The hustle and bustle of excursions are starting in the street. Virgin Galactic’s recent space cruise has been a success. So is Jeff Bezos Blue Origins. Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has been trying to launch people to Mars for years, and Musk is serious than ever before after Bezos and Branson’s space trip.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, an American astrophysicist, clearly told people after Richard Branson’s trip that they had not gone to space but the edge of space; he explained the science and logic for his claim in both the Virgin and Blue Origins space trip as both companies had hyped up of going to space.
Virgin group has planned to start their space tourism in 2022. Many billionaires are already queuing for the space experience. Elon Musk himself already has a ticket for Branson’s space flight.
So, what is all this hype about? Let’s get to know the story of space tourism in these situations.
The Virgin Galactic, a British private company headed by Richard Branson, head of the ‘Virgin Group’, created headlines with his recent space trip. The event gained immense popularity internationally as it was the first space trip. The news made frequent updates on the channels, especially in Indian, because the six-member Virgin Galactic crew consisted of an Indian-American woman, Sirisha Bandla, in the team.
Although this was the first excursion by a group of tourists on the main street of space, Virgin Galactic was not the first private company to reach space. The spacecraft ‘Space One’, made by the American company ‘Scaled Composites’, achieved this feat less than eighteen years ago. However, there were no passengers except the pilot.
Although three people, including the pilot, were able to fly in the ‘Space One’ aircraft, on December 17, 2003, pilot Brian Binnie made an experimental orbit in space. ‘Space One’ then flew twice a week in September-October 2004 at an altitude of 100 meters above Earth’s.
During these two missions, Mike Melville and Brian Binnie once flew a ‘Space One’ spacecraft into space, where they circled and successfully landed. Scaled Composites won the $ 10 million (Rs. 74.45 crore) ‘X’ Prize for this achievement. Efforts towards space tourism have intensified since the success of the ‘Space One’ experiments.
Along with Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, the ‘Amazon’ founder, also set his crease on space travel along with his brother Mark, Wally Funk, who is the oldest to be traveled into space, 82-years-old and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old Dutch student who is the youngest to be launched in space.
Elon Musk’s ‘SpaceX’ has also stepped up its efforts towards space tourism. ‘SpaceX’ has already successfully delivered astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). Apart from circling in space, the ‘SpaceX’ sector is preparing to launch a cruise on the Moon soon. The company plans to carry Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to the Moon in 2023. Along with Yusaku, eight others amateur travelers will also take part in the expedition.
The idea for space tourism began less than twenty years ago in the late last century. Exactly twenty years ago, on April 28, 2001, American businessman Dennis Tito arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) with a team of scientists aboard the Soyuz TM-32 spacecraft belonging to the Russian space agency while preparing the ground for efforts in this direction. He holds the record for being the first astronaut. Tito paid $ 20 million (approximately Rs. 150 crores) for his spaceflight.
He said the trip was very useful for his company and business when he returned to Earth. Tito was followed by South African industrialist Mark Shuttleworth in 2002 and American businessman Gregory Olsen in 2005, who also paid a trip to ISS. They were followed by Iranian-born American businesswoman Anousheh Ansari, who paid for the ISS expedition in 2006 and set the record for the first woman to travel to space. Charles Simonyi, an American businessman, later traveled to ISS once in 2007 and once in 2009.
Richard Garriott, an American video game developer, set out on a mission to the ISS in 2008 and set a record as the second American to fly into space. Richard Garriott’s father, Owen Garriott, flew twice on behalf of NASA.
Guy Laliberte, a Canadian businessman, went on an ISS expedition in 2009 after Richard Garriott. All of them made space trips aboard in the Russian government-owned Soyuz spacecraft. The company ‘Space Adventures’ has signed an agreement with Russia to take its tourists into space on these missions via ‘Soyuz.’ Following the success of the ‘Space One’ launch, private companies are busy preparing to enter the field.
‘Space Adventures’ have been conducting space missions for tourists for the past twenty years, the company has not yet been able to design its own vehicle. Companies such as Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and Blue Origin are competing to organize space travel for tourists with their own vehicles.
•’Virgin Galactic’ ticket price ₹ 1.86 crores. Six hundred people from 58 countries have already bought these tickets and are waiting for their turn to circle the space. Elon Musk, head of the rival company SpaceX, was among those who bought the tickets.
•’Blue Origin’ has sold a ticket at auction for its first space flight but has not yet announced a ticket price for regular tours. However, the price could be as high as $ 2 million ($ 1.49 crore), a Blue Origin employee told Reuters.
•Tour packages organized by ‘Virgin Galactic’ and ‘Blue Origin’ are limited to bringing tourists back to Earth in space, while ‘SpaceX’ has announced a package for tourists to spend eight days together on ISS. It can accommodate up to four tourists at a time. The ticket price for the four is set at $ 55 million. ‘SpaceX’ has designed the ‘Dragon2’ spacecraft specifically for this mission. It is scheduled to go on an ISS mission early next year.
•SpaceX has determined its ticket price heavily by providing adequate training to tourists willing to spend time on the ISS, as well as the supply of equipment such as the sleepsuits they need to spend on the ISS, as well as food, beverages, life support, and medical services.
Criticisms have also been leveled at the fact that the super-rich is wasting huge sums of money for a few hours or a few days’ pleasure in the name of space tourism in the face of widening gaps between the rich and poor around the world.
Many international leaders are of the opinion that spending money on space travel alone is not justified. However, it can be understood that government space research institutes in different countries carry out space missions for scientific research and technological advancement.
“I do not consider it necessary to comment on such fabrications,” said the Vice President of the European Commission. Despite criticism of space tourism, market sources estimate that it is a fast-growing industry with an annual turnover of $ 3 billion (Rs 22,360 crore) by 2030.
Many organizations have sprung up to promote space tourism. Organizations like ‘Space Tourism Society’, ‘Space Future’ and ‘Hobby Space’ are organizing various programs and awareness seminars for those who want to go into space as space tourists. A bi-monthly magazine called ‘Uni Galactic Space Travel Magazine’ has also been launched to provide detailed information on space tourism activities from time to time.
Aside from social criticism of space travel, there is another concern among teams of scientists. Fragments of recyclable equipment, fragmented satellites, obsolete satellites, and other debris have accumulated heavily in space due to space missions already underway for scientific research. This waste continues to grow as space exploration increases. This waste is called ‘space junk.’
Adequate knowledge and methods have not yet been developed to take action to remove or destroy them on the spot. Under such circumstances, scientists are concerned that the problem of ‘space junk’ could be further complicated if space travel were undertaken simply for the entertainment and luxury of the wealthy, without the benefit of science and technology.
More than 5 lakh fragments, about 0.4–4 inches in size, orbit in space junk about two thousand kilometers away. The fragments rotate at a speed of about 36,000 kilometers per hour. Scientists warn that if these fast-moving fragments accidentally hit newly launched satellites or rockets from the ground, there is a risk of catastrophe. The Japanese National Aeronautics and Space Administration (JAXA) has developed an ‘electronic space whip’ to test its performance to destroy space junk on the spot. Many scientists are of the opinion that it is not right for commercial companies to compete for space tourism before a proper solution to the ‘space junk’ problem has yet been found.
US National Space Research Organization (NASA) is also gearing up to provide for space missions in the wake of private companies’ aggression towards space tourism.
NASA will conduct trips through its specially designed ‘Boeing Starliner’ capsule under its ‘Commercial Crew Program’ (CCP), which will cater to private tourists. Only one private tourist is allowed on each of Boeing ‘Starliner’ space missions. The ticket price for this has not been decided yet. A spokesman for Boeing told the media that they would determine their price based on the latest price charged by the Russian space research organization Roscosmos for space travel by Soyuz.
Long before ‘SpaceX,’ the American space tourism company ‘Space Adventures’ announced a trip package to the Moon. The ticket price was set at a staggering $ 100 million (Rs. 745 crores). The Soyuz spacecraft, dubbed ‘Deep Space Expedition-Alpha’ (DSE-Alpha), will cater to two tourists simultaneously. In 2011, Eric Anderson, founder of Space Adventures, announced that one of the two tickets on sale had sold for $ 150 million.
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