space travel examples

Leisure travel might be a little more exciting for the world’s wealthiest adventure seekers as space, long the exclusive domain of professional astronauts, is now accessible to tourists. In July 2021, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin each successfully launched suborbital tourism programs from their spaceports in New Mexico and Texas, respectively (with Blue Origin completing its second launch in October 2021). In September 2021, SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission kicked off the company’s orbital tourism program from the Kennedy Space Center’s historic Launch Complex 39A. Each of these companies hope to make space a popular destination by offering regular launch services to private citizens. Aspiring space tourists can expect to pay upwards of $250,000 for a seat on suborbital spacecrafts and an estimated $50 million for a ticket to orbit. Space enthusiasts on a budget can tour Spaceport America, where Virgin Galactic launches to space, for $50 or less.

These historic spaceflights  represent the most recent chapter in a longer history of space tourism. More than 20 years ago, Dennis Tito, the first “space tourist” (also known as “spaceflight participant”), flew to the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft for a six-day stay. Tito donated the Sokol pressure suit he wore in space to the Museum in 2003. Since his flight, only six other individuals scored self-funded travel to space (one of these intrepid travelers flew twice). Space Adventures, a US-based travel agency to the stars, facilitated these multi-million dollar, out-of-this-world experiences in partnership with the Russian space agency, Roscosmos.

Dennis Tito wore this suit when he launched to the International Space Station on April 28, 2001. (Smithsonian Institution)

Although space itself remained inaccessible to private citizens until the 21st century, other places where Earth and space meet—such as National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) centers—have long been popular destinations for a different kind of space tourist.

The Space Age dawned in the golden age of the family road trip. Thanks to the proliferation of private automobile ownership, an expanding interstate highway system, and the advent of more generous vacation policies in the workplace, Americans ventured from home in greater numbers in the 1960s than at any earlier time in the nation’s history. Millions of these travelers included on their itineraries NASA centers, particularly those with ties to the human spaceflight program: the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Brevard County, Florida; and the Manned Spacecraft Center (known since 1973 as the Johnson Space Center) in Houston, Texas.

NASA centers were not prepared for the tourists who appeared en masse outside their gates. In the early 1960s, the centers operated much like—and were often physically adjacent to—secure military installations. For reasons of national security, the centers restricted access to official visitors only. In response to curious onlookers, the centers developed ad hoc visitor programs. At the same time, proactive civic leaders and enterprising business-people responded to the presence of space center tourists by developing their own space-themed attractions, including museums, halls of fame, and amusement parks, and amenities, such as motels, hotels, and restaurants.

At the Kennedy Space Center, for example, public affairs officers facilitated increasing access to NASA’s launch complex between 1964 and 1967. Their efforts began while the spaceport was under construction with a modest roadside trailer featuring wall-mounted exhibitions. They soon expanded visitor programming to include self-guided driving tours on weekends and holidays during breaks in construction activity. In 1966, the space center partnered with Trans World Airlines (TWA) to operate an escorted bus tour program.

Trans World Airlines (TWA) operated the bus tour program at the Kennedy Space Center in the 1960s. (NASA/KSC Spaceport News)

The following year, the Visitor Information Center opened to the public. It featured indoor exhibition and presentation facilities, an outdoor “rocket garden” that became a popular backdrop for family photos, and a depot for the bus tour program. The architect included all the amenities a traveler might need, such as restrooms, food concessions, a gift shop, and a pay phone, which is now on display at our Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Shaped like a Mercury capsule, the pay phone was painted in a playful tropical teal color, which was en vogue at other Florida attractions at the time. Since 1967, the Visitor Information Center has continued to evolve and expand, reflecting developments in spaceflight and the evolving expectations of 21st century vacationers. Some 1.5 million people visit annually.

This phonebooth was installed at the Visitor Information Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center during the 1960s. (Smithsonian Institution)

Whether venturing to space, visiting a spaceport, or engaging in space-related recreation, individuals and families are likely to continue the tradition of incorporating space activities as part of their leisure time. As we enter the next chapter in the history of space tourism, questions about the significance of these experiences endure: What do “space tourists” hope to gain from their encounter with space or space sites? What does their choice of vacation destination say about their individual identities and the cultural significance of space? Who has access to these experiences and who is left out? And how will space tourism reshape communities on Earth as the industry evolves?

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Everything you need to know about space travel (almost)

We're a long way from home...

Paul Parsons

When did we first start exploring space?

The first human-made object to go into space was a German V2 missile , launched on a test flight in 1942. Although uncrewed, it reached an altitude of 189km (117 miles).

Former Nazi rocket scientists were later recruited by both America and Russia (often at gunpoint in the latter case), where they were instrumental in developing Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) – rockets capable of carrying nuclear weapons from one side of the planet to the other.

It was these super-missiles that formed the basis for the space programmes of both post-war superpowers. As it happened, Russia was the first to reach Earth orbit, when it launched the uncrewed Sputnik 1 in October 1957, followed a month later by Sputnik 2, carrying the dog Laika – the first live animal in space.

The USA sent its first uncrewed satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit soon after, in January 1958. A slew of robotic spaceflights followed, from both sides of the Atlantic, before Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin piloted Vostok 1 into orbit on 12 April 1961, to become the first human being in space . And from there the space race proper began, culminating in Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin becoming the first people to walk on the Moon as part of NASA's Apollo programme .

Why is space travel important?

Space exploration is the future. It satisfies the human urge to explore and to travel, and in the years and decades to come it could even provide our species with new places to call home – especially relevant now, as Earth becomes increasingly crowded .

Extending our reach into space is also necessary for the advancement of science. Space telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope and probes to the distant worlds of the Solar System are continually updating, and occasionally revolutionising, our understanding of astronomy and physics.

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But there are also some very practical reasons, such as mining asteroids for materials that are extremely rare here on Earth.

One example is the huge reserve of the chemical isotope helium-3 thought to be locked away in the soil on the surface of the Moon . This isotope is a potential fuel for future nuclear fusion reactors – power stations that tap into the same source of energy as the Sun. Unlike other fusion fuels, helium-3 gives off no hard-to-contain and deadly neutron radiation.

However, for this to happen the first challenge to overcome is how to build a base on the Moon. In 2019, China's Chang’e 4 mission marked the beginning of a new space race to conquer the Moon, signalling their intent to build a permanent lunar base , while the NASA Artemis mission plans to build a space station, called Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway , providing a platform to ferry astronauts to the Moon's surface.

Could humans travel into interstellar space and how would we get there?

It’s entirely feasible that human explorers will visit the furthest reaches of our Solar System. The stars, however, are another matter. Interstellar space is so vast that it takes light – the fastest thing we know of in the Universe – years, centuries and millennia to traverse it. Faster-than-light travel may be possible one day, but is unlikely to become a reality in our lifetimes.

It’s not impossible that humans might one day cross this cosmic gulf, though it won’t be easy. The combustion-powered rocket engines of today certainly aren’t up to the job – they just don’t use fuel efficiently enough. Instead, interstellar spacecraft may create a rocket-like propulsion jet using electric and magnetic fields. This so-called ‘ ion drive ’ technology has already been tested aboard uncrewed Solar System probes.

Another possibility is to push spacecraft off towards the stars using the light from a high-powered laser . A consortium of scientists calling themselves Breakthrough Starshot is already planning to send a flotilla of tiny robotic probes to our nearest star, Proxima Centauri, using just this method.

Though whether human astronauts could survive such punishing acceleration, or the decades-long journey through deep space, remains to be seen.

How do we benefit from space exploration?

Pushing forward the frontiers of science is the stated goal of many space missions . But even the development of space travel technology itself can lead to unintended yet beneficial ‘spin-off’ technologies with some very down-to-earth applications.

Notable spin-offs from the US space programme, NASA, include memory foam mattresses, artificial hearts, and the lubricant spray WD-40. Doubtless, there are many more to come.

Read more about space exploration:

• The next giant leaps: The UK missions getting us to the Moon
• Move over, Mars: why we should look further afield for future human colonies
• Everything you need to know about the Voyager mission
• 6 out-of-this-world experiments recreating space on Earth

Space exploration also instils a sense of wonder, it reminds us that there are issues beyond our humdrum planet and its petty squabbles, and without doubt it helps to inspire each new generation of young scientists. It’s also an insurance policy. We’re now all too aware that global calamities can and do happen – for instance, climate change and the giant asteroid that smashed into the Earth 65 million years ago, leading to the total extinction of the dinosaurs .

The lesson for the human species is that we keep all our eggs in one basket at our peril. On the other hand, a healthy space programme, and the means to travel to other worlds, gives us an out.

Is space travel dangerous?

In short, yes – very. Reaching orbit means accelerating up to around 28,000kph (17,000mph, or 22 times the speed of sound ). If anything goes wrong at that speed, it’s seldom good news.

Then there’s the growing cloud of space junk to contend with in Earth's orbit – defunct satellites, discarded rocket stages and other detritus – all moving just as fast. A five-gram bolt hitting at orbital speed packs as much energy as a 200kg weight dropped from the top of an 18-storey building.

And getting to space is just the start of the danger. The principal hazard once there is cancer-producing radiation – the typical dose from one day in space is equivalent to what you’d receive over an entire year back on Earth, thanks to the planet’s atmosphere and protective magnetic field.

Add to that the icy cold airless vacuum , the need to bring all your own food and water, plus the effects of long-duration weightlessness on bone density, the brain and muscular condition – including that of the heart – and it soon becomes clear that venturing into space really isn’t for the faint-hearted.

When will space travel be available to everyone?

It’s already happening – that is, assuming your pockets are deep enough. The first self-funded ‘space tourist’ was US businessman Dennis Tito, who in 2001 spent a week aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for the cool sum of $20m (£15m).

Virgin Galactic has long been promising to take customers on short sub-orbital hops into space – where passengers get to experience rocket propulsion and several minutes of weightlessness, before gliding back to a runway landing on Earth, all for $250k (£190k). In late July 2020, the company unveiled the finished cabin in its SpaceShipTwo vehicle, suggesting that commercial spaceflights may begin shortly.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s SpaceX , which in May 2020 became the first private company to launch a human crew to Earth orbit aboard the Crew Dragon , plans to offer stays on the ISS for $35k (£27k) per night. SpaceX is now prototyping its huge Starship vehicle , which is designed to take 100 passengers from Earth to as far afield as Mars for around $20k (£15k) per head. Musk stated in January that he hoped to be operating 1,000 Starships by 2050.

10 Short Lessons in Space Travel by Paul Parsons is out now (£9.99, Michael O'Mara)

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An updated list of space missions: Current and upcoming voyages

Here is a list to help you keep track of many current and scheduled space missions. We’ve gathered a selected group of high-profiles ones, listed them below, and linked to official sites where you can get the latest updates and launch dates.

We’ll update this article periodically when new missions are announced.

Here is the list of missions in alphabetical order:

2001 Mars Odyssey

Mission: This Mars orbiter was launched with the intention of detecting water and ice on the planet, as well as studying its composition.

Agency: NASA

Launch date: April 7, 2001

Updates available here.

Mission: The mission, which name means “Sun” in Sanskrit, was launched to conduct a comprehensive study of the Sun, sitting at the Lagrange point L1 between the Sun and Earth.

Agency: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

Launch date: Sept. 2, 2023

Updates available here.  

Mission: The orbiter mission was designed to study weather patterns and atmospheric conditions, as well as search for the possibility of lighting and active volcanoes.  

Agency: JAXA

Launch date: May 21, 2010

Mission: This mission will be placed at Lagrange point L2 to study thousands of exoplanets, ranging from rocky planets to gas giants in visible and infrared wavelengths.

Agency: ESA/Ariel Mission Consortium

Expected launch: 2029

Mission: The mission, featuring a crew of four astronauts, will perform a series of flights maneuvers as well as tests in space to ensure the systems are appropriate to take the Artemis III crew to the Moon.

Expected launch: September 2025

Artemis III

Mission: The mission is expected to take four astronauts to the lunar South Pole for the first time to explore, collect geologic samples, and take images of the region’s unique features.

Expected launch: September 2026

BepiColombo

Mission: BepiColombo, comprised of two orbiters, was designed to study composition, geophysics, atmosphere, magnetosphere and history of Mercury.

Agency: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)/ESA

Launch date: Oct. 18, 2018

Chandrayaan-3

Mission: With its lander, Vikram, and rover, Pragyan, this mission landed safely on the Moon’s south pole.

Agency: ISRO

Launch date: July 14, 2023

Comet Interceptor

Mission: Made up of three spacecrafts, the mission will wait at the Lagrange point L2 before separating to gather 3D images of Comet Interceptor as well as its nucleus and composition.

Agency: ESA

Mission: Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble Gases, Chemistry, And Imaging (DAVINCI) probe would explore the atmosphere of Venus.

Expected Launch: June 2029

Mission: This dual-quadcopter would explore a variety of locations on Saturn’s moon, Titan, for possible habitability.

Expected launch: 2027

Updates available here .

Emirates Mars Mission

Mission: The Emirates Mars Mission, named “Hope Probe” will gather a picture of the Martian atmosphere and its layers. It will also look at the planet’s loss of hydrogen and oxygen gases into space over the span of one Martian year.

Agency: UAE Space Agency

Launch Date: July 20, 2020

Mission: The mission is to investigate Venus from its inner core to its upper atmosphere, characterizing the interaction between its atmosphere, surface, and interior.

Expected launch: early 2030s

Mission: The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) are a dual-spacecraft mission to study the transfer of solar wind energy and momentum.

Expected launch: 2024

Europa Clipper

Mission: Europa is expected to explore the moon of Jupiter with the same name during a series of flybys. Its objectives include studying the moon’s ice shell and ocean, as well as its composition and geology.

Expected Launch: Oct. 10, 2024

Mission: The spacecraft will perform a survey of the target asteroid, Dimorphos and the orbiting moonlet Didymos, after the NASA Dart Mission conducted its asteroid deflection on Sept. 26, 2022. 

Expected launch: October 2024

Mission: Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus’ landing on Feb. 22, 2024 , made it the first American-made craft to land on the Moon since 1972 and the first non-governmental craft to ever do so. Odysseus carried six payloads under contract for NASA. Several were intended to collect data and test navigation and landing technology that will be used for the agency’s Artemis program, which will return astronauts to the Moon.

Mission: Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE, was dispatched to study the composition of Jupiter along with its three large, water-logged moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

Agency: European Space Agency (ESA)

Launch date: April 14, 2023

Mission: Understand origin and evolution of Jupiter and its four largest moons, look for solid planetary core, map magnetic field, measure water and ammonia in deep atmosphere, observe auroras.

Launch date: Aug. 5, 2011

Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO)

Mission: Known as Danuri, this is a lunar probe expected to carry out the mission of lunar observation while flying at an altitude of 100km over the Moon.

Agency: Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI)

Launch date: Aug. 5, 2022

Mission: Lucy was launched to view trojan asteroids surrounding Jupiter.

Launch date: Oct. 16, 2021

Updates available here. 

Related: Surprise! NASA’s Lucy mission uncovered an asteroid moon that is actually two in one

L unar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Mission: The mission began as a way to target areas for future robotic and human exploration on the Moon. After two years, it focused more on studying temperature maps and other scientific data on Earth’s satellite.

Launch date: June 18, 2009

Mars Express

Mission: The orbiter’s goal was to complete a map of the Mars’ atmospheric composition and water on its surface, as well as learning more about one of its moons, Phobos.

Launch date: June 2, 2003

Mars Sample Return

Mission: The mission involves Mars Perseverance Rover working with a lander and orbiter to retrieve samples from Mars and deliver them to Earth.

Agency: NASA/ESA

Expected launch: TBD. NASA announced a call for or agencies to take over the mission to Mars on April 14.

Mission: Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution or MAVEN, studies the upper atmosphere of Mars as well as its interaction with the Sun and solar winds.

Launch date: Nov. 18, 2013

Mission: Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) will explore the two moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos, to collect data on the satellites as well as samples of Phobos’ surface before returning to Earth.

Expected Launch: September 2024

Parker Solar Probe

Mission: The probe’s main objective was to be the first spacecraft to fly through the Sun’s upper atmosphere to study the evolution and origins of solar wind, to determine if we can forecast the space weather in the future.

Launch date: Aug. 12, 2018

Mission: Two satellites –the Coronagraph spacecraft and the Occulter spacecraft – will fly in tandem to learn about autonomous formation flying. They will also study the Sun’s corona and surrounding atmosphere.

Mission: The mission is expected to land on the asteroid with the same name between Mars and Jupiter. It will study the asteroid’s metal core and determine its age.

Launch: Oct. 13, 2023

Mission: The Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission was designed to study the Sun inside and out as well as observe space weather.

Agency: ESA/NASA

Launch date: Dec. 2, 1995

Mission: The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx)

Expected launch: No earlier than June 2024

Mission: The twin Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory, or STEREO spacecrafts (STEREO-A and -B) launched as the first stereoscopic, or multiple-perspective, view of the Sun.

Launch date: Oct. 25, 2006

Mission: Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy or VERITAS (also Latin for “truth”) is expected to study the interior evolution and surface of Venus.

Agency: NASA/German Aerospace Center (DLR)/Italian Space Agency (ASI)/France’s Centre National

Expected Launch: No earlier than 2031

Mission: Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) will explore Earth’s Moon, characterizing its distribution and composition

Expected launch: Late 2024

Mission: A probe launched 46 years ago with the intention of studying the outer Solar System and interstellar space.

Launch date: Sept. 5, 1977

Mission: Although named Voyager 2 , the probe was launched before Voyager 1, with a longer expected trip to Saturn and Jupiter, but it ultimately had a better vantage point of Uranus and Neptune.

Launch date: Aug. 20, 1977

Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 carry The Golden Record of images and sounds.

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Space tourism took a giant leap in 2021: Here's 10 milestones from the year

From suborbital space to high Earth orbit, space tourism is just getting started.

This year saw more space tourists fly to space on a bunch of different systems, and the story has only just begun. 

Virgin Galactic , Blue Origin and SpaceX each flew their first tourist-focused missions this year, sending aloft several people each with minimal training in professional spaceflight. Meanwhile, Roscosmos (the Russian federal space agency) brought two sets of space tourists into space, including a mission with Space Adventures.

With 2022 also set to be busy, between more tourist flights and the expected addition of company Axiom Space (using a SpaceX Crew Dragon), we rounded up some of the main milestones of 2021 below.

Video: Life on the International Space Station in 2021

1) Axiom Space announces first crew for 2022

Axiom Space  revealed its clients Jan. 26 for its first privately-funded and operated mission to the  International Space Station  (ISS). Called Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1), the flight is arranged under a commercial agreement with NASA.

Slated to launch on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft   are Larry Connor, an American real estate and technology entrepreneur; Eytan Stibbe, a businessman and former Israeli fighter pilot; Mark Pathy, a Canadian investor and philanthropist; and  Michael Lopez-Alegria, a retired NASA astronaut  with nearly 260 days in space already across four missions.

In June, SpaceX and Axiom announced an agreement to fly three more missions to the orbiting complex after Ax-1. NASA officially cleared the Ax-1 crew for flight on Dec. 20.

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2) Starship launches test flight and sticks the landing

After several attempts on previous test landing that didn't make it safely to landing, SpaceX's  Starship  SN-15 prototype launched its own test flight May 5 and made it all the way from takeoff to touchdown. 

The uncrewed test flight coincidentally fell on the 60th anniversary of the United States' first-ever crewed spaceflight, which saw NASA astronaut  Alan Shepard make it to suborbital space. SpaceX has said it hopes to use Starship to branch out in the solar system, especially for crewed Mars missions.

3) Virgin Galactic launches Richard Branson

On July 11, Virgin Galactic launched its first operational tourist flight , featuring founder Richard Branson . It was "the experience of a lifetime," Branson said during a live broadcast of the flight. 

The four-person crew and two pilots of the Unity 22 test flight mission took off from the company's  Spaceport America  facility in New Mexico and flew just above the boundary of space, where everyone experienced about four minutes of weightlessness. 

Future flights of Virgin Galactic, though, have been delayed due to a Federal Aviation Administration investigation into a reported incident that happened during the spaceflight. That said, Virgin has opened up tickets again to paying spaceflyers, now at $450,000 apiece .

4) Blue Origin launches Jeff Bezos to space

Days after the Virgin flight, Blue Origin launched its first crewed spaceflight on July 20, featuring founder Jeff Bezos and a set of other three space tourists, including Mercury 13 aviator Wally Funk . 

Since the system flies autonomously, no pilots were required to be on board (although Funk is highly qualified as an aviator) as the New Shepard system lifted off from Blue Origin's Launch Site One near the West Texas town of Van Horn.

While Bezos and Branson denied their companies were in competition , the broadcast of Bezos' flight made several cutting remarks about the company flying above the Kármán line , an internationally recognized boundary of spaceflight that Virgin Galactic flights don't reach. 

Bezos also said in an interview in July that Blue Origin is not focused on competition, but building a "road to space." The company has adopted that catchphrase as a tagline and repeats it frequently during live broadcasts.

5) SpaceX stacks tallest booster ever with Starship

SpaceX's newest  Starship  prototype (SN-20) perched on its massive Super Heavy booster for the first time on Friday (Aug. 6), briefly setting a new record for the world's tallest rocket during preparations for an orbital mission.

The hour-long fit check brought the stack to 395 feet tall (120 m), taller than NASA's massive Saturn V moon rocket, which was 363 feet tall (110 m). Super Heavy alone stands 230 feet (70 meters) tall and Starship SN4 includes another 165 feet (50 m) of height. 

The next major milestone for Starship is the orbital launch that may take place in 2022, pending an environmental review by the Federal Aviation Administration and related government groups. SpaceX founder Elon Musk has pushed back launch estimates several times due to the review.

6) Inspiration4 launches 4 civilians on first orbital mission

Billionaire Jared Isaacman's privately chartered spaceflight  launched on Sept. 15, 2021 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, flying high in Earth orbit on a nearly three-day mission. Inspiration4 was the first crewed orbital mission with no professional astronauts on board (as the Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin flights preceding it were all suborbital missions.)

Isaacman, a pilot, commanded the flight and was accompanied by physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux, data engineer Chris Sembroski, and geoscientist and science communication specialist Sian Proctor. Sembroski and Proctor won their seats in contests to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, while Arceneaux is employed at that hospital.

Resilience and its crew circled Earth for three days,  splashing down off the Florida coast on Sept. 18 . The mission exceeded its fundraising goal for St. Jude.

7) Blue Origin launches William Shatner

A "Star Trek" star boldly went into suborbital space Oct. 13 on Blue Origin's second crewed space mission, called NS-18. William Shatner, 90, is best known for playing Captain James T. Kirk on "Star Trek: The Original Series."

"That was unlike anything they described," Shatner was heard saying via a radio link as the capsule parachuted back to Earth, after carrying him and three other crew members to suborbital space.

Shatner is now the oldest person to have ever flown to space, beating the record set by Wally Funk , 82, who flew on Blue Origin's first crewed flight July 20. Crew member Glen de Vries died in a plane crash weeks after the flight and Blue Origin dedicated their next crewed mission in December to him.

8) Russian film crew shoots drama on ISS

Just days after Shatner's ride to space, a Russian film crew including actress Yulia Peresild and producer Klim Shipenko landed with cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy of the Russian federal space corporation Roscosmos on Oct. 17 .

"Вызов" ("Challenge" in English) is the movie in production. It follows the fictional story of a surgeon (Peresild) who is launched to the station to perform emergency surgery on a cosmonaut (Novitskiy, who would play the role well given he is a cosmonaut in real life.)

The effort is a joint production of  Roscosmos , the Russian television station Channel One and the studio Yellow, Black and White. Given the small crew on hand in space, Shipenko took on several behind-the-scenes roles, including director, make-up artist, sound editor and cinematographer. 

9) Blue Origin launches 'Good Morning America' host to space

Blue Origin's next (and likely last) crewed flight of 2021 filled out all six seats in the New Shepard spacecraft during a successful launch and landing Dec. 11 . The starring guest was Michael Strahan, host of "Good Morning America", who is a retired football player. (The crew threw mini-footballs in space to celebrate his past career.)

Strahan said the experience was amazing. "I want to go back," he told Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos after returning to Earth. "Touchdown has a new meaning now!!!"  he wrote on Twitter  after the flight.

Also on the flight was Laura Shepard Churchley, 74, the daughter of NASA astronaut Shepard after whom the New Shepard system is named, and four other individuals who paid for their seats. Blue Origin has not yet released per-seat pricing for customers, and we are also awaiting details on their next planned crew launch.

10) Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa flies to ISS

A Russian  Soyuz spacecraft  carrying Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, video producer Yozo Hirano and cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin launched on Dec. 8 to the International Space Station for a 12-day mission to the orbiting lab.

Maezawa is also planning to fly around the moon on a SpaceX mission that he paid for, tentatively slotted for 2023 , but chose to visit the space station as well on a mission brokered by the U.S. space tourism company Space Adventures with Russia's Roscosmos space agency. It was not revealed how much Maezawa paid for the flight, but single seats in the past have cost up to $35 million. And Maezawa bought two seats, one for himself and for Hirano, who recorded videos of Maezawa in space .

Maezawa, the CEO of Start Today and the founder of online clothing retailer ZOZO, bought the seats for himself and Hirano. Hirano documented the mission and participate in some  health and performance research . They also made the first Uber Eats delivery in space on the flight. The trio returned to Earth on Dec. 19 .

And that's a wrap at the biggest space tourism moments in 2021. The year 2022 is expected to bring more milestones as the company Axiom Space plans to launch its first fully private crew to the International Space Station early in the year, with SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic all expected to continue their private spaceflight pace. 

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter  @howellspace . Follow us on Twitter  @Spacedotcom  or on  Facebook . 

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Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, " Why Am I Taller ?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace

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Space Tourism Is Here: Booking a Trip to the Final Frontier

The next era of space exploration and innovation is here — and we're all invited. A billionaire space race is underway as Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and others are testing the technology to take us to places previously visited only by highly trained astronauts. Space tourism is officially taking flight, and it might just save the Earth.

In July 2021, we watched as Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos took to the skies in a giant leap for the space tourism industry, but their launches to the edge of space weren't timed particularly well. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic and climate emergency, two billionaires taking joy rides to space may not have been good optics, but don't underestimate what just happened — and how important it could be for the future of humanity.

With the first crewed launches of Virgin Galactic's supersonic space plane and Blue Origin's reusable rocket, a world of commercial space travel is taking its first step. Both companies plan to begin regular, scheduled trips for paying space tourists in the near future, but their visions stretch back many years to the beginning of human spaceflight.

The Space Race: Then and Now

Bezos's Blue Origin chose an auspicious day to send its first crew to space. July 20, 2021 was exactly 52 years after Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. But that wasn't the only major space travel anniversary celebrated in 2021.

April 12 was the 60th anniversary of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to not only reach space, but also go into orbit around Earth. Meanwhile, May 5 saw the 60th anniversary of NASA's Freedom 7 mission, which launched Alan Shepard on a suborbital flight that lasted 15 minutes. He reached an altitude of 101 miles to become the first American in space before his capsule parachuted to splashdown in the ocean.

The name of Blue Origin's New Shepard launch system is no coincidence. Its mission profile is almost identical to America's inaugural 1961 spaceflight, save for billionaire-grade comfy seats and large windows. From Launch Site One near Van Horn in the West Texas desert, that rocket fires a capsule containing up to six people (but no pilot) into space, which then parachutes down 15 minutes later.

The Virgin Galactic experience is different. Its supersonic rocket-powered spaceplane SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity seats six passengers and two highly trained pilots. It takes off on a runway from Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, while strapped to a mothership. At 52,000 feet, it detaches and burns its rocket engine for one minute to reach Mach 3 speeds and touch the edge of space. After a few minutes of weightlessness (and a chance for passengers to see the curvature of Earth against the blackness of space), it glides back to land on a runway.

The Price for a Ticket to Space

These short trips are anticipated to cost between $250,000 and $500,000, but in January 2022, expect to see a truly out-of-this-world private trip to space with an even more astronomical price tag. It will come from the other, arguably much more important billionaire in the space tourism bubble: Elon Musk. Axiom Mission 1 will see his company, SpaceX, launch four private astronauts on behalf of Houston-based space tourism company Axiom Space. An American real estate investor, a Canadian investor, a former Israeli Air Force pilot, and an ex-Space Shuttle pilot will launch on an incredible orbital mission in its Crew Dragon spacecraft.

At $55 million per ticket, this is ultra-aspirational space tourism of the highest order. "The experience is drastically different because they will be launching on a SpaceX rocket and going to the International Space Station (ISS) for 10 days," says Christina Korp, cofounder of Space for a Better World . "They will be doing what real astronauts do, and I don't think it's an accident that Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin did their flights before Axiom's mission." Axiom Space intends to launch a private space station — the first "space hotel" — as early as 2024 to give space tourists somewhere to visit.

The Future of Space Tourism — and of Our Planet

Musk talks of Mars colonies and humanity spreading out into the cosmos, but since 2012, SpaceX has made a lot of money from NASA contracts to launch supplies to the ISS. In the summer of 2020, it began ferrying NASA astronauts there, too. SpaceX's Starship — currently being tested — will land two NASA astronauts, the first woman and the next man, on the moon in 2024.

You see, space tourism is just a sideshow to a bigger and more worthy goal of saving the planet. Next year, Blue Origin plans to test its reusable New Glenn rocket — named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 — which will be able to take cargo and astronauts into orbit. Bezos has said he thinks we need to go to space to save Earth, specifically by protecting the planet from pollution by moving heavy industry into space. That can only happen when space travel is safe, scheduled, and affordable. Space tourism will help create a competitive space economy, just as mass tourism has lowered the cost of flying.

Similarly, Branson's aim is to increase access to space. "We are at the vanguard of a new space age…Our mission is to make space more accessible to all," he said after his inaugural flight. A microgravity experiment was on board that first flight on July 11, with similar plans for all subsequent trips. Meanwhile, sister company Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne sends small satellites and science payloads into orbit via a small rocket launch from underneath the wing of a Boeing 747.

The scientific spin-offs for all of us down on Earth are currently unknown, but the space community has an incredible track record when it comes to innovation. "Clean energy as solar power is from the space program," says Korp. "Solar panels were invented to power satellites and refined to power spacecraft." Cue GPS, weather forecasting, telecommunications, and even internet access. There are also fleets of satellites large and small that observe how our planet is behaving and changing. "It's the space industry that's monitoring climate change, tracking hurricanes, and learning how to survive in the extreme environment of space — including experiments to grow food with almost no water, for example," says Korp. Every single space mission, including suborbital and even zero-gravity flights, have environmental experiments on board as default.

"This is not about escaping Earth," said Bezos after the flight. "The whole point is, this is the only good planet in the solar system and we have to take care of it." Bezos wants to scale up into affordable space travel. That will enable long-term, commercial projects that ultimately may help prevent further climate change, or at least help us cope with its consequences.

However, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX won't be the only way to reach space. Russian space agency Roscosmos is expected to take "citizen space explorers" to the ISS soon, but the most affordable way to get "black sky time" may be with Space Perspective , which will launch a pressurized capsule propelled by a high-performance space balloon.

The six-hour flight will cost around $125,000 per person and launch from Space Coast Spaceport in Florida in 2024. "Unlike short-lived, adrenaline-fueled moments of weightlessness, Space Perspective flights bring you space calm," says Jane Poynter, founder, co-CEO, and CXO of Space Perspective. The flights on Spaceship Neptune involve a gentle ascent at just 12 miles per hour for a six-hour tour of Earth's biosphere, culminating in a view of our beautiful planet from space.

Space tourism is here at last. Instagram had better get ready for "Earth selfies."

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The future of spaceflight—from orbital vacations to humans on Mars

NASA aims to travel to the moon again—and beyond. Here’s a look at the 21st-century race to send humans into space.

Welcome to the 21st-century space race, one that could potentially lead to 10-minute space vacations, orbiting space hotels , and humans on Mars. Now, instead of warring superpowers battling for dominance in orbit, private companies are competing to make space travel easier and more affordable. This year, SpaceX achieved a major milestone— launching humans to the International Space Station (ISS) from the United States —but additional goalposts are on the star-studded horizon.

Private spaceflight

Private spaceflight is not a new concept . In the United States, commercial companies played a role in the aerospace industry right from the start: Since the 1960s, NASA has relied on private contractors to build spacecraft for every major human spaceflight program, starting with Project Mercury and continuing until the present.

Today, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is expanding on the agency’s relationship with private companies. Through it, NASA is relying on SpaceX and Boeing to build spacecraft capable of carrying humans into orbit. Once those vehicles are built, both companies retain ownership and control of the craft, and NASA can send astronauts into space for a fraction of the cost of a seat on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.

SpaceX, which established a new paradigm by developing reusable rockets , has been running regular cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station since 2012. And in May 2020, the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft carried NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the ISS , becoming the first crewed mission to launch from the United States in nearly a decade. The mission, called Demo-2, is scheduled to return to Earth in August. Boeing is currently developing its Starliner spacecraft and hopes to begin carrying astronauts to the ISS in 2021.

Other companies, such as Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic , are specializing in sub-orbital space tourism. Test launch video from inside the cabin of Blue Origin’s New Shepard shows off breathtaking views of our planet and a relatively calm journey for its first passenger, a test dummy cleverly dubbed “Mannequin Skywalker.” Virgin Galactic is running test flights on its sub-orbital spaceplane , which will offer paying customers roughly six minutes of weightlessness during its journey through Earth’s atmosphere.

With these and other spacecraft in the pipeline, countless dreams of zero-gravity somersaults could soon become a reality—at least for passengers able to pay the hefty sums for the experience.

Early U.S. Spaceflight

Looking to the moon

Moon missions are essential to the exploration of more distant worlds. After a long hiatus from the lunar neighborhood, NASA is again setting its sights on Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor with an ambitious plan to place a space station in lunar orbit sometime in the next decade. Sooner, though, the agency’s Artemis program , a sister to the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, is aiming to put the first woman (and the next man) on the lunar surface by 2024.

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Extended lunar stays build the experience and expertise needed for the long-term space missions required to visit other planets. As well, the moon may also be used as a forward base of operations from which humans learn how to replenish essential supplies, such as rocket fuel and oxygen, by creating them from local material.

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Such skills are crucial for the future expansion of human presence into deeper space, which demands more independence from Earth-based resources. And although humans have visited the moon before, the cratered sphere still harbors its own scientific mysteries to be explored—including the presence and extent of water ice near the moon's south pole, which is one of the top target destinations for space exploration .

NASA is also enlisting the private sector to help it reach the moon. It has awarded three contracts to private companies working on developing human-rated lunar landers—including both Blue Origin and SpaceX. But the backbone of the Artemis program relies on a brand new, state-of-the-art spacecraft called Orion .

Archival Photos of Spaceflight

Currently being built and tested, Orion—like Crew Dragon and Starliner—is a space capsule similar to the spacecraft of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, as well as Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft. But the Orion capsule is larger and can accommodate a four-person crew. And even though it has a somewhat retro design, the capsule concept is considered to be safer and more reliable than NASA’s space shuttle—a revolutionary vehicle for its time, but one that couldn’t fly beyond Earth’s orbit and suffered catastrophic failures.

Capsules, on the other hand, offer launch-abort capabilities that can protect astronauts in case of a rocket malfunction. And, their weight and design mean they can also travel beyond Earth’s immediate neighborhood, potentially ferrying humans to the moon, Mars, and beyond.

A new era in spaceflight

By moving into orbit with its Commercial Crew Program and partnering with private companies to reach the lunar surface, NASA hopes to change the economics of spaceflight by increasing competition and driving down costs. If space travel truly does become cheaper and more accessible, it’s possible that private citizens will routinely visit space and gaze upon our blue, watery home world—either from space capsules, space stations, or even space hotels like the inflatable habitats Bigelow Aerospace intends to build .

The United States isn’t the only country with its eyes on the sky. Russia regularly launches humans to the International Space Station aboard its Soyuz spacecraft. China is planning a large, multi-module space station capable of housing three taikonauts, and has already launched two orbiting test vehicles—Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2, both of which safely burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere after several years in space.

Now, more than a dozen countries have the ability to launch rockets into Earth orbit. A half-dozen space agencies have designed spacecraft that shed the shackles of Earth’s gravity and traveled to the moon or Mars. And if all goes well, the United Arab Emirates will join that list in the summer of 2020 when its Hope spacecraft heads to the red planet . While there are no plans yet to send humans to Mars, these missions—and the discoveries that will come out of them—may help pave the way.

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The Future of Space Tourism Is Now. Well, Not Quite.

From zero-pressure balloon trips to astronaut boot camps, reservations for getting off the planet — or pretending to — are skyrocketing. The prices, however, are still out of this world.

By Debra Kamin

Ilida Alvarez has dreamed of traveling to space since she was a child. But Ms. Alvarez, a legal-mediation firm owner, is afraid of flying, and she isn’t a billionaire — two facts that she was sure, until just a few weeks ago, would keep her fantasy as out of reach as the stars. She was wrong.

Ms. Alvarez, 46, and her husband, Rafael Landestoy, recently booked a flight on a 10-person pressurized capsule that — attached to a massive helium-filled balloon — will gently float to 100,000 feet while passengers sip champagne and recline in ergonomic chairs. The reservation required a $500 deposit; the flight itself will cost $50,000 and last six to 12 hours.

“I feel like it was tailor-made for the chickens like me who don’t want to get on a rocket,” said Ms. Alvarez, whose flight, organized by a company called World View , is scheduled to depart from the Grand Canyon in 2024.

Less than a year after Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson kicked off a commercial space race by blasting into the upper atmosphere within weeks of each other last summer, the global space tourism market is skyrocketing, with dozens of companies now offering reservations for everything from zero-pressure balloon trips to astronaut boot camps and simulated zero-gravity flights. But don’t don your spacesuit just yet. While the financial services company UBS estimates the space travel market will be worth $3 billion by 2030, the Federal Aviation Administration has yet to approve most out-of-this-world trips, and construction has not started on the first space hotel. And while access and options — not to mention launchpads — are burgeoning, space tourism remains astronomically expensive for most.

First, what counts as space travel?

Sixty miles (about 100 kilometers) above our heads lies the Kármán line, the widely accepted aeronautical boundary of the earth’s atmosphere. It’s the boundary used by the Féderátion Aéronautique Internationale, which certifies and controls global astronautical records. But many organizations in the United States, including the F.A.A. and NASA, define everything above 50 miles to be space.

Much of the attention has been focused on a trio of billionaire-led rocket companies: Mr. Bezos’ Blue Origin , whose passengers have included William Shatner; Mr. Branson’s Virgin Galactic , where tickets for a suborbital spaceflight start at $450,000; and Elon Musk’s SpaceX , which in September launched an all-civilian spaceflight, with no trained astronauts on board. Mr. Branson’s inaugural Virgin Galactic flight in 2021 reached about 53 miles, while Blue Origin flies above the 62-mile mark. Both are eclipsed by SpaceX, whose rockets charge far deeper in to the cosmos, reaching more than 120 miles above Earth.

Balloons, like those operated by World View, don’t go nearly as high. But even at their maximum altitude of 18 or 19 miles, operators say they float high enough to show travelers the curvature of the planet, and give them a chance to experience the overview effect — an intense perspective shift that many astronauts say kicks in when you view Earth from above.

Now, how to get there …

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, which are both licensed for passenger space travel by the F.A.A., are open for ticket sales. (Blue Origin remains mum on pricing.) Both companies currently have hundreds or even thousands of earthlings on their wait lists for a whirl to the edge of space. SpaceX charges tens of millions of dollars for its further-reaching flights and is building a new facility in Texas that is currently under F.A.A. review.

Craig Curran is a major space enthusiast — he’s held a reserved seat on a Virgin Galactic flight since 2011 — and the owner of Deprez Travel in Rochester, N.Y. The travel agency has a special space travel arm, Galactic Experiences by Deprez , through which Mr. Curran sells everything from rocket launch tickets to astronaut training.

Sales in the space tourism space, Mr. Curran acknowledges, “are reasonably difficult to make,” and mostly come from peer-to-peer networking. “You can imagine that people who spend $450,000 to go to space probably operate in circles that are not the same as yours and mine,” he said.

Some of Mr. Curran’s most popular offerings include flights where you can experience the same stomach-dropping feeling of zero gravity that astronauts feel in space, which he arranges for clients via chartered, specialized Boeing 727s that are flown in parabolic arcs to mimic being in space. Operators including Zero G also offer the service; the cost is around $8,200.

You can almost count the number of completed space tourist launches on one hand — Blue Origin has had four; SpaceX, two. Virgin Galactic, meanwhile, on Thursday announced the launch of its commercial passenger service, previously scheduled for late 2022, was delayed until early 2023. Many of those on waiting lists are biding their time before blastoff by signing up for training. Axiom Space, which contracts with SpaceX, currently offers NASA-partnered training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. Virgin Galactic, which already offers a “customized Future Astronaut Readiness program” at its Spaceport America facility in New Mexico, is also partnering with NASA to build a training program for private astronauts.

Would-be space tourists should not expect the rigor that NASA astronauts face. Training for Virgin Galactic’s three-hour trips is included in the cost of a ticket and lasts a handful of days; it includes pilot briefings and being “fitted for your bespoke Under Armour spacesuit and boots,” according to its website.

Not ready for a rocket? Balloon rides offer a less hair-raising celestial experience.

“We go to space at 12 miles an hour, which means that it’s very smooth and very gentle. You’re not rocketing away from earth,” said Jane Poynter, a co-founder and co-chief executive of Space Perspective , which is readying its own touristic balloon spaceship, Spaceship Neptune. If all goes according to plan, voyages are scheduled to begin departing from Florida in 2024, at a cost of $125,000 per person. That’s a fraction of the price tag for Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, but still more than double the average annual salary of an American worker.

Neither Space Perspective nor World View has the required approval yet from the F.A.A. to operate flights.

Unique implications

Whether a capsule or a rocket is your transport, the travel insurance company battleface launched a civilian space insurance plan in late 2021, a direct response, said chief executive Sasha Gainullin, to an increase in space tourism interest and infrastructure. Benefits include accidental death and permanent disablement in space and are valid for spaceflights on operators like SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, as well as on stratospheric balloon rides. They’ve had many inquiries, Mr. Gainullin said, but no purchases just yet.

“Right now it’s such high-net-worth individuals who are traveling to space, so they probably don’t need insurance,” he said. “But for quote-unquote regular travelers, I think we’ll see some takeups soon.”

And as the industry grows, so perhaps will space travel’s impact on the environment. Not only do rocket launches have immense carbon footprints, even some stratospheric balloon flights have potentially significant implications: World View’s balloons are powered by thousands of cubic meters of helium, which is a limited resource . But Ted Parson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that space travel’s environmental impact is still dwarfed by civil aviation. And because space travel is ultra-niche, he believes it’s likely to stay that way.

“Despite extensive projections, space tourism is likely to remain a tiny fraction of commercial space exploration,” he said. “It reminds me of tourism on Mt. Everest. It’s the indulgence of very rich people seeking a transcendent, once-in-a-lifetime experience, and the local environmental burden is intense.”

Stay a while?

In the future, space enthusiasts insist, travelers won’t be traveling to space just for the ride. They’ll want to stay a while. Orbital Assembly Corporation, a manufacturing company whose goal is to colonize space, is currently building the world’s first space hotels — two ring-shaped properties that will orbit Earth, called Pioneer Station and Voyager Station. The company, quite optimistically, projects an opening date of 2025 for Pioneer Station, with a capacity of 28 guests. The design for the larger Voyager Station , which they say will open in 2027, promises villas and suites, as well as a gym, restaurant and bar. Both provide the ultimate luxury: simulated gravity. Axiom Space , a space infrastructure company, is currently building the world’s first private space station; plans include Philippe Starck-designed accommodations for travelers to spend the night.

Joshua Bush, chief executive of travel agency Avenue Two Travel , has sold a handful of seats on upcoming Virgin Galactic flights to customers. The market for space travel (and the sky-high prices that come with it), he believes, will evolve much like civilian air travel did.

“In the beginning of the 20th century, only very affluent people could afford to fly,” he said. “Just as we have Spirit and Southwest Airlines today, there will be some sort of equivalent of that in space travel, too. Hopefully within my lifetime.”

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Space Tourism: Can A Civilian Go To Space?

2021 has been a busy year for private space tourism: overall, more than 15 civilians took a trip to space during this year. In this article, you will learn more about the space tourism industry, its history, and the companies that are most likely to make you a space tourist.

What is space tourism?

Brief history of space tourism, space tourism companies, orbital and suborbital space flights, how much does it cost for a person to go to space, is space tourism worth it, can i become a space tourist, why is space tourism bad for the environment.

Space tourism is human space travel for recreational or leisure purposes . It’s divided into different types, including orbital, suborbital, and lunar space tourism.

However, there are broader definitions for space tourism. According to the Space Tourism Guide , space tourism is a commercial activity related to space that includes going to space as a tourist, watching a rocket launch, going stargazing, or traveling to a space-focused destination.

The first space tourist was Dennis Tito, an American multimillionaire, who spent nearly eight days onboard the International Space Station in April 2001. This trip cost him $20 million and made Tito the first private citizen who purchased his space ticket. Over the next eight years, six more private citizens followed Tito to the International Space Station to become space tourists.

As space tourism became a real thing, dozens of companies entered this industry hoping to capitalize on renewed public interest in space, including Blue Origin in 2000 and Virgin Galactic in 2004. In the 2000s, space tourists were limited to launches aboard Russian Soyuz aircraft and only could go to the ISS. However, everything changed when the other players started to grow up on the market. There are now a variety of destinations and companies for travels to space.

There are now six major space companies that are arranging or planning to arrange touristic flights to space:

• Virgin Galactic;
• Blue Origin;
• Axiom Space;
• Space Perspective.

While the first two are focused on suborbital flights, Axiom and Boeing are working on orbital missions. SpaceX, in its turn, is prioritizing lunar tourism in the future. For now, Elon Musk’s company has allowed its Crew Dragon spacecraft to be chartered for orbital flights, as it happened with the Inspiration4 3-day mission . Space Perspective is developing a different balloon-based system to carry customers to the stratosphere and is planning to start its commercial flights in 2024.

Orbital and suborbital flights are very different. Taking an orbital flight means staying in orbit; in other words, going around the planet continually at a very high speed to not fall back to the Earth. Such a trip takes several days, even a week or more. A suborbital flight in its turn is more like a space hop — you blast off, make a huge arc, and eventually fall back to the Earth, never making it into orbit. A flight duration, in this case, ranges from 2 to 3 hours.

Here is an example: a spaceflight takes you to an altitude of 100 km above the Earth. To enter into orbit — make an orbital flight — you would have to gain a speed of about 28,000 km per hour (17,400 mph) or more. But to reach the given altitude and fall back to the Earth — make a suborbital flight — you would have to fly at only 6,000 km per hour (3,700 mph). This flight takes less energy, less fuel; therefore, it is less expensive.

• Virgin Galactic: $250,000 for a 2-hour suborbital flight at an altitude of 80 km;
• Blue Origin: approximately $300,000 for 12 minutes suborbital flight at an altitude of 100 km;
• Axiom Space: $55 million for a 10-day orbital flight;
• Space Perspective: $125,000 for a 6-hour flight to the edge of space (32 km above the Earth).

The price depends, but remember that suborbital space flights are always cheaper.

What exactly do you expect from a journey to space? Besides the awesome impressions, here is what you can experience during such a trip:

• Weightlessness . Keep in mind that during a suborbital flight you’ll get only a couple of minutes in weightlessness, but it will be truly fascinating .
• Space sickness . The symptoms include cold sweating, malaise, loss of appetite, nausea, fatigue, and vomiting. Even experienced astronauts are not immune from it!
• G-force . 1G is the acceleration we feel due to the force of gravity; a usual g-force astronauts experience during a rocket launch is around 3gs. To understand how a g-force influences people , watch this video.

For now, the most significant barrier for space tourism is price. But air travel was also once expensive; a one-way ticket cost more than half the price of a new car . Most likely, the price for space travel will reduce overtime as well. For now, you need to be either quite wealthy or win in a competition, as did Sian Proctor, a member of Inspiration4 mission . But before spending thousands of dollars on space travel, here is one more fact you might want to consider.

Rocket launches are harmful to the environment in general. During the burning of rocket fuels, rocket engines release harmful gases and soot particles (also known as black carbon) into the upper atmosphere, resulting in ozone depletion. Think about this: in 2018 black-carbon-producing rockets emitted about the same amount of black carbon as the global aviation industry emits annually.

However, not all space companies use black carbon for fuel. Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket has a liquid hydrogen-fuelled engine: hydrogen doesn’t emit carbon but simply turns into water vapor when burning.

The main reason why space tourism could be harmful to the environment is its potential popularity. With the rising amount of rocket launches the carbon footprint will only increase — Virgin Galactic alone aims to launch 400 of these flights annually. Meanwhile, the soot released by 1,000 space tourism flights could warm Antarctica by nearly 1°C !

Would you want to become a space tourist? Let us know your opinion on social media and share the article with your friends, if you enjoyed it! Also, the Best Mobile App Awards 2021 is going on right now, and we would very much appreciate it if you would vote for our Sky Tonight app . Simply tap "Vote for this app" in the upper part of the screen. No registration is required!

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To the moon and beyond: what 2022 holds for space travel

From lunar missions to anti-asteroid defence systems, there are plenty of exciting scientific developments to look forward to

T his year promises to be an important one for space exploration, with several major programmes reaching the launch pad over the next 12 months. The US is to return to the moon, undertaking a set of missions intended to establish a lunar colony there in a few years. China is expected to complete its Tiangong space station while Europe and Russia will attempt to land spacecraft on Mars, having failed at every previous attempt. India, South Korea and Japan are also scheduled to put a number of missions into space.

Particular interest is going to focus on Nasa’s mighty new space launch system (SLS). This is the most powerful rocket it has ever designed and has been built to carry astronauts to the moon and beyond as part of the agency’s Artemis deep space exploration programme. With these missions, Nasa intends to reopen the solar system to investigation by humans – rather than robot probes – and regularly carry astronauts to the lunar surface.

The programme’s first launch is scheduled for February when an SLS rocket – standing more than 300ft high – will carry an unmanned Orion capsule on a trajectory that will enter a highly elliptical orbit round the moon. At its closest, the spaceship will sweep within 62 miles of the lunar surface before soaring 40,000 miles above it, a distance that will take it further from Earth than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown.

Crucially, Orion – designed to carry between four and six astronauts when fully operational – will be fitted with a European service module that will provide the capsule’s power and propulsion for manoeuvring in orbit. This will give its manufacturer – the European Space Agency – the opportunity to become a key partner in future Artemis missions. If February’s mission succeeds, a crewed trip around the moon will take place in 2024 and this will be followed by a lunar landing in 2025 – a gap of 53 years since Apollo 17, the last crewed moon mission, touched down on the Taurus-Littrow valley in December 1972.

This time the crew will include at least one woman and the mission will mark the beginning of a programme aimed at establishing a lunar colony where astronauts would work on months-long missions and develop technologies that could be used by future colonies on Mars . A prime target for the first lunar outpost is Shackleton crater, near the moon’s south pole, which is believed to hold reservoirs of ice. Water will not only provide precious sustenance for astronauts, it can be exploited as a source of hydrogen and oxygen – by electrolysis – that can be combined as rocket fuel.

As part of its preparations to establish a lunar colony, Nasa will also start a massive programme of robot missions through the agency’s $2.6bn commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative. This will involve sending a flotilla of robot spacecraft to the moon, with the first missions beginning this year. Built by private companies with Nasa backing, these probes will attempt to map underground water deposits, study the moon’s deep interior and release robot rovers to investigate the lunar surface. Fledgling space company Astrobotic will send its newly designed Peregrine lander to Lacus Mortis – “the lake of death” – a plain of basaltic rock in the north-eastern part of the moon. It will carry 11 different payloads of instruments and will be followed by another US company, Intuitive Machines, which is sending a spacecraft carrying six payloads to Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms.

A further 12 CLPS missions are scheduled for the next three years, though head of Nasa science, Thomas Zurbuchen, has warned that these privately funded efforts each face a high risk of failure. As many as half could go wrong, he said recently.

For good measure, Russia and India are both planning to launch their own lunar landers next year, while South Korea is scheduled to place a satellite in moon orbit to study its mineral composition.

The hunt for alien life will take a step further this year with the launch of the joint European-Russian ExoMars mission , which will land a robot rover on the Oxia Planum, a 125-mile-wide clay-bearing plain in the planet’s northern hemisphere. The rover – named after Rosalind Franklin, the British chemist and DNA pioneer – will be fitted with a drill capable of probing several feet below the Martian surface, where it is hoped primitive lifeforms may survive or at least the remnants of extinct organisms. The 660lb rover was built by Airbus Defence and Space, at the company’s UK facility in Stevenage. Launch is scheduled for 22 September and touchdown is expected on 10 June 2023.

Hopes of success for the mission are guarded, however, as neither Russia nor Europe has had any luck in landing on Mars. Nineteen Russian and Soviet missions and two European bids to land on the red planet have all failed – including Europe’s Schiaparelli lander , which was intended to be a trial run for the current ExoMars mission but which crashed on the planet in 2016.

Easily the most spectacular mission to the asteroids will be Nasa’s bid to test an anti-asteroid defence system for Earth. Launched last year, the double asteroid redirection test (Dart) spacecraft will crash into the moonlet Dimorphos in September. Hurtling into its target at 15,000mph, the 1,340lb probe – the size of a small car – will try to change the orbit of Dimorphos, a lump of rock the size of a football stadium, around its parent asteroid, Didymos.

If successful, Nasa and other space agencies will be encouraged to follow up the mission by developing craft that could deflect a larger asteroid heading towards Earth – and so avert an Armageddon -style impact, say astronomers. Should an asteroid the size of Dimorphos crash on Earth, it would trigger an explosion equivalent to 400-600 megatonnes of TNT. “A city like Manhattan would be completely obliterated,” Elena Adams, Dart’s systems engineer, told the journal Science . “This is to demonstrate a technique to save the world.”

Nasa has plans for several other asteroid missions next year, including the launch of the probe Psyche. Scheduled for lift-off in August, the spacecraft will visit an asteroid called 16 Psyche that is thought to be the leftover core of a planet. This vast chunk of nickel and iron is the remains of a violent collision with another astronomical object that stripped off the planet’s outer layers and left its metallic innards exposed. Studying 16 Psyche will give scientists an unprecedented opportunity to examine a planetary core. It will also afford them a chance to explore a new type of world – one that is made of metal.

Human spaceflight

Boeing will attempt to get its Starliner crew capsule into orbit so that it can begin to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). A 2019 flight failed to reach the station and another attempt last year was called off at the last minute when fuel valves failed to open. Boeing now plans to launch a crewless Starliner in early 2022, followed by a test flight with astronauts later in the year. The capsule will then be used – along with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship – on a rota to ferry astronauts to the ISS.

For its part, China is expected to complete its space station Tiangong – Heavenly Palace – after launching the first of its three main modules, Tianhe, in April . Modules Mengtian and Wentian will be added this year. China has said it hopes to keep its space station – which is considerably smaller than the ISS – inhabited continuously by three astronauts for at least a decade. A key task for crewmen will be to service the Xuntian space telescope, which will be launched in 2024 and which will orbit in formation with the Tiangong station. Fitted with a mirror roughly the same size as the Hubble space telescope, Xuntian’s tasks will include investigations of dark matter and dark energy as well as galaxy formation and evolution.

Space tourism

Blue Origin (founded by Jeff Bezos) and Virgin Galactic (set up by Richard Branson) both succeeded in launching maiden sub-orbital flights last year and both say they expect to begin regular missions in 2022, offering groups of tourists a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth.

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Here’s a Sneak Peek at the Far-Out Future of Space Travel

From Star Trek–like medical scanners to concepts for off-planet agriculture like in The Expanse , science fiction has often inspired actual research at NASA and other space agencies. This week, researchers are meeting at a virtual conference for the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program to brainstorm and investigate sci-fi-like ideas, some of which may very well shape the missions of the next 20 years.

A drone helicopter hopping about a Martian crater or a lunar rover that maps moon ice might have seemed far-fetched a decade ago, but the copter actually flew earlier this year, and the rover is in the planning stages. Now the conference organizers have solicited proposals for more exploratory projects, a few of which the agency might eventually fund. “We invest in long-term, far-out technologies, and most of them probably won’t work. The ones that do might change everything. It’s high risk, high payoff, almost like a venture capital investment portfolio,” says Jason Derleth, the NIAC program executive.

The program isn’t focused on incremental developments but instead seeks game-changing technologies, ones that are 10 times better than the state of the art, Derleth says. He likens it to the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which also explores extremely speculative concepts but developed the precursor to the modern internet, among other innovations.

The annual conference , which continues through Thursday, September 23, is publicly viewable on NIAC’s livestream . Some of the proposals discussed so far—such as for new ways to launch foldable space stations or astronaut habitats, or to extract resources from other worlds—revolve around the understanding that, for lengthy space voyages, you have to make the most of every rocket launch.

The next generation of space travelers will need resources for survival, for protective structures, and to fuel the journey further or return home. “This leaves us with two options: Take everything with us, like if you were going on a hiking trip in the desert. Or find new and creative ways to use whatever is already there,” says Amelia Greig, an aerospace engineer at University of Texas at El Paso, who presented at the conference on Tuesday.

To aid creative reuse of lunar resources, Greig and her colleagues propose a technology called ablative arc mining, which would slurp up water ice and the kinds of metals that could be used as building materials. “It’s like using controlled lightning bolts to mine the moon,” she said during her presentation. Her concept describes a van-sized moon crawler—named after the Jawa sandcrawlers of Star Wars —that picks a spot, and then places a ringed device that it carries on its front end parallel to the ground. Electric arcs zap across the ring, which can be made as large as a meter in diameter, ripping particles from the moon’s surface. Those particles, now charged, can then be moved and sorted by the machine’s electromagnetic fields. That way, rather than scoping just one resource, a single piece of equipment could fill one container with water, another with oxygen attached to other elements, and others with silicon, aluminum, or other metal particles.

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An artistic representation of the ablative arc mining system deployed into a crater near the lunar south pole.

But, like all early concepts, it faces practical challenges that would have to be overcome: In this case, the moon’s dusty environment could cause problems by getting stuck in the machinery, which would have to be made dust-proof. To hunt for water ice, the crawlers also will have to trundle into permanently shadowed craters, which contain water at about 6 percent by mass but are extremely cold and dark. The crawlers’ electronics would have to be designed to operate in those rugged conditions and with a non-solar power source. It also would be tough for any astronaut to oversee them, though they could monitor the mining from the crater’s rim. NASA estimates that permanent lunar settlements will need around 10,000 kilograms of water per year. That would require at least 20 of these kinds of crawlers roving about, gradually collecting those supplies, unless this technology was supplemented with something else. For now, Greig just hopes to test a smaller demonstration version of the crawler in a few years.

Space mining projects have also prompted ethical questions. For example, scientists and others have raised concerns about lunar mining permanently changing the look of the moon in the night sky. But Greig points out that ablative arc mining wouldn’t look like the environmentally harmful pit mines on Earth; the mining region could be spread out, making some craters only slightly deeper. And as for sustainability issues, she says, “there’s enough water to last human settlements hundreds of years.”

Stop-motion representation of the arc mining process on the lunar surface.

As a potential launching point for moon-goers and expeditions to deep space, NASA has proposed a space station orbiting the moon called the Lunar Gateway . But Zachary Manchester, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, argues that the limited size of rockets allows few options for launching large structures for a lunar station. “If you want something that’s bigger than a rocket fairing, which is at most a few meters, it has to get launched in multiple rockets and assembled in orbit, like the International Space Station . Or it has to somehow get scrunched up into that rocket and then somehow expand out,” Manchester says.

At a session Wednesday, he and Jeffrey Lipton, a mechanical engineer at the University of Washington, proposed a space station that would fit into that confined space. Then, once deployed, it would unfold autonomously, like origami, into a full-sized structure, some 150 times bigger than its folded size. Preliminary designs involve a many-jointed structure made of titanium, aluminum, or another metal.

Since future astronauts will likely be on-station for a while, it would need to rotate to generate artificial gravity to avoid the deleterious health effects of prolonged periods in zero-G. But humans are sensitive to spinning; no one wants to live on a merry-go-round. “If you try to build a rotating space habitat, the only way to do it without making people motion-sick is to spin at up to two revolutions per minute,” Manchester says. To produce Earth-like gravity, such a space station needs to be a kilometer across, he argues. Yet squishing such a massive structure into a tiny space until it’s deployed poses a significant engineering challenge. In addition, to make their idea a reality, Manchester and Lipton ultimately need to figure out how to make the unfolding process not get jammed, despite the structure’s thousands of links and joints.

An artist's illustration of the Lunar Gateway in orbit around the moon.

Like packing for the biggest road trip ever, NASA will face similar challenges when fitting everything needed for moon or Mars structures onto rockets. To lighten the load, some scientists have suggested using Martian rocks as material for 3D-printing parts of structures. (A simulated lunar regolith is currently being test-printed aboard the International Space Station.) But Lynn Rothschild, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, has a completely different idea: making structures out of mushrooms—or “mycotecture,” as she calls it. “The humble mushroom can provide an unbelievable building material. It’s completely natural, compostable, and the ultimate green building,” Rothschild says.

Although fungi could be used to grow the material for actual bricks and mortar that astronauts could use for construction, the best kind of space habitat would be assembled before they even arrive. Her team’s proposal involves launching a lander that would include plastic scaffolding and fungal mycelia, white filaments that make the root structure of fungi. (Like yeasts, mycelia can survive for a while without being fed.) The scaffolding would be a lattice of square hollow plastic cells, stitched into layers to make the shape of the final structure. On Mars, it would inflate to perhaps the size of a garage. Using water and oxygen—at least some of which would likely have been sourced or generated on Mars—the fungi would grow along those stitches and fill the cells, eventually turning a tent-like structure into a full-fledged building.

For strength and protection from space radiation, Rothschild thinks some kind of dark fungi could do the trick. “Black fungi—they make you say ‘Blecch,’ they look kind of disgusting. But the black pigment tends to protect from radiation, protecting the fungi and the people inside the habitat,” Rothschild says. She hopes to send a prototype to the International Space Station in the next few years.

Unlike the moon, Mars was once friendly to life . So Rothschild is designing the scaffolding to prevent any chance of renegade fungi escaping beyond the astronauts’ structures. (The last thing NASA wants is for a search for life on other worlds to turn up something that actually came from Earth .) In her team’s design, the fungi are essentially “double-bagged,” with an extra layer in the plastic lattice to ensure they all stay in.

To address those issues, space agencies have “planetary protection” experts like Moogega Cooper, supervisor of the Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who spoke at the NIAC conference. “Anywhere you are possibly interacting with liquid water that is inherent to the place, your exploring would definitely catch our attention. Where you find water you may find life,” she says. The United States is one of the original signatories of the Outer Space Treaty, which requires that every space agency or company that wants to send a mission to an alien world make sure the spacecraft and all the equipment aboard are sterilized.

While the NIAC program has a budget of just $8.5 million per year, it supports many exploratory projects. A few of the ideas presented at this week’s conference could go on to the next level, or could get picked up by other agencies or private companies, as in the case of an earlier proposal to propel a smartphone-sized spacecraft to another stellar system with lasers, which inspired Breakthrough Starshot, a privately funded enterprise. Among a few of the topics on the menu for the rest of Wednesday and Thursday: multiple presentations about moon-based radio telescopes , as well as one about personal rovers for astronauts (since Artemis astronauts will be carrying 220-pound packs) and one about planting mushrooms in space regolith to make a more Earth-like growing soil.

“All of the concepts that are awarded are pushing the edge of our understanding, and they really allow us to take science fiction and make it science fact,” Cooper says.

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Home Six Space Travel Companies That Will Change Our World

Six Space Travel Companies That Will Change Our World

• Space Impulse
• March 31, 2023

Table of Contents

by Julia Seibert

Houston, we have… billionaires? When the so-called space race between Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson and their respective companies kicked off in 2021, the idea of commercial companies sending people into space for profit seemed ludicrous. The richest of the rich taking joyrides in polluting rockets, leaving the rest of the world in the dust… the headlines basically wrote themselves. 

While space tourism sounds like a frivolous affair, it is predicted to become a US $12.7 billion industry by 2031. The business model is simple: a multitude of flight options and falling launch prices, brought about by a thriving commercial space sector, entice rich customers harboring longtime astronaut dreams into buying a ticket. Besides the providers making a buck, this trend might have wider-reaching implications. An increase in human spaceflight – even if it is touristic – could bring about new developments in the field and change the landscape of the industry.

Space Travel

When human spaceflight took its baby steps in the 1960s, astronauts were an elite breed. Handpicked from various military programs and put through grueling training, the lucky few had to endure being crammed into a tin can and sent to our celestial neighbor with barely-tested technology. Today’s professional astronauts are hardly any different. Though their spacecraft have evolved somewhat, the sheer amount of skills, certifications, experience, and even physical aspects required for the job is baffling and simply impossible to attain for the average person. 

Changing this apparent inaccessibility of space was on NASA’s to-do list as the agency began launching the Space Shuttle in the early 1980s. After the moon landing, nobody seemed to care about space anymore; NASA’s budget took a hit and the country turned its attention elsewhere.

In the late 1970s, the US’s image was marred by the controversial Vietnam War, and its government looked to NASA to fix it. The idea was to fly citizens on the Shuttle to inspire the public and return America to its former, moon-landing-level glory. The PR strategy backfired tragically in 1986, when the crew of the Challenger – including citizen school teacher Christa McAuliffe – were killed in an explosion during ascent. The publicity of the event had created an intense pressure to launch, causing officials to overlook an issue with the vehicle.

The disaster led to a two-year pause in the program, but did not scare non-astronauts away from spaceflight. The Shuttle flew several more amateurs, including then-congressman Bill Nelson, who happened to sit on the committee overseeing NASA’s budget. However, it was the Soviet Union who laid the groundwork for modern-day space tourism.

In 1990, crippled by the failing economy, the Soviet space agency gladly accepted payment, an estimated US $35 million, to be exact, from Tokyo Broadcasting Station (TBS). A reporter from the station, Toyohiro Akiyama, then launched to the Mir station for a seven-day stay, aboard a Soyuz rocket plastered with sponsors’ logos. 

In 2001, space tourism as we know it took flight with Dennis Tito. The American businessman paid space tourism company Space Adventures US $20 million to broker a deal with Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, to allow him to ride a Soyuz to the fledgling International Space Station (ISS) alongside two career cosmonauts. Despite some protests from NASA, he succeeded, marking the start of a new age of commercial spaceflight. 

What Are Space Travel Companies

Space Adventures, who arranged another eight tourism flights with Roscosmos, is just one example of a space travel company. These firms can take many forms, but are defined by their mission to take humans into space. Some, like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, specialize in launching tourists into suborbital space to experience zero gravity for just a few minutes. Others liaise between the customer, agencies like Roscosmos or NASA, and contractors like SpaceX to organize touristic trips to the ISS. Others still look to provide a pleasant accommodation in orbit, and are planning stations that would put Earthly five-star hotels to shame.

Top 6 Space Travel Companies

Here are six companies for those planning a trip away from Earth to look out for – and by providing increased access to space, some of them might change our world, too.

Axiom Space

Axiom has its fingers in many space-related pies, including building a space station and designing NASA’s lunar spacesuits. One of its most popular services, however, is arranging flights to the ISS for private clients at US $55 million a pop. Despite costing US $150 billion to build, the station is not known for its luxurious amenities; its interior is cramped, messy, loud, and can smell like a toilet. Any other hotel would get crucified on Tripadvisor, but on the ISS, the views make up for it. 

Axiom’s service is popular with philanthropists as well as countries without a large-scale space program such as Saudi Arabia, since the process is similar to that of governmental missions. After a training period, three amateurs and one experienced astronaut launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and spend a week or so aboard the ISS conducting various kinds of research and outreach.

So far, the company has only one mission under its belt, wherein one career astronaut and three businessmen flew to the station in April last year. A second mission is scheduled for this spring, and two more are in the pipeline after that. Tickets are already selling like hotcakes, and candidates might even have to take part in a reality show to garner one.  

Visit company’s profile page .

Blue Origin

Blue Origin is among the more prolific companies on this list, having completed six crewed tourism flights using its suborbital New Shepard rocket. The trips are quick and painless: after two days of training, up to six people sit in a capsule atop the booster and gaze out of the windows as the rocket ascends to over 100 km in altitude. The booster then separates from the capsule and lands itself while the capsule lingers for a few minutes, during which the passengers experience weightlessness. The capsule then parachutes down, the whole experience lasting only around 11 minutes. 

Prices appear to be eyewatering, though Blue keeps mum about exact numbers. The 2018 plan was to sell seats at US $200,000 to US $300,000 apiece, but one ticket was reportedly auctioned off at US $28 million. As for when the next flight will be, details are unclear. The rocket has been grounded since a booster suffered an anomaly during an uncrewed flight in September last year, but the company hopes to fly again by the end of this year.

Along with its suborbital tourism hops, Blue is developing a reusable heavy-life rocket – New Glenn – as well as Orbital Reef, an orbital business-park-meets-tourism-destination partly funded by NASA . The station, which is expected to become operational in 2027, is a joint venture with Sierra Space, whose Dream Chaser spaceplane could become important to future touristic ventures. Sierra has also implemented an astronaut training program, which would train not only those aiming to work in space, but also ‘experiential astronauts’ who just want to see the sights. 

Virgin Galactic 

Virgin Galactic offers a simple, no-frills journey to the edge of space. Its vehicle consists of two parts: a carrier plane and a spaceplane. VMS Eve, a twin-fuselage jet, carries VSS Unity, a suborbital spaceplane, to an altitude of around 80 km. This is the United States’ definition of space, as opposed to the internationally-recognized boundary of 100 km, the Kármán line. One flight takes 90 minutes, including about four minutes of weightlessness, and costs US $450,000 (upped in 2021 from the previous price of US $250,000). 

Virgin Galactic has had somewhat of a rough ride; founder Branson had hoped to have launched 50,000 passengers by 2019, but instead found himself a grand total of four – including himself – at the time of writing (excluding pilots and copilots). A disastrous 2014 test run killed a pilot, and after Branson’s own 2021 flight, the vehicles were described as ‘rickety’. They were subsequently grounded, and the company was hit by a series of hefty lawsuits. Though since cleared to fly, the company is still working on getting the spaceplane up to scratch, with no exact launch dates forecast yet.

Being an adrenaline junkie is not a prerequisite for spaceflight – just ask Worldview. The company aims to employ high-altitude balloons to offer a gentle, hours-long trip to the edge of space. Founded in 2012, Worldview specializes in remote-sensing balloons, but is venturing into tourism with its Explorer capsule. The luxurious pressurized craft comes complete with enormous windows, ‘plush, fully reclining seating for eight’, in-flight dining, a telescope, a concierge, and, of course, high-speed Wi-Fi. 

Over the course of two hours, a balloon lifts the capsule up to about 30 km. The craft hangs here for a few hours, allowing passengers to soak in the views. Descent takes another hour, after which a parasail deploys from the capsule, resulting in a smooth touchdown. 

A ticket will cost US $50,000, making Worldview’s service among the cheapest in the business. The comparatively low cost and gentle flight mean more people can partake in the venture, in line with the company’s aim “to give as many humans as possible the chance to see our planet from unprecedented new heights,” as CEO Ryan Hartman said in a statement. Worldview is accepting deposits for flights taking off from a variety of locations, including the Serengeti and the great pyramids of Giza, with the first trips to take place in 2024. 

Space Perspective, a company established by two Worldview cofounders in 2019, offers a similar service, with one major difference: a price tag of US $125,000. Its flights are also scheduled to start in 2024.

Visit company’s profile page.

Orbital Assembly 

Orbital Assembly’s Voyager Station, a planned luxury hotel in orbit, is likely the ritziest project listed here. It will accommodate up to 400 guests, and rotations of the station should produce ‘varying levels of artificial gravity’, a process never before implemented in space. A three-and-a-half-day stay aboard the station would cost a cool US $5 million, according to the company’s former chief executive, John Blincow. 

Guests will get much bang for their buck: spacewalks, food prepared by out-of-this-world chefs, and live music are all part of the experience. “We want to have Sting come up and play, and Beyoncé… there’ll be two shows every night. That’s part of the entertainment package,’ Blincow says. 

The company aims for the hotel to open its doors – or airlocks – by the end of the decade. To bridge the gap, Orbital Assembly is planning another smaller orbital hotel and research outpost: Pioneer Station. This will not be as all-out luxurious as Voyager and could only host 28 people, but might be operational as soon as 2025.

SpaceX is not a tourism company, but deserves a place on this list as it has launched more people into space than any venture mentioned above. The trusty Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket frequently shuttle people to and from the ISS, and the company’s system of vertical integration and partial reusability have drastically driven price down. In addition, being a private company as opposed to a government agency, reduces the bureaucratic headache for its customers, and increases access to space.

Case in point for this are 2021’s Inspiration4 and the upcoming Polaris missions, which are funded by American billionaire Jared Isaacman. He paid less than US $200 million for himself and three others to orbit the Earth for three days onboard the Crew Dragon; nobody onboard had been to space before. Launching customers using the Falcon/Dragon combo is also Axiom’s method of choice. SpaceX’s newest rocket, the still-prototypical Starship, has already been booked by Isaacman and Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa for future trips, again with non-professional crews. 

While billionaire-funded trips to space might not scream accessibility, a private, bookable spacecraft like Dragon opens space up to an entirely new audience. Budget-bound government entities are no longer the sole providers of launches, and passengers need not be hardcore astronauts. Without private launch firms, ordinary people like the Inspiration4 crew, which included an ex-cancer patient, might never get to experience space.

Cost of Space Travel

As seen with the examples above, space travel is pretty pricey, though it used to cost much more. These days, a Falcon 9 launch costs about US $67 million. While hefty, it’s a bargain compared to the US $450 million for a Space Shuttle mission. The hardware, fuel, logistics, and several other factors can drive costs through the roof, but breakthroughs in technology, such as reusability, have led to much more competitive pricing. 

Specifically, high costs are often caused by the hardships of sending someone into orbit, not to mention returning them safely. An incredible amount of energy is needed for a craft to reach orbital velocity, which means bigger rockets, more fuel, and more money. On the flipside, objects hailing from orbit reenter Earth’s atmosphere at incredible speeds. Reentry heat increases by the cube of velocity, resulting in scorching temperatures of around 1,500 °C that the spacecraft somehow needs to survive. Suborbital trips are not uncomplicated, but are a picnic in comparison, so these tend to come cheaper. 

Will Space Tourism Become Afordable Any Time Soon?

It is unlikely that a hop to space will become as affordable as a weekend at the beach in the near future, but it has come a long way. A century ago, airplanes were still somewhat of a novelty, and just over twenty years have passed since the first tourist flew to space. While a new rise in spaceflight has led to a swathe of tourism ventures crawling out of the woodwork, most of these are still in their infancy. Once the growing pains have passed, their customers will likely remain rich – but perhaps not as rich as once imagined. 

Take airplanes as a guideline. A coast-to-coast roundtrip cost US $260 in 1917, translating to US $6,652 in 2023. Today, a quick search of a budget airline’s flights will show prices as low as US $83 for the same trip: a 98.8% decrease. Apply this drastic development to spaceflight, and a US $450,000 spin on Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane may cost as little as US $5,615 in the distant future. Even today, SpaceX’s US $67 million per launch already signifies a roughly 85% drop compared to the Shuttle’s US $450 million, so the trend is already well underway.

Final Verdict

Space tourism is easily dismissed as a ditzy venture for the rich. But while this is not untrue, it also creates something incredibly important to manned spaceflight: demand. Satellites and scientific probes are a goldmine to governments and private companies alike and are now relatively easy to launch, but sending people is dangerous and often not worth the risk. 

Tourism changes this. Demand for access to space, cheaper launches, and even orbital hotels push technology forward, which can help bring about scientific breakthroughs. Stations like Orbital Reef are a key example of this, coupling government contracts with demand for tourism, research, and even manufacturing to finance itself. Touristic demand could even help fuel space colonization. SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk has suggested offering US $100,000-tickets – return included – to people wanting to experience life on Mars. 

Above all, though, tourism will allow more people to experience space. Even if this remains its only achievement, that alone might make it worthwhile.

Featured image: Space Shuttle Atlantis. Credit: NASA

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History of Space Travel

Learn about the history of humans traveling into space.

The first earthling to orbit our planet was just two years old, plucked from the streets of Moscow barely more than a week before her historic launch. Her name was Laika. She was a terrier mutt and by all accounts a good dog. Her 1957 flight paved the way for space exploration back when scientists didn’t know if spaceflight was lethal for living things.

Humans are explorers. Since before the dawn of civilization, we’ve been lured over the horizon to find food or more space, to make a profit, or just to see what’s beyond those trees or mountains or oceans. Our ability to explore reached new heights—literally—in the last hundred years. Airplanes shortened distances, simplified travel, and showed us Earth from a new perspective. By the middle of the last century, we aimed even higher.

Our first steps into space began as a race between the United States and the former Soviet Union, rivals in a global struggle for power. Laika was followed into orbit four years later by the first human, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin. With Earth orbit achieved, we turned our sights on the moon. The United States landed two astronauts on its stark surface in 1969, and five more manned missions followed. The U.S.’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched probes to study the solar system. Manned space stations began glittering in the sky. NASA developed reusable spacecraft—space shuttle orbiters—to ferry astronauts and satellites to orbit. Space-travel technology had advanced light-years in just three decades. Gagarin had to parachute from his spaceship after reentry from orbit. The space shuttle leaves orbit at 16,465 miles an hour (26,498 kilometers an hour) and glides to a stop on a runway without using an engine.

Space travel is nothing like in the movies. Getting from A to B requires complex calculations involving inertia and gravity—literally, rocket science—to "slingshot" from planet to planet (or moon) across the solar system. The Voyager mission of the 1970s took advantage of a rare alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune to shave off nearly 20 years of travel time. Space is also dangerous. More than 20 astronauts have died doing their job.

That hasn’t stopped people from signing up and blasting off. NASA’s shuttle program has ended, but private companies are readying their own space programs. A company called Planetary Resources plans to send robot astronauts to the Asteroid Belt to mine for precious metals. Another company named SpaceX is hoping to land civilian astronauts on Mars—the next human step into the solar system—in 20 years. NASA and other civilian companies are planning their own Mars missions. Maybe you’ll be a member of one? Don’t forget to bring your dog.

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Space tourism explained: What, why and where

Disclaimer: Some posts on Tourism Teacher may contain affiliate links. If you appreciate this content, you can show your support by making a purchase through these links or by buying me a coffee . Thank you for your support!

Space tourism is an exciting development in the travel and tourism industry. A futuristic type of tourism , the prospect of being able to spend leisure time in space is a daunting concept for many. But whilst some of us may have expected only have to be able to experience space tourism using virtual reality software, several companies are turning holidays in space into a reality.

What is space tourism?

Space tourism definitions, history of space tourism, rocket launches, space museums, space tourism holidays, virgin galactic, blue origin, is space tourism safe, the cost of space tourism holidays, space tourism: conclusion, further reading.

Space tourism is a type of tourism that involves an interest in space. Whilst most people associate space tourism solely with trips to space, the concept of space tourism is, in fact, broader than this.

Space tourism can include visiting space-focussed museums, watching rocket launches or travelling to destinations popular for stargazing, amongst other space-related activities.

Most recently, there has been a lot of commercial attention centred around the concept of travelling to space as a tourist; this is something that several companies are working to achieve in the near future, including Virgin Galactic and SpaceX.

If you Google the phrase ‘what is space tourism’ you will quickly be informed by Google, Wikipedia and a range of other sources that it is travelling to space for leisure or business purposes.

I, however, contest that space tourism is solely focussed upon the act of travelling to space. There is so much more to space tourism than this! Yes, this is an exciting prospect that has grabbed the attention of the media and the public, but hold on a minute…. what about all the other space-related activities that we can do without boarding a rocket and leaving the solar system?

The people over at The Space Tourism Guide have the right idea. They state that;

‘Space Tourism is not — and should not be — confined to space alone… While we can and should consider all of the activities from space tourism companies like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, Zero2Infinity, and others space tourism, we should not discredit the companies and destinations here on earth who meet the needs and desires for all of us who love to travel for space-related activities. These can vary widely, from cities and museums like Space Center Houston to hotels with space-themed rooms.’

Space tourism is so much more than taking a trip to space! In fact, I argue that space tourism should encompass all activities related to space and astrology!

To date, there is little academic research into space tourism. Yes, some people have looked into astrology and the like, but on the whole, there is a dearth of information. Most research that has been conducted has focussed on looking at potential demand and market demographics.

In light of the misleading definitions that you will find when asking your favourite search engine what is meant by the term space tourism, I have provided my own definition below.

‘Space tourism is the act of taking part in activities that involve or are related to space, either for business or leisure purposes.’

So there you have it- a definition of space tourism.

There are a total of 600 people that have been to space. The first man visited space in 1961, but it was actually long before this day that many people developed an interest in space. In fact, people have been star gazing as long as records go back. Heck, even the ancient pyramids of Egypt were built around the stars .

So, the concept of space tourism is not new.

The 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s saw huge progress in space research. The Soviet Union and The United States were world leaders in this area; undertaking many trips to space, exploring our solar system, nearby planets and moons. Space travel became more affordable and we learnt a lot during this time.

It was only at the turn of the new millennium that commercial space tourism ,whereby a tourist could travel to space, started to become a reality. A handful of wealthy citizens from around the world embarked on their leisure outings to space between 2001-2009. Observing this demand, a number of space tourism operators began to emerge, namely Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and Rocket Lab. Said companies have since become household names.

In recent years the commercial hype and excitement towards space tourism has died down. The public continue to eagerly await the days that they may be able to exchange their all-inclusive holiday in Benidorm for a week of zero-gravity in space, but for most, this is an unrealistic and unachievable prospect.

For now, it appears that travelling into space will be available only for the super-rich, and we do not yet know when this might be attainable. BUT the space tourism industry in all its other forms (museums, star gazing, rocket launches etc) remains to be obtainable to all.

Types of space tourism

We might not realistically be able to travel into space for our annual leave days just yet, but there are still ways that we can get involved with the space tourism industry. Here are some examples.

Stargazing is a popular space tourism pastime for many. There are many parts of the world that are renowned for their stargazing potential. These are usually remote areas, where the light pollution is reduced, enabling maximum visibility.

Some popular stargazing destinations have capitalised on the tourist market by organising stargazing tours or stargazing-focussed accommodation options, such as bubble hotels. This CNN article shows you some of the best bubble hotel spots around the world. Many people use this opportunity to visit the Northern Lights or the Southern Lights too.

Lots of these destinations are perfect for practicing your astrophotography too!

Whilst a rocket launch may not be an everyday occurrence, it is possible to spectate when they do happen. Once operated only by Governments, there are now a range of private companies that undertake rocket launches.

If you travel to a destination with the sole intention of watching a rocket launch, or if you watch a rocket launch alongside other business or leisure pursuits, you can be classified as a space tourist.

A prominent part of the space tourism industry are space museums.

There are many museums throughout the world that are focussed around the concept of space, although these are most numerous in the United States and Russia. Here are some of the most highly-rated space museums.

• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC, US
• Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa, Canada
• Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, Moscow, Russia
• Pima Air and Space Museum, Arizona , US
• Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, New York City, US
• Le Bourget Air and Space Museum, Paris, France
• Kennedy Space Center, Florida , US
• Cité de l’espace, Toulouse, France

As I mentioned earlier, space tourism holidays are what many people think space tourism is all about. Whilst there are other activities that constitute space tourism, space tourism holidays have gained a lot of media attention in recent years, and rightly so. Who wouldn’t pick up the paper and read an article that tells them that they can swap their two weeks in the sun for two weeks in space?

OK, so it isn’t quite so simple. It will require some adjustment to spending time at zero gravity, you might get a little travel sick and you might not return home with quite the same tan lines, BUT space tourism holidays are set to become a reality.

There are a number of companies who have been developing their space tourism products for a number of years, although exactly when we can go on our next space tourism holiday, is yet to be determined.

Space tourism companies

There are several key players in the space tourism holiday market. See below for a brief summary of each.

Virgin Galactic is perhaps one of the best known space tourism holiday companies. It is part of the wider Virgin Group and therefore has the benefit of an already well-established brand and reputation. It is owned by Richard Branson.

The company plans to send range of tourists to space and already has an extensive waitlist for eager space travellers, including the likes of Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber.

Virgin Galactic has, however, had some negative publicity in recent times, with multiple delays and the in-flight loss of its VSS Enterprise spaceplane in 2014.

Unlike Virgin Galactic, SpaceX are an experienced rocket launching company that are now extending their operations to the commercial space tourism holiday market.

SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk. Their first holiday was initially scheduled for 2018, but has since been delayed.

Blue Origin plans to offer similar space tourism holidays to that offered by Virgin Galactic. With a traditional, vertical take-off rocket, the company plans to begin operations soon, although there is not firm date set yet.

Blue Origin was founded in 2000 by Mr Bezos.

Orion Span plans to send tourists to space to stay in their ‘space hotel’. The space hotel would accommodate up to six tourists at a time and would be positioned the private commercial space station, Aurora Space Station.

The CEO of Orion Span is Frank Bunger who states that the company’s ‘goal is to make space accessible to all’. They plan to begin operations in 2021.

Better known for their aircraft that do not leave the hemisphere, Boeing have also branched out into the space tourism holiday market.

Boeing’s involvement emerged from their working arrangement with NASA, whereby they have been working on the Commercial Crew Development programme, aimed at increasing involvement from private sector companies in the production of crew vehicles to be launched into orbit.

Boeing have developed a crew capsule, called the Boeing CST-100 Starliner, providing them with the opportunity to sell seats to space tourists.

There have been some concerns over the safety of space tourism, particularly after the negative publicity surrounding the Virgin Galactic loss of aircraft in 2014.

Because it’s so early in development of the space tourism industry and the FAA can’t control how companies design and manufacture their aircraft , it’s hard to say how safe space tourism holidays will be.

There have been many critiques, however, who have suggested that there will be deaths amongst tourists who seek to holiday in space. The number of accidents that have occurred during the testing phases hasn’t done much to people’s minds at ease, either.

Space tourism holidays are for everyday folk, at least not yet anyway, because you need to have a hefty sum of money in your pocket to be able to afford the ticket.

Prices start from US$250,000 and range up to tens of millions of Dollars. Whilst each space tourism holiday company will differ slightly, prices will typically include pre-departure training and equipment. For now, space tourism trips are set to be short in duration, lasting only a few hours. The intention is, however, that trips can be extended in the future to allow for prolonged stays in space.

As you can see, the space tourism industry is a prominent part of the wider tourism industry. Whilst most attention typically goes to the exciting prospect of space tourism holidays, there are also a number of other leisure pursuits that constitute space tourism.

It is likely that we will see many developments in the space tourism industry in the coming years, as research and development continues to be undertaken by a number of commercial operators. Watch this space and maybe you will be the next person to spend your annual leave days in space!

If you want to read up on the space tourism industry a little more then I can recommend the following texts-

• The Market for Space Tourism: Early Indications by Geoffrey Crouch- An overview of the Space Tourism market and its future potential
• Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly- A diary account of NASA astronaut’s experiences in space.
• Space Tourism by Patrick Stakem- A textbook introducing the concept of space tourism.

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Articles on Space travel

Displaying 1 - 20 of 129 articles.

Space travel taxes astronauts’ brains. But microbes on the menu could help in unexpected ways

Felice Jacka , Deakin University and Dorit Donoviel , Baylor College of Medicine

Was going to space a good idea?

Alice Gorman , Flinders University

Alienation and hidden histories: ‘unsettling’ new Australian stories reveal a distorted world

Julian Novitz , Swinburne University of Technology

Three medieval tales about adventures to the Moon from around the world

Ayoush Lazikani , University of Oxford

Almost half of Moon missions fail. Why is space still so hard?

Gail Iles , RMIT University

Most Americans support NASA – but don’t think it should prioritize sending people to space

Mariel Borowitz , Georgia Institute of Technology and Teasel Muir-Harmony , Georgetown University

Why is extreme ‘frontier travel’ booming despite the risks?

Anne Hardy , University of Tasmania ; Can Seng Ooi , University of Tasmania ; Hanne E F Nielsen , University of Tasmania , and Joseph M. Cheer , Western Sydney University

How activity in outer space will affect regional inequalities in the future

Matthew Finch , University of Oxford

Virgin Orbit bankruptcy: why the UK’s spaceport industry may still have a bright future

Steffi Paladini , Birmingham City University

The food systems that will feed Mars are set to transform food on Earth

Lenore Newman , University of The Fraser Valley and Evan Fraser , University of Guelph

This course takes college students out of this world – and teaches them what it takes to become space pioneers

Joshua D. Ambrosius , University of Dayton

The world finally has its first ‘parastronaut’. Can we expect anyone to be able to go to space one day?

Steven Moore , CQUniversity Australia

Sci-fi books for young readers often omit children of color from the future

Emily Midkiff , University of North Dakota

Curious Kids: is it possible to see what is happening in distant solar systems now?

Jacco van Loon , Keele University

NASA to launch 3 rockets from Northern Territory in boost for Australian space efforts

Melissa de Zwart , Flinders University

Curious Kids: what would happen if someone moved at twice the speed of light?

Sam Baron , Australian Catholic University

What happens when someone dies in space? Space tourism brings new legal and moral issues

Christopher Newman , Northumbria University, Newcastle and Nick Caplan , Northumbria University, Newcastle

Curious Kids: how exactly does a spaceship get into space?

Chris James , The University of Queensland

Virtual reality can combat isolation with awe and empathy — on Earth and in space

Katerina Stepanova , Simon Fraser University

Death in space: here’s what would happen to our bodies

Tim Thompson , Teesside University

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Rover Components

The Mars 2020 rover, Perseverance, is based on the Mars Science Laboratory's Curiosity rover configuration, with an added science and technology toolbox. An important difference is that Perseverance can sample and cache minerals.

The Rover's "Body"

The Perseverance rover's body is called the warm electronics box, or "WEB" for short. Like a car body, the rover body is a strong, outer layer that protects the rover's computer and electronics (which are basically the equivalent of the rover's brains and heart). The body keeps the rover's vital organs protected and temperature-controlled.

Differences Between Perseverance and Curiosity

The large robotic arm on the front of the rover differs from Curiosity's:

Curiosity collected and studied samples collected onsite with its tools, using the rover's onboard laboratory. Perseverance collects rock cores for possible future advanced study by scientists back on Earth.

To accommodate the new functions and science tools for Perseverance, the rover has a larger "hand," or turret at the end of the robot arm. This turret has the coring drill, two science instruments, and a color camera for close-up surface inspection and "selfies" for engineering health checkups.

The workspace inside the rover body picks up, moves, and places drill bits and sample tubes within the Sample Caching System. New motors that drive these specialized movements were needed, so the Curiosity design was modified to handle the new Perseverance rover motor controller electronics.

Wheels and Legs

New Wheels for Perseverance

Engineers redesigned the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover's wheels to be more robust, due to wear and tear the Curiosity rover wheels endured while driving over sharp, pointy rocks. Perseverance's wheels are narrower, with a bigger diameter and thicker aluminum. Perseverance has six wheels, each with its own motor. The two front and two rear wheels also have individual steering motors, to turn in place a full 360 degrees.  The four-wheel steering also lets the rover swerve and curve, making arcing turns.

Tech Specs - Wheels

How the Wheels Move

Like NASA's previous rovers, Perseverance uses a "rocker-bogie" suspension system . The suspension system connects the wheels to the rover and controls how the rover interacts with the Martian terrain.  Perseverance is designed to withstand a 45-degree tilt in any direction without tipping over. For added protection, rover drivers avoid terrains that would tilt the rover more than 30 degrees.

The suspension system has three main components:

The rover's rocker-bogie suspension enables the rover to drive over obstacles (such as rocks) or through depressions as large as the rover's wheel (20.7 inches, or 52.5 centimeters). Each wheel has an aggressive tread with 48 grousers (or cleats), machined into its surface. The grousers give excellent traction when driving in soft sand and hard rocks.

Rover Speed

By Martian vehicle standards, Perseverance is a standout. Its top speed on flat, hard ground is just under 0.1 mph (152 meters per hour). On Mars, it's about the journey and destinations--not the speed. The energy-efficient slow pace  consumes less than 200 watts, compared to nearly 150,000 watts for a 200-horsepower car. 

Tech Specs - Legs

The rover's brains - its computer - are in its boxy body. The computer module, the Rover Compute Element (RCE), has two identical RCEs so there is always a spare "brain." The computer memory tolerates extreme radiation in space and on Mars. The RCE interfaces with the rover's engineering functions over two networks that follow an aerospace industry standard for the high-reliability airline and spacecraft requirements. The RCEs directly interface with the rover instruments for command and science data exchange.

Tech Specs - Brains

"nerves" for balance and position.

An Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) provides 3-axis information on its position, sothe rover can make precise vertical, horizontal, and side-to-side (yaw) movements. For navigation, the device supports safe traverses and estimates the rover's tilt.

Monitoring its "health"

The computers register temperature and power levels, and other features that keep the rover "alive." This main control loop constantly checks to ensure that the rover can communicate and keep from getting too hot or cold.  It checks and adjusts temperature controls, particularly in the rover body, then records power generation and storage data to decide which new activities to start or finish.  It then schedules and prepares for communication sessions with Earth or local Mars orbiters.

Using its "computer brains" for exchanging information with the team

The flight team on Earth commands the rover to take pictures, drive, and operate the instruments. Perseverance generates and stores constant engineering, housekeeping, analysis telemetry, and event reports, and transmits the data  when the flight team asks for it. One of the two "computer brains is normally asleep, but can be awakened in case of problems.

Neck and Head

A mast for the cameras to give the rover a human-scale view.

Eyes & Ears

Several cameras for engineering and science tasks serve as eyes for driving, while others make science observations and help collect samples. botic hands, arms and feet supply. As with previous rovers, Perseverance uses cameras for sight, robotic hands, arms, feet for touch, and chemical and mineral sensors for tasting and smelling Mars. A new feature adds two microphones that record sounds on Mars. Listen to some of those sounds here.

Entry, Descent, and Landing Cameras

Several cameras recorded stunning full-color views during the Perseverance entry, descent, and landing, including videos that provided invaluable data to help the team address such questions as how precisely the rover touched down in the landing area, how the landing system moved during landing, how much sand and rock the retro rockets blew into the Martian atmosphere, and how the landing system moves as it descends. These new eyes and ears of Perseverance were assembled from easily available commercial hardware. The cameras and microphone were an optional add-on.

The Mars 2020 entry, descent, and landing camera suite included:

Parachute "up look" cameras.

Mounted on the backshell, looking upward at parachute deployment and inflation. Two of three cameras successfully recorded the parachute.

Descent-stage "down look" camera

Mounted on the descent stage, looking downward as the rover was lowered during the skycrane maneuver.

Rover "up look" camera

Mounted on the rover deck, looking upward at the descent stage during the skycrane maneuver and descent stage separation.

Rover "down look" camera

Mounted beneath the rover, looking downward at the surface.

Lander Vision System Camera

Critical to a safe touchdown, this camera took images needed for Terrain-Relative Navigation. During descent, while the spacecraft dangled beneath the parachute, the wide-angle Lander Vision System Camera looked downward, busily taking images of the rapidly approaching surface. A computer on the rover quickly analyzed the images and compared them to an onboard map to determine the rover’s position relative to the ground. This helped Perseverance autonomously pick the safest touchdown site within its landing area. The camera's image size is 1024x1024 pixels.

Enhanced Engineering Cameras for Driving

These cameras help human operators on Earth drive the rover more precisely, and better target the movements of the arm, drill, and other tools that get close to their targets. A much wider field-of-view allows for a much better view of the rover.

This is important for checking the health of rover parts and measuring changes in dust and sand quantities that may accumulate on rover surfaces. The cameras can take pictures while the rover is moving. These cameras share the same camera body, but use different lenses for each task.

Hazard Avoidance Cameras (HazCams)

Perseverance carries six newly developed Hazard Detection Cameras (HazCams): four in front and two on the rear. HazCams detect hazards to the front and back pathways of the rover, such as large rocks, trenches, and sand dunes. The front HazCams help engineers see where to move the robotic arm to take measurements, photos, and collect samples. When driving, the rover stops frequently to take new stereo images of the path ahead to evaluate potential hazards. The 3D views allow the rover to make its own decisions about where to drive without consulting on every move with the rover team on Earth.

Navigation Cameras (Navcams)

Two color stereo Navigation Cameras (Navcams), help engineers navigate Perseverance safely, particularly when the rover navigates autonomously. Located high on the rover's mast, these cameras can see an object as small as a golf ball from 82 feet (25 meters) away. Before Perseverance "drives blind,” the cameras help ensure a safe path. Blind-drive mode occurs when engineers command the rover to drive a certain distance in a certain direction, and the rover's computer "brains" calculate distance from wheel rotations without looking or checking for wheel slippage.

New Camera to Record Sample Collection: CacheCam

The "CacheCam" single camera looks down at the top of the sample cache. It takes pictures of sampled materials and the sample tubes as they are being prepared for sealing and caching. This helps scientists “watch over” and keep a record of the entire process.

Robotic Arm

The 7-foot-long (2.1 meters) robotic arm can move a lot like your arm. Its shoulder, elbow. and wrist "joints" offer maximum flexibility. Using the arm, the rover works as a human geologist: holding and using science tools with its "hand," or turret. The "hand tools" extract cores from rocks, take microscopic images. and analyze the elemental and mineral composition of Martian rocks and soil.

Tech Specs - Robotic Arm

Sample handling.

The Perseverance rover is the first mission to demonstrate gathering samples from Martian rocks and soil using its drill. The rover stores the sample cores in tubes on the Martian surface. This sample caching process could potentially pave the way for future missions to collect the samples and return them to Earth for intensive laboratory analysis.

The three major steps in sample handling are:

Step 1: collecting the samples, step 2: sample sealing and storing onboard, sampling equipment in the rover belly, witness tubes, step 3: depositing the samples on the surface.

Samples are sealed in tubes and left in a well-identified spot, or spots, place on the Martian surface. Detailed maps will be provided for any future mission that might go to Mars and pick up these samples for study by scientists on Earth.

After a sample is collected, the sample tube is transferred back to the rover's belly, handed off to the small interior robotic arm and moved to inspection and sealing stations. Once the tube is hermetically sealed, nothing can enter or leave it. The tubes are stored in the rover belly until the team decides on when and where to drop off the samples on the surface.

The rover belly houses all the equipment and supplies needed to collect samples. It contains a rotating drill carousel with different kinds of drill bits. Next to that are 43 sample tubes waiting to be filled. While the rover’s big arm reaches out and drills rock, the belly hosts a small robotic arm "lab assistant." The small arm picks up and moves new sample tubes to the drill, and transfers filled sample containers into a space for sealing and storing.

Perseverance must meet extraordinary cleanliness requirements to avoid contaminating Martian samples with terrestrial contaminants that may have  inadvertently been brought from Earth. Strict rules limit the amount of inorganic, organic, and biological materials from Earth in the rover and its sample handling system. Perseverance carries five "witness tubes'' along with sample collection tubes. The witness tubes are like sample tubes except they are preloaded with various materials that can capture molecular and particulate contaminants, such as: - Gasses that may be released, or "outgassed," from materials on the rover; - Chemical remnants from the firing of the landing propulsion system; - Any other Earthly organic or inorganic material that may have arrived on Mars with the rover. In the future, if the Perseverance samples are returned to Earth for analysis, the witness tubes would show whether Earth contaminants were present during sample collection. This would help scientists tell which materials sampled may actually be of Earth origin.

Samples are deposited on the Mars surface at a sample cache depot.The depot location or locations must be well-documented by local landmarks and precise coordinates from orbital measurements. The Mars samples remain at the depot, available for potential pickup and transport Earth.

Power Source

For electrical power, Perseverance carries a radioisotope power system. This system produces a dependable electricity flow using the heat of plutonium's radioactive decay as its "fuel." The power source, called a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), has a 14-year operational lifetime. The MMRTG converts heat from the natural radioactive decay of plutonium into electricity to charge the rover's two primary batteries and keep the rover's tools and systems at their correct operating temperatures.

Tech Specs - Power Source

Communications.

The Perseverance rover has three antennas that serve as its "voice" and its "ears." They are located on the rover equipment deck. Having multiple antennas provides operational flexibility and back-up options in case they are needed.

Ultra-High Frequency Antenna

X-band high-gain antenna, x-band low-gain antenna, discover more topics from nasa.

James Webb Space Telescope

Perseverance Rover

Parker Solar Probe

Putting our minds to space travel

By sarah wells | january 2021, virgin galactic is getting ready to send its first paying customers to the fringes of space. nasa and european space leaders are talking about establishing a moon village for scientists, miners and tourists. elon musk famously wants to establish colonies on mars. what kind of psychological training will people need for these and other bold endeavors sarah wells spoke to psychologists and a space travel veteran to find out..

As the rockets underneath the Soyuz TMA-9 capsule began to warm and hum in anticipation of liftoff, Anousheh Ansari remembers feeling eerily calm. It wasn’t until the capsule had torn through Earth’s atmosphere and reached orbit that Ansari began to cry.

“It was overwhelming and a rush of emotions — excitement, extreme joy and wonder took over — and I went from crying to laughing to crying to laughing.”

Unlike the cosmonaut crewmates grasping her hands during liftoff, Ansari, who is now the CEO of X-Prize Foundation, had not spent years training for her flight. She made the journey to the International Space Station in 2006 after just six months of training and securing a $20 million ticket. She was the world’s fourth “space tourist.”

At the time, Ansari’s and other missions in the early 2000s looked like the start of a bright future for space tourism, but 14 years later that dream has yet to come to fruition, due in part to technical setbacks.

Now, suborbital flight companies Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are closing in on sending the first paying customers on jaunts to the fringes of space, developments that could serve as a springboard to even bolder space tourism endeavors, such as the orbital tourism plans of SpaceX and Axiom Space.

Courage and money alone are not all that these pioneering space tourists will need for these first flights and the journeys to orbit and deep space that could follow. They’ll need varying degrees of psychological preparation not only for safety but to get the most out of the hundreds of thousands of dollars they’ll spend on the experience.

“Psychological adjustment in many ways is harder to identify and can be something that people try to keep to themselves,” says space psychologist Raphael Rose, associate director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. For space travel, “psychological and physical preparedness are equally important,” he says.

With the chance to visit space — or even just graze the top of Earth’s atmosphere — comes an opportunity many wait a lifetime for, though the experience won’t be without its mental challenges.

For professional astronauts, such as the astronaut corps of NASA and the European Space Agency, tension can spring from the pressure to complete mission tasks as well as the reality of being confined in a cramped space with others for extended periods.

Astronauts sometimes release tension in the form of terse exchanges with ground control as a tactic to avert tension with fellow crew members during missions that can run days, weeks or months, says psychiatrist Nick Kanas, who has spent decades studying the impacts of spaceflight for NASA, and is now an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.

For tourists on suborbital flights, Kanas expects that kind of tension to be minimal to nonexistent, given the brevity of the experiences. Blue Origin’s proposed time in the capsule will clock in at 41 minutes, including 30 minutes of boarding time and four minutes of weightlessness, while Virgin Galactic’s is approximately 1.5 hours with a similar amount of weightless time. At its worst, customers might feel like they are stuck in an elevator with work colleagues for an hour. This is a discomfort that Kanas suggests could be easily tolerated.

That said, with customers paying up to $250,000 for the experience of weightlessness and the view of Earth from an altitude of about 100 kilometers, a wild card remains the reactions of those customers should a mission not unfold exactly as planned. For example, last month’s Virgin Galactic suborbital test flight was cut short moments after the release of the VSS Unity spaceplane from the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, when Unity’s flight computer lost its data connection to its hybrid rocket motor, prompting the computer to end the ignition sequence. The two pilots maneuvered Unity for a glided landing at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

Ideally, customers would be prepared enough through their training programs to adapt to any changing circumstances, but Kanas says that there’s always a risk — albeit rare — in space travel of having a negative reaction.

“You’re worried about somebody reacting with maybe palpitations or heart pressures, a heart attack of some kind or stroke [or] becoming acutely psychotic,” says Kanas. However, these are concerns associated more with orbital flights, which are further from reality, and are conditions that would hopefully be discovered by a psychological screening before the customer ever left Earth.

Also, tourists won’t have the stress of operating the vehicle. Rather, they’ll have to be comfortable trusting their fates to automated software. Unlike Ansari, who was involved in the ascent and descent procedure of her flight and completed science experiments on the ISS, suborbital tourists will just be along for the ride. Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket and capsule would complete flights autonomously, and instead of pilots onboard with passengers, ground controllers would intervene should the need arise. For a slightly more human touch, Virgin Galactic’s Unity will be operated by two professional pilots.

Orbital experiences would be a different matter. Such flights would not necessarily take tourists much higher than suborbital flights, but by going faster, 28,000 kilometers per hour versus 6,000 kph for suborbital flights, orbit could be maintained for days or weeks. Customers on those flights may include academics or visiting scientists who, like Ansari, would have a little more work to do when they’ve reached their final destination, such as Axiom Space’s proposed space station.

Kanas is still not too concerned about the mental impact of these longer flights, but he does stress that mental preparation — in addition to physical preparation — will be even more important during such flights to ensure tourists remain calm for the duration.

Mentally training

As far as I could learn, orbital tourism companies do not yet have concrete training plans, although Space Adventures, the spaceflight company that will run SpaceX’s orbital tourism programs, does say its training will likely be a few weeks long, and Axiom Space estimates its at 15 weeks. Kanas speculates that these programs may be scaled back versions of what NASA astronauts experience before flying to the ISS.

Tom Jones, a former NASA astronaut who spent a total of 53 days in space, tells me that when he was training for his space shuttle flights in the mid-1990s the crew spent extensive time training together in stress-inducing scenarios, like wilderness exploration, in order to learn how to work together in trying times.

“If you find out somebody has the personality where they become self-centered or withdrawn, it’s important to find that out back here on Earth in an analog situation so that you don’t send the person up to space for six months where they make life miserable for everybody else,” says Jones.

This preparation is why in the past 20 years of sending astronauts to ISS, the number of times an astronaut has exhibited such behavior can be counted on one hand.

A modified version of this NASA training might last a matter of weeks, just as Space Adventures and Axiom are planning. Training for suborbital flights would be much shorter. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have both clocked their training programs between two and three days. The exact preparation of each program varies but generally includes physical training in the form of zero-gravity experiences and familiarization with the cabin and automated procedures.

Virgin Galactic also plans to give its customers comprehensive medical evaluations to identify vulnerabilities that might put them or others at risk during the flight, which may include conditions like claustrophobia or poor stress management. But whether these conditions would ultimately disqualify tourists from flying is not yet certain.

Kanas speculates that space tourism companies will have softer guidelines when it comes to psychological screening than do government space programs. Instead of potentially grounding someone with bipolar disorder because they may have had a manic episode in the past, Kanas suggests that participants with otherwise disqualifying psychological disorders could be given care plans to follow that would ensure their safety and that of others on the excursion.

As a result, Kanas believes the risk of seriously causing harm to fellow tourists out of ignorance of zero-gravity procedures or poor stress management is unlikely for short suborbital flights.

If a passenger were to go rogue and attempt to, for example, pry open the spacecraft door, those actions still won’t put other tourists in harm’s way. Virgin Galactic tells me that because of pressure created against the spacecraft’s plug door, the term also applied to the doors on commercial airliners, it isn’t possible to open the spacecraft midflight.

Beyond orbital flight

Space tourists in the next five to 10 years will not be straying too far from home, but if the plans of government leaders and entrepreneurs come to fruition over the next 20, 50 or 100 years, the space tourism playground would expand far beyond Earth’s orbit. Both ESA and NASA have announced their concepts for establishing a Moon Village in the next decade that would function as a mining base and potential tourist destination, and — who knows? — maybe 200 years from now as a retirement destination for those who want to try low-gravity golf. In the far term, Elon Musk tweets regularly about establishing colonies on Mars with transportation provided by his Starship spacecraft, versions of which SpaceX engineers are building and flying at the company’s test site in Boca Chica, Texas.

And while today’s space tourists are unlikely to experience much psychological distress on their short trips, with longer flights such as a seven-month journey to Mars comes the heightened risk for negative psychological effects, such as depression, as a result of extended social isolation and loneliness, explains space psychologist Rose. For the past 12 years, Rose has conducted research with NASA on stress, resilience and behavioral health and is principal investigator on two ongoing NASA projects, one titled “Asynchronous Behavioral Health Treatment Techniques.”

Developing a therapeutic plan that can work even with the communications latency of deep space will be crucial for the well-being of these explorers, says Rose.

“We developed a stress management resilience training program that autonomously trains people to develop a tool set of skills they can use to deal with stressful situations,” explains Rose. He defines resilience as “a rebound and recovery” from stress, “not an elimination of stress.”

During these longer trips, Rose says individuals must be provided with tactics for managing their own stress when professional counselors can’t be on hand to help. Crew bonding activities will help, but connections must somehow be maintained with family and friends, perhaps through memories, when communications with Earth become intermittent.

“Thinking about their family or other things in their community that provide meaning to them can help them feel more connected,” Rose says.

Rose imagines that someday artificial intelligence and virtual reality software might simulate a traveler’s home and generate realistic and interactive projections of loved ones that they could communicate with. Solutions like this won’t eradicate the potential stress of the situation, but they can provide a better way to cope with it.

“Stressful reactions to stressful situations is expected,” says Rose. “There isn’t a magical way to do something that’s challenging and not feel stress — that’s not a bad sign. It’s more about how you cope with these situations that make a difference.”

Positive effects of space travel

Space tourists who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a once-in-a-lifetime experience will likely want to maximize the positive psychological effects of this foray to space. In fact, Loretta Whitesides, the wife of Virgin Galactic Chief Space Officer George T. Whitesides and author of the book “The New Right Stuff: Using Space to Bring out the Best in You,” believes that someone who pays to go to space can return a new person. Whitesides herself is a “founder astronaut” at Virgin Galactic, meaning she will be one of the first several participants to ride in Unity when commercial service begins.

In her space training and consultation program, SpaceKind, Whitesides coaches space industry professionals about how to embrace vulnerability, humility and integrity in order to bring their best selves to their future space travels. Whitesides believes that leaving your personal baggage at home is crucial to fully experiencing the beauty of space and the fragility of Earth. Astronauts have widely described looking down on Earth as a spiritual and unique experience that transformed them into more charitable versions of themselves upon return.

This “overview effect” is something that Ansari and Jones both say they experienced during their travels.

“Being in space has made me feel the interconnectedness of us human beings with each other and our planet,” says Ansari. “As the world shrunk in front of my eyes in my ascent to orbit, so did the problems of the world. This new perspective has made me more hopeful than ever that we can solve the problems that seem so big and overwhelming.”

In the future, Kanas muses that the overview effect may even be prescribed as a form of treatment for Earthly ennui, similar to a therapeutic retreat today.

Whitesides believes that creating the right mindset for space travelers to receive this experience can enable space tourists, professional astronauts and everyone in between to return home with a new mission to be more generous on both a personal and community level.

SpaceKind is not likely to be mandatory for space tourists, says Whitesides, but she believes that programs like these could be offered as a la carte options that tourists can choose to take for their own benefit.

“Most of them are so passionate about space — like a lot of my fellow ‘future astronauts’ at Virgin Galactic [who do extra training] because that’s what we like to do,” says Whitesides. “I’m counting on the customers to go even beyond what’s required.”

Where we are now

When it comes to preparing future space tourists for the mental and physical rigor of spaceflight, Kanas and Rose say that the No. 1 mindset that must be imparted on trainees is a sense of familiarity with the spacecraft and mission plan, as well as assurance of its safety.

This is something that Virgin Galactic is focusing on heavily in its Astronaut Readiness Program in which its ticketed future astronauts will gain detailed information about Unity, even down to its sounds and smells. Separate from SpaceKind, this three-day program was announced in 2019 and is led by former NASA engineer Beth Moses.

The company also announced a contract with NASA last year to develop a separate “private orbital astronaut readiness program” to help NASA meet its goal of increasing commercial use of the ISS by finding and training private spaceflight participants.

Ultimately, says Kanas, regardless of what these training programs entail, this industry is going to continue expanding. Where space travel exists, there will never be a shortage of space tourists.

“There’s always some population that’s willing to do anything, so I don’t think that’s going to slow down things,” says Kanas. He says it is more a question of “the technology of getting this thing up safely and get it back down again.”

Staff reporter Cat Hofacker contributed to this report.

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About Sarah Wells

Sarah is a science and technology journalist based in Boston interested in how innovation and research intersect with our daily lives. She has written for a number of national publications and covers innovation news at Inverse.

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Tomorrow’s station operator

What Are Space Planes?

These hybrid aircraft provide reusable means to access space. 

A space plane combines elements of an airplane and a spacecraft into one high-flying vessel. Like a commercial jetliner, it’s designed to glide in the sky, and like a rocket ship, it can maneuver through outer space — including orbit entry — without a problem. Space planes typically feature wings, rocket engines and heat-resistant coating, which protects the vehicle during its return journey.

What Is a Space Plane?

A space plane is an aircraft capable of both space and atmospheric flight. It’s built to withstand multiple missions traveling from the Earth’s surface into outer space and back, landing intact on a conventional runway.

A defining characteristic of space planes is that they are built to withstand multiple trips, for “re-use,” and remain intact after landing. Typically, they launch vertically with the help of a rocket or mothership, and autonomously touch down for a conventional runway landing.

Despite their late-1950s debut, space planes are still considered an emerging technology. To date, only six space planes have successfully flown to outer space and re-entered Earth’s atmosphere with safe landing.

Space planes have always been about expanding access to space. They’ve been used to conduct in-orbit experiments , ferry cargo and provide infrastructure support. More recently, as the private sector overtakes government-funded projects, space planes have become a choice vehicle for space tourism.

Below is a list of space planes — retired, active and in progress — that have contributed to the development of this hybrid aircraft technology.

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10 Examples of Space Planes

Space Rider

Space Rider is a multi-use, uncrewed robotic laboratory built by the European Space Agency that’s set to launch in late 2025. It’s designed as an “affordable” end-to-end launch service that provides commercial access to space. At about the size of two minivans, the 4,900 kilogram vehicle can carry a payload of 600 kilograms in low orbit for two months at a time. With 600 watts of power, thermal control, data-handling and telemetry capability, Space Rider allows customers to conduct experiments in microgravity that support research across pharmaceutics, biomedicine, biology and physical science.

Dream Chaser

Built by Sierra Space, Dream Chaser is a reusable, lifting-body commercial space plane designed to carry up to seven people and more than six tons of cargo to and from low Earth orbit. Each model, about the size of a school bus , can fly up to 15 missions . In partnership with NASA, the space plane’s first mission is set for 2024, where an uncrewed, remotely controlled Dream Chaser will resupply the International Space Station with 7,800 pounds of cargo — including food, water and research materials.

North American X-15

The North American X-15 is a hypersonic, rocket-powered aircraft that was the first to breach the edge of space , located 100 kilometers from Earth’s surface — making it the original “space plane.” Initially launched in 1959, the winged vehicle was a part of  the X-plane series — a shared project between NASA, the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy — that carried out in-flight experiments from 1959 to 1968. X-15 planes were the first to fly mach 4, 5 and 6. To date, it still holds the record for fastest manned aircraft with a top speed at mach 6.7, or 4,520 miles per hour.

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Space Shuttle

NASA’s Space Shuttle , in operation from 1981 to 2011, was the world’s first reusable spacecraft that was used to carry satellites — including the Hubble Space Telescope — to and from orbit. The crewed, 184-foot vehicle also assisted in building the International Space Station as well as deploying robotic probes Galileo and Magellan to explore Jupiter and Venus, respectively, on separate missions. The Space Shuttle was composed of four major components: the orbiter that housed the crew, the engine, a large external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters used for liftoff. On record, its longest mission lasted 17.5 days.

China’s experimental robotic space plane Shenlong, coined the “Divine Dragon,” has completed three missions total, including its maiden voyage in 2020 and a 276-day flight . The aircraft, which is operated by the China National Space Administration, is often described as “mysterious” as little is known about the space plane’s purpose or operational capacity, similar to U.S. military vehicles like the X-37B space plane. On its latest mission in December 2023, Shenlong deployed six unidentified objects into Earth’s orbit that emit signals .

SpaceShipOne

Although SpaceShipOne retired within two years of its first launch in 2003, the experimental vehicle goes down in history as the first privately developed space plane capable of spaceflight. Developed by California-based aerospace company Scaled Composites, this crewed aircraft air-launched from its mothership, named White Knight, and was powered by a hybrid rocket motor that helped it reach speeds up to 2,000 miles per hour . In 2004, SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X Prize , a space-aviation competition that awards $10 million to a top non-governmental reusable, crewed spacecraft, as well as the Collier Trophy . 

VSS Unity is an active suborbital, commercial space plane developed for space tourism. The crewed, rocket-powered aircraft is the second of Virgin Galactic’s fleet, and can seat up to four passengers and two pilots . It’s been a frequent flier since its inaugural flight in 2018, but is scheduled to retire in mid 2024 to make way for a new series of “Delta-class” space planes from the company to launch in 2026. In its travels, VSS Unity only breached 80 kilometers from sea level, which is about 20 kilometers short of the Kármán Line, where space “starts.” Regardless, there’s a waiting list with more than 600 reservations , with tickets starting at $450,000 per seat.

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Boeing X-37

Boeing X-37 is a reusable, robotic spacecraft operated by the United States military. This uncrewed, lifting-body vehicle acts as a mini Space Shuttle, with the capability to remain in flight for more than 900 days and return with experiments for further analysis. Boeing X-37 took its maiden voyage in 2006 and remains active. Currently, it’s embarked on a seventh mission . Given its association with the U.S. Space Force, the nature of its activities remain confidential .

Ascender is a small, two-seater sub-orbital space plane with a minimalist design for the purpose of space tourism. Developed by British aerospace company Bristol Space Planes, the privately funded aircraft can climb up to 100 kilometers and reach a maximum mach 3 speed. While Ascender has achieved EUREKA status as a suggested project by the ESA, it remains in the conceptual stage. According to the company’s website, Ascender may be able to begin test flights before 2030.

Developed by a Washington-based aerospace startup, Radian One is a conceptual, five-seater space plane capable of reaching outer space without any extra help from external hardware , like rockets, as well as horizontal take-off and landing. The company claims that its aircraft, which are about the size of a shipping container, will be able to carry out up to 100 missions each, with its first flight launching before 2030 . 

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