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Topic Last Updated on 17-07-2024
Post on topic: Space tourist.
FLIGHT TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (ISS)
PROGRAM Fly to the ISS on the Soyuz spacecraft; spend a few days at the station; return to Earth.
PREPARATION TIME One year or more.
COST ≈ $80 mln.
These tourists flew to the ISS by paying for the services of a “tour operator” — the US company Space Adventures. For the flights, Russian Soyuz spacecraft were used, put into orbit with the Soyuz launch vehicle.
Each tourist underwent lengthy training, similar to that of a regular astronaut. There’s no way around it — the risk of unforeseen circumstances is too great, so even a space tourist must know how to survive after landing, help astronauts conduct experiments on-board the station, and load and unload cargo.
Space tourist – Dennis Tito
Entrepreneur and multimillionaire
April 28, 2001 – May 6, 2001
$20 mln
Mark Shuttleworth
Entrepreneur and founder of Ubuntu
April 25, 2002 – May, 2002
$20 mln
Space tourist – Gregory Olsen
Entrepreneur and scientist
October 1, 2005 – October 11, 2005
$20 mln
Anousheh Ansari
Entrepreneur and software architect
April 7, 2007 – April 21, 2007
March 26, 2009 – April 8, 2009
$35 mln
Charles Simonyi
Entrepreneur and software architect
April 7, 2007 – April 21, 2007
March 26, 2009 – April 8, 2009
$35 mln
Richard Garriot
Entrepreneur and video game developer
October 12, 2008 – October 24, 2008
$30 mln
Guy Laliberté
Entrepreneur and founder of Cirque du Soleil
September 30, 2009 – October 11, 2009
$35 mln
This training is carried out in Russia and takes several months, requiring much more preparation than a casual weekend trip. Even with enough money for the flight itself, you have to spend more than a year on medical tests, examinations, training, and special courses — and maybe even remain on Earth, for example, if your cardiovascular system is not up for the job. But the requirements for tourists are still less rigorous than for the astronauts. The third space tourist, Gregory Olsen, did not meet the health requirements but still managed to convince the commission to let him go into orbit in 2005.</>
Space tourists usually travel for a shorter period than regular astronauts, about seven to eight days. After all, it’s a very expensive vacation, not a job. Therefore, a tourist will fly to an orbital station with one team (there are only three spots on the Soyuz) and return with another.
It might seem that as technology develops, the cost of a trip to the ISS should go down over time. If only! Taking advantage of its monopoly on human spaceflight, Roscosmos has gradually increased the cost of flying one astronaut on the Soyuz from $20 million to more than $80 million in 2020. This is what NASA must pay for seats on the Soyuz for its astronauts who work on the ISS. The cost covers preparation, training, and the flight itself.
Therefore, the flight of a space tourist is unlikely to cost any less than that.
Flight into Earth’s Orbit
PROGRAM Fly for a few hours or a whole day on the Soyuz or Crew Dragon spacecraft in automatic mode; return to Earth.
PREPARATION TIME Several months.
COST ≈ $10–40 mln.
There’s a simpler option — rather than flying to the ISS, what about entering the Earth’s orbit to admire our planet from afar, experiencing weightlessness and returning after just a few turns? This flight can be carried out automatically, thus greatly simplifying the trip for tourists. There’s no two-day travel to the orbital station or complicated and risky docking maneuver (obviously, tourists don’t participate in the process themselves, but this doesn’t make it any safer).
Needless to say, the cost of travel would be much lower. The former head of Roscosmos, Igor Komarov, approximated the cost of such a flight on the Soyuz at $30–40 million in 2016. It’s a fortune, but much cheaper than a trip to the ISS. But the problem is the cost of launching the Soyuz launch vehicle, at least $50 million, as well as the cost of training and other activities. Moreover, the Soyuz spacecraft really only has three seats. The situation may change in the near future, following the first Crew Dragon mission’s successful return to Earth in August 2020. The spacecraft was originally planned as a seven-seater, but the version for NASA offers only four spots.
Upcoming Space Tourism Missions
If the flight is short and seven tourists are sent at once, then the price (so far undisclosed) may be about $10 million per ticket. In January 2022, SpaceX and the orbital spaceflight company Axiom plan to send four private individuals on its eight-day AX-1 mission to the ISS. Concurrently, Space Adventures has also announced plans to send four passengers into space sometime between 2021-22.
With these missions, a new flight altitude record may be set among space tourists. So far, none have risen above the orbit of the ISS. The station’s current altitude is 250–270 mi, and in 2001–2009, it was even lower, at about 210 mi (a more convenient orbit for US spacecraft). The Crew Dragon space tourists may potentially reach an altitude of 500 mi, setting a new record. However, this will only be for 1-2 short turns as the Earth’s magnetosphere that protects our planet from cosmic radiation ends above 310 mi — traveling at such an altitude for a long time can be dangerous to the passengers’ health.
