7, 2019, NASA announced a plan to open ISS to the space tourism again.[40]

Russia

Russia halted orbital space tourism in 2010 due to the increase in the International Space Station crew size, using the seats for expedition crews that would previously have been sold to paying spaceflight participants.[8][9] Orbital tourist flights were set to resume in 2015 but the one planned was postponed indefinitely and none have occurred since 2009.[10]

NASA

On June 7, 2019, NASA announced that starting in 2020, the organization aims to start allowing private astronauts to go on the International Space Station, with the use of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and Boeing Starliner spacecraft for public astronauts, which is planned to be priced at 35,000 USD per day for one astronaut, [11] and an estimated 50 million USD for the ride there and back.[12]

Tourism beyond Earth orbit

There are no successfull trips yet in this category. Only plans to go to the Moon and Mars.