Space tourism

By: Sanjana & Prashant

The endless possibilities of the epic universe, the broad, vast cosmos’ enormity have always had people’s fancy. Our Earth sits like a tiny blue marble within the magnanimous Milky way. Astronauts returning home from space often talk about the outstanding view of Earth from space. With the advent of space tourism, you can enjoy the rare opportunity to travel beyond Earth, extending your freedom to explore the unknown.

What is space tourism?
Space tourism is another niche segment of the aviation industry that seeks to give tourists the ability to become astronauts and experience space travel for recreational, leisure, or business purposes. Not only does space tourism extend the freedom to travel into space for those with the means, but it also promises a profitable market to develop the launch vehicles necessary to expand life throughout the solar system.
Space tourism has been positively seen as humankind’s step closer towards settling and living beyond Earth.

How much does it cost to go to space? There are plenty of companies offering (very expensive) flights into space. Ranging from $100,000 to millions of dollars, different companies have a diverse price range for their space trips. Seven tourists have traveled to the International Space Station (ISS) till now. The publicized price was in the range of US$20–25 million per trip. Unsurprisingly, commercial space travel remains the realm of the mega-rich
The only market for humans-in-space potentially capable of sustaining thousands of flights per year is tourism if the cost is in the $100,000 range or less. If the price is in the $10,000 range, millions of flights can be supported.

Who will take you to space?
The concept of space tourism is growing in popularity all the time, and there are a growing number of businesses engaging in activities within the space tourism industry. For those who are hoping to one-day visit space as a private astronaut, the following five companies may offer the best chance of achieving that dream.

Virgin Galactic Part of the wider Virgin Group, the Virgin Galactic space tourism company is aiming to provide regular suborbital spaceflights for paying customers. Its current spaceplane, VSS Unity, entered outer space in December 2018 as part of its testing process, bringing the possibility of regular commercial spaceflights closer.The company already has an extensive waiting list of people wishing to become space tourists, with an initial deposit of £200,000 required to secure a place on this list.

SpaceX
SpaceX is already hugely experienced when it comes to launching space-bound flights and the company is also hoping to get on board the space tourism bandwagon. However, unlike most other companies operating in this field, they are prioritising lunar tourism and other forms of space travel extending beyond Earth orbit.

Blue Origin
To date, Blue Origin has been the main competitor for Virgin Galactic in terms of sub-orbital space travel tourism. However, their offering is based around a more traditional rocket, known as the New Shepard, which takes off and lands vertically, and their objectives are to build towards orbital spaceflight.As with Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company has performed several test flights and is planning to put paying passengers into space soon

Orion Span
Finally, Orion Span is a space travel company in the United States, which announced plans for a private commercial space station, called the Aurora Space Station. This would be placed in low Earth orbit and would effectively function as a space hotel, which would be able to host up to six space tourists at a time.

Boeing The Boeing Company emerged as a major player in the space tourism industry when it signed an agreement with NASA as part of its Commercial Crew Development programme. As part of the agreement, Boeing started work on the development of a crew capsule, called the Boeing CST-100 Starliner. Crucially, the company’s contract with NASA provides them with the opportunity to sell seats to space tourists, with the idea being that at least one space tourist would participate in each future space mission. It is fair enough to say that space tourism will continue to flourish in popularity if companies continue to deliver sub-orbital spaceflight for paying customers. Space tourism may lead to large numbers of people traveling to space in the next few decades. However, interest in the space tourism industry is likely to take off when space tourism extends beyond Earth orbit, especially if lunar missions become financially and logistically feasible.
Yet, it is worth pointing out that space tourism is likely to remain extremely expensive for the foreseeable future. It is also physically demanding, which will mean it will only be available to people who pass fitness tests and undergo training programs in preparation for their flight.

Conclusion
The space tourism industry is similar to the past airline history. There are many potential passengers willing to pay for the journey to space and the governments should therefore consider this as an eminent opportunity to solve the current costly space access inconveniences.
If the corporation between the private sector and the government is able to drive admission charges to a lower level with the aim of encouraging rebirth of a new arena that encourages commerce and industry, then there will be a great utilization of the space opportunities for growth. The space tourism is an identified market niche that might catalyze utilization of infrastructure in space especially due to future discoveries.