what is privatized space travel

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The Commercial Space Age Is Here

• Matthew Weinzierl
• Mehak Sarang

In May of 2020, SpaceX made history as the first private company to send humans into space. This marks not only a tremendous technological achievement, but also the first indication that an entirely new “space-for-space” industry — that is, goods and services designed to supply space-bound customers — could be close at hand. In the first stage of this burgeoning economy, private companies must sell to NASA and other government customers, since today, those organizations are the only source of in-space demand. But as SpaceX has demonstrated, private companies now have not just the desire, but also the ability to send people into space. And once we have private citizens in space, SpaceX and other companies will be poised to supply the demand they’ve created, creating a market that could dwarf the current government-led space industry (and eventually, the entire terrestrial economy as well). It’s a huge opportunity — now our task is simply to seize it.

Private space travel is just the beginning.

There’s no shortage of hype surrounding the commercial space industry. But while tech leaders promise us moon bases and settlements on Mars, the space economy has thus far remained distinctly local — at least in a cosmic sense. Last year, however, we crossed an important threshold: For the first time in human history, humans accessed space via a vehicle built and owned not by any government, but by a private corporation with its sights set on affordable space settlement . It was the first significant step towards building an economy both in space and for space. The implications — for business, policy, and society at large — are hard to overstate.

• MW Matthew Weinzierl is the Joseph and Jacqueline Elbling Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His teaching and research focus on the design of economic policy and the economics and business of space.
• MS Mehak Sarang is a Research Associate at Harvard Business School and the Lunar Exploration Projects Lead for the MIT Space Exploration Initiative.

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How bad is space tourism for the environment? And other space travel questions, answered.

Six questions to consider before launching yourself into space.

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For many, the rise of commercial space tourism is a vulgar display of wealth and power . Amid several global crises, including climate change and a pandemic, billionaires are spending their cash on launching themselves into space for fun. When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told reporters after his first space tourism trip on Tuesday that Amazon customers and employees had “paid” for his flight, that only intensified that criticism.

But critics won’t deter Bezos and the other superrich. Space tourism is now a reality for the people who can afford it — and it will have repercussions for everyone on Earth.

In fact, all signs indicate that the market for these trips is already big enough that they’ll keep happening. Jeff Bezos’s spaceflight company Blue Origin already has two more trips scheduled later this year , while Virgin Galactic , the space firm founded by billionaire Richard Branson, has at least 600 people who have already paid around $250,000 each for future tickets on its spaceplane.

Now, as the commercial space tourism market (literally) gets off the ground, there are big questions facing future space travelers — and everyone else on the planet. Here are answers to the six biggest ones.

1. What will people actually be able to see and experience on a space trip?

The biggest perk of traveling to space is the view. Just past the boundary between space and Earth, passengers can catch a stunning glimpse of our planet juxtaposed against the wide unknown of space. If a passenger is riding on a Virgin Galactic flight, they will get about 53 miles above sea level. Blue Origin riders will get a little bit higher, about 62 miles above sea level and past the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary between Earth and space. Overall, the experience on both flights is pretty similar.

Welcome aboard #Unity22 , Virgin Galactic's first fully-crewed test flight. Watch the historic moment through the eyes of our mission specialists. pic.twitter.com/DEwbBkgJYl — Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) July 13, 2021

The view is meant to be awe-inducing, and the experience even has its own name: the Overview Effect . “​​When you see Earth from that high up, it changes your perspective on things and how interconnected we are and how we squander that here on Earth,” Wendy Whitman Cobb, a professor at the US Air Force’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, told Recode.

Another perk of these trips is that space tourists will feel a few minutes of microgravity, which is when gravity feels extremely weak . That will give them the chance to bounce around a spacecraft weightlessly before heading back to Earth.

But Blue Origin’s and Virgin Galactic’s flights are relatively brief — about 10 and 90 minutes long , respectively. Other space tourism flights from SpaceX, the space company founded by Elon Musk , will have more to offer. This fall, billionaire Jared Isaacman, who founded the company Shift4 Payments, will pilot SpaceX’s first all-civilian flight, the Inspiration4 , which will spend several days in orbit around Earth. In the coming years, the company has also planned private missions to the International Space Station, as well as a trip around the moon .

These trips are meant to be enjoyed by space nerds who longed to be astronauts. But there’s another reason rich people want to go to space: demonstrating exclusivity and conspicuous consumption. More than a few people can afford a trip to Venice or the Maldives. But how many people are privileged enough to take a trip to space?

“What a nice way of showing off these days than to post a picture on Instagram from space,” Sridhar Tayur, a Carnegie Mellon business professor, told Recode.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jeff Bezos (@jeffbezos)

2. Does commercial space travel have any scientific goals, or is it really just a joyride?

Right now, space tourism flights from Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have only reached suborbital space , which means that flights enter space but do not enter orbit around Earth. Scientifically, that’s not a new frontier. Though these current flights use new technology, suborbital flight with humans aboard was accomplished by NASA back in the early 1960s , Matthew Hersch, a historian of technology at Harvard, told Recode.

Right now, it’s not clear these trips will offer scientists major new insights, but they might provide information that could be used in the future for space exploration. In fact, these trips are also being marketed as potential opportunities for scientific experiments. For instance, the most recent Virgin Galactic flight carried plants and tested how they responded to microgravity .

These private companies primarily see opportunities in their commercial vehicles that can be reused at scale, which will allow the same rockets (or in Virgin Galactic’s case, spaceplanes) to go to space again and again, which lowers the overall cost of space tourism.

Billionaires and their private space companies also see the development of these rockets as an opportunity to prepare for flights that will do even more, and go even farther, into space. Bezos, for instance, has argued that New Shepard’s suborbital flights will help prepare the company’s future missions, including its New Glenn rocket, which is meant for orbital space.

“The fact of the matter is, the architecture and the technology we have chosen is complete overkill for a suborbital tourism mission,” Bezos said at Tuesday’s post-launch briefing . “We have chosen the vertical landing architecture. Why did we do that? Because it scales.”

Beyond potential scientific advancements in the future, suborbital spaceflight might also create new ways to travel from one place on earth to another. SpaceX, for instance, has advertised that long-haul flights could be shortened to just 30 minutes by traveling through space.

3. Is it safe?

Right now, it’s not entirely clear just how risky space tourism is.

One way space tourism companies are trying to keep travelers safe is by requiring training so that the people who are taking a brief sojourn off Earth are as prepared as possible.

On the flight, people can experience intense altitude and G-forces. “This is sustained G-forces on your body, upwards of what can be 6 G in one direction — which is six times your body weight for upwards of 20 or 30 seconds,” Glenn King, the chief operating officer of the Nastar Center — the aerospace physiology training center that prepared Richard Branson for his flights — told Recode. “That’s a long time when you have six people, or your weight, pressing down on you.”

There’s also the chance that space tourists will be exposed to radiation, though that risk depends on how long you’re in space. “It’s a risk, especially more for the orbital flight than sub-orbital,” explains Whitman Cobb. “Going up in an airplane exposes you to a higher amount of radiation than you would get here on the ground.” She also warns that some tourists will likely barf on the ride.

There doesn’t seem to be an age limit on who can travel, though. The most recent Blue Origin flight included both the youngest person to ever travel to space, an 18-year-old Dutch teenager, as well as the oldest: 82-year-old pilot Wally Funk.

4. How much will tickets cost?

The leaders in commercial space tourism already claim they have a market to support the industry. While Bezos hinted on Tuesday the price would eventually come down — as eventually happened with the high prices of the nascent airline industry — for now, ticket prices are in the low hundreds of thousands, at least for Virgin Galactic . That price point would keep spaceflight out of reach for most of humanity, but there are enough interested rich people that space tourism seems to be economically feasible.

“If you bring it down to $250,000, the wait times [to buy a ticket] will be very long,” Tayur, of Carnegie Mellon, told Recode.

5. What impact will commercial space travel have on the environment?

The emissions of a flight to space can be worse than those of a typical airplane flight because just a few people hop aboard one of these flights, so the emissions per passenger are much higher. That pollution could become much worse if space tourism becomes more popular. Virgin Galactic alone eventually aims to launch 400 of these flights annually.

“The carbon footprint of launching yourself into space in one of these rockets is incredibly high, close to about 100 times higher than if you took a long-haul flight,” Eloise Marais , a physical geography professor at the University College London, told Recode. “It’s incredibly problematic if we want to be environmentally conscious and consider our carbon footprint.”

These flights’ effects on the environment will differ depending on factors like the fuel they use, the energy required to manufacture that fuel, and where they’re headed — and all these factors make it difficult to model their environmental impact. For instance, Jeff Bezos has argued that the liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel Blue Origin uses is less damaging to the environment than the other space competitors (technically, his flight didn’t release carbon dioxide ), but experts told Recode it could still have significant environmental effects .

There are also other risks we need to keep studying , including the release of soot that could hurt the stratosphere and the ozone. A study from 2010 found that the soot released by 1,000 space tourism flights could warm Antarctica by nearly 1 degree Celsius. “There are some risks that are unknown,” Paul Peeters, a tourism sustainability professor at the Breda University of Applied Sciences, told Recode. “We should do much more work to assess those risks and make sure that they do not occur or to alleviate them somehow — before you start this space tourism business.” Overall, he thinks the environmental costs are reason enough not to take such a trip.

6. Who is regulating commercial space travel?

Right now, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has generally been given the job of overseeing the commercial space industry. But regulation of space is still relatively meager.

One of the biggest areas of concern is licensing launches and making sure that space flights don’t end up hitting all the other flying vehicles humans launch into the sky, like planes and drones. Just this June, a SpaceX flight was held up after a helicopter flew into the zone of the launch.

There’s a lot that still needs to be worked out, especially as there are more of these launches. On Thursday, the Senate hosted a hearing with leaders of the commercial space industry focused on overseeing the growing amount of civil space traffic .

At the same time, the FAA is also overseeing a surging number of spaceports — essentially airports for spaceflight — and making sure there’s enough space for them to safely set up their launches.

But there are other areas where the government could step in. “I think the cybersecurity aspect will also play a very vital role, so that people don’t get hacked,” Tayur said. The FAA told Recode that the agency has participated in developing national principles for space cybersecurity, but Congress hasn’t given it a specific role in looking at the cybersecurity of space.

At some point, the government might also step in to regulate the environmental impact of these flights, too, but that’s not something the FAA currently has jurisdiction over.

In the meantime, no government agency is currently vetting these companies when it comes to the safety of the human passengers aboard. An FAA official confirmed with Recode that while the agency is awarding licenses to companies to carry humans to space , they’re not actually confirming that these trips are safe. That’s jurisdiction Congress won’t give the agency until 2023.

There doesn’t seem to be an abundance of travelers’ insurance policies for space. “Passengers basically sign that they’re waiving all their rights,” Whitman Cobb said. “You’re acknowledging that risk and doing it yourself right now.”

So fair warning, if you decide to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars for a joyride to space: You’d likely have to accept all responsibility if you get hurt.

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Americans’ Views of Space: U.S. Role, NASA Priorities and Impact of Private Companies

55% of americans expect routine space tourism over next 50 years, table of contents.

• Future expectations for developments in space
• Public views of NASA’s top priorities in space
• Americans see NASA playing essential role as private companies become more involved
• Americans’ interest and participation in space-related activities
• Primary research team
• Editorial and graphic design
• Communications and web publishing
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology
• Appendix: Detailed charts and tables

Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand Americans’ views of space issues. For this analysis, we surveyed 10,329 U.S. adults from May 30 to June 4, 2023.

Everyone who took part in the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for this report , along with responses, and its methodology .

In a changing world of space exploration defined by intensifying private efforts and competition between a growing number of nations, Americans continue to see an essential role for the United States as a leader in space exploration, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

About seven-in-ten Americans say it is essential that the U.S. continue to be a world leader in space, while 30% say this is not an essential role for the country. Support for a U.S. leadership role in space is widely held across groups, including by majorities of Republicans and Democrats alike.

More than 50 years ago, space exploration was a race to the moon between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. In 1998, the International Space Station launch marked a highlight for international cooperation in space between the U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe.

Today, more countries, such as India and China, are pursuing their own goals in space, which could challenge the U.S. as a world leader. China, a country many Americans view as a competitor , has goals of sending human astronauts to the moon and expanding its own space station.

Most Americans continue to believe that the U.S. space agency NASA has a critical role to play, even as private space companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are increasingly involved in space. Overall, 65% of U.S. adults say it is essential that NASA continue to be involved in space exploration, the survey finds. A smaller share (32%) believe that private companies will ensure enough progress is made in space exploration, even without NASA’s involvement.

The new survey takes a wide-ranging look at Americans’ attitudes toward space, including the contributions of private companies, priorities for NASA and public expectations for the next 50 years in space. Other important findings from the survey of 10,329 U.S. adults conducted May 30 to June 4, 2023, include:

• NASA objectives : Monitoring asteroids that could potentially hit the Earth ranks at the top of the public’s priority list for NASA. Monitoring the planet’s climate system also ranks highly as a priority for NASA. But relatively few Americans say it should be a top priority to send human astronauts to the moon or Mars.
• Space tourism : 55% of U.S. adults expect that people will routinely travel in space as tourists in the next 50 years. However, Americans, on balance, are not enthusiastic about traveling to space themselves: 35% say they would be interested in orbiting Earth in a spacecraft, compared with 65% who say they would not be interested in this.
• Evaluations of private space companies : Americans are more likely to say private space companies are doing a mostly good job than a bad job at building safe and reliable spacecraft, making important contributions to space exploration, and opening up space travel to more people. Still, many are unsure how private companies are doing in these areas, reflecting limited familiarity with them. And the public strikes a less positive tone when it comes to how private space companies are doing limiting debris in space from rockets and satellites: 26% say they are doing a mostly bad job, compared with 21% who say they are doing a mostly good job (53% say they’re not sure).
• Americans’ engagement with space : 47% of Americans say they’ve done at least one of four space-related activities in the last year, including 26% who say they’ve looked at an image from a space telescope, such as the James Webb Space Telescope.

As Americans look to the future of space, a large share expect problems with human-made debris. More than half expect space tourism to become routine. But the public is less confident that other events will happen – including discovering intelligent life and building colonies on other planets.

About seven-in-ten Americans (69%) think there will definitely or probably be a major problem with debris in space from rockets, satellites and other human-made objects over the next 50 years. Fewer (30%) think this definitely or probably will not happen.

When it comes to space tourism, a majority of Americans (55%) expect people will routinely travel to space as tourists by the year 2073, while 44% think this will not happen. The share of Americans who think space tourism will become routine over the next 50 years is up 5 percentage points since 2018, the last time the Center asked this question .

Americans see other futuristic possibilities in space as less likely in the next 50 years. Still, 44% think the U.S. will definitely or probably fight against other nations in space in the next 50 years. In 2019, the U.S. established Space Force as a separate branch of the military.

Four-in-ten Americans believe intelligent life will definitely or probably be discovered on another planet over the next 50 years; 58% don’t expect this to happen. In a 2021 Pew Research Center survey , 65% of Americans said their best guess was that intelligent life does exist on other planets.

Only about one-third of Americans say colonies that can be lived in for long periods of time will be built on other planets in the next 50 years, while 65% say this will not happen. The share of Americans who think space colonies will be built in the next 50 years is virtually unchanged since 2018.

NASA is engaged in a wide range of activities in space, including exploration and applied and basic research. When asked what NASA’s priorities should be, Americans rank monitoring asteroids that could hit the Earth and monitoring the Earth’s climate system at the top of the list. There’s far less public urgency for NASA to send humans to the moon or Mars and to search for other planets that could support life.

Six-in-ten Americans say it’s a top priority for NASA to monitor asteroids and other objects that could potentially hit the earth. Another 30% say this is an important, but lower, priority for NASA, and just 9% say this is not too important or should not be done.

Monitoring key parts of the Earth’s climate system ranks second on the public’s list: 50% say this should be a top priority for NASA.

Fewer than half of Americans rate the other seven objectives the Center asked about as top priorities for NASA.

Large majority of Americans see NASA favorably

About three-quarters of Americans said they have a favorable opinion of NASA in a March 2022 Pew Research Center survey . Only 9% said they had an unfavorable view. Of the 16 federal agencies included in the survey, NASA had the third-highest favorable rating.

Large shares of Democrats (79%) and Republicans (71%), including those who lean to each party, expressed a favorable opinion of NASA.

Four-in-ten say conducting basic scientific research to increase knowledge of space should be a top priority. And 35% say developing technologies that could be adapted for other uses should be a top priority. About three-in-ten each say conducting scientific research on how space travel affects human health and searching for raw materials that could be used on Earth are top priorities for NASA. Most Americans, however, say each of these four objectives are either a top or important, but lower, priority for NASA.

Few Americans say searching for life and planets that could support life (16%) should be a top priority for NASA; a larger share (39%) say this is not too important or that NASA should not do this.

Just 12% of Americans say sending human astronauts to explore the moon should be a top priority for NASA, and only 11% say this about sending human astronauts to explore Mars. Larger shares think both of these things are not too important for NASA or that they should not be done (41% and 43%, respectively).

In April, NASA announced the crew for the Artemis II mission , scheduled for late 2024, which would fly around the moon, taking astronauts the furthest from Earth since the 1970s. The next planned mission would be for a lunar landing. Missions to the moon are considered important preparation for sending astronauts to Mars.

Compared with 2018, Americans see many of these priorities as less pressing than they did five years ago, with declines in the shares who call each a top priority. Still, large shares continue to view most of them as important, but lower, priorities for NASA. (Refer to the topline for more details.)

Those most familiar with NASA are more likely to place the highest priority on a range of objectives for the agency

About one-in-ten Americans say they have heard or read a lot about NASA in the last year. Another 56% say they have heard a little, and 33% say they have heard nothing at all. These shares are virtually unchanged since 2018.

Those most familiar with NASA are more likely than those who have heard less about the agency to say each of the nine objectives included in the survey should be a top priority for NASA. For instance:

• Those who have heard a lot about NASA are about twice as likely as those who have heard nothing at all to say conducting basic scientific research should be a top priority (59% vs. 28%).
• 44% of those who are most familiar with NASA say conducting scientific research on how space travel affects human health should be a top priority, compared with 24% of those least familiar with the space agency.

For more information, refer to the Appendix .

Men are especially likely to support a U.S. leadership role in space, be familiar with NASA  

Majorities of men and women say it is essential that the U.S. continue to be a world leader in space exploration, though men are 12 percentage points more likely than women to take this view (75% vs. 63%).

Men are also somewhat more likely than women to say they are familiar with NASA, saying they have heard at least a little about the U.S. space agency in the past year (75% of men vs. 60% of women).

Nonetheless, men and women have largely similar views on most of NASA’s priorities included in the survey. For instance, nearly equal shares of men (61%) and women (60%) say it should be a top priority for NASA to monitor asteroids and other objects that could potentially hit the Earth.

One area in which there is a sizable difference between men and women is their rating of NASA conducting basic scientific research: 47% of men say conducting basic scientific research to increase knowledge of space should be a top priority, compared with 35% of women.

For more, refer to the Appendix .

Republicans and Democrats have much in common in their views on the U.S. role in space and NASA’s priorities, but differ on monitoring Earth’s climate

Republicans and Democrats – including those who lean to each party – are nearly equally likely to say the U.S. should be a world leader in space exploration (72% and 69%, respectively). Partisans also have largely similar views on many of NASA’s priorities.

For example, majorities of Democrats (64%) and Republicans (57%) say monitoring asteroids that could hit the Earth should be a top priority for NASA. At the other end of the spectrum, relatively few Democrats and Republicans place top priority on sending human astronauts to the moon (12% and 13%) or Mars (12% and 10%).

However, partisans differ over how much priority NASA should put on monitoring the Earth’s climate system. About seven-in-ten Democrats say monitoring key parts of the climate should be a top priority for NASA. By contrast, just 30% of Republicans place the highest priority on this (25% say it’s not too important or should not be done at all). Previous Center research has shown that Republicans are much less likely than Democrats to view climate change as a major problem and to say it poses a major threat to the country .

Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to prioritize conducting basic research to understand space, though the difference in views is more modest: 47% of Democrats say conducting basic research to increase knowledge and understanding of space should be a top priority for NASA, compared with 35% of Republicans. Past Center surveys have found Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say government investments in basic scientific research usually pay off in the long run.

For more on views on NASA’s priorities by gender, political party and education, refer to the Appendix .

The private sector has become increasingly involved in space exploration. Companies like Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and Blue Origin are taking people to space in their own private spacecrafts . And NASA is increasingly partnering with private companies to accomplish its missions.

Still, Americans by and large view NASA as critical to space exploration: 65% say it is essential that NASA continue to be involved in space exploration, while far fewer (32%) say private companies will ensure enough progress is made in space exploration, even without NASA’s involvement. While the private space landscape has evolved significantly over the last five years, public views on NASA’s role are nearly identical to those measured in 2018, the last time the Center asked the question.

The belief that NASA should continue to be involved in space exploration is widely held across demographic groups. For instance, similar majorities of the youngest and oldest adults say it is essential that NASA continue to be involved in space exploration (65% of adults ages 18 to 29 vs. 67% of adults 65 and older).

On balance, more than half of both Republicans and Democrats think it is essential that NASA continue to be involved in space exploration, though Democrats are 20 percentage points more likely than Republicans to hold this view (76% vs. 56%).

Americans give private space companies more positive than negative ratings on building safe and reliable spacecraft, contributing to space exploration and opening up space travel

When asked to assess four core areas of private space companies’ performance, Americans offer more positive than negative assessments of how private companies are doing at building safe and reliable spacecraft, contributing to space exploration, and opening up space travel to more people.

Ratings are more mixed when it comes to the job private companies are doing limiting debris from objects like rockets and satellites. And across all four areas of performance, many Americans say they are unsure, reflecting the limits of the public’s familiarity with the operations of private space companies.

In three of the four areas, Americans are far more positive than negative:

• More Americans think private space companies are doing a mostly good job than a mostly bad job building rockets and spacecraft that are safe and reliable (48% vs. 12%); about four-in-ten say they aren’t sure how private space companies are doing at this.
• 47% say private space companies are doing a mostly good job making important contributions to space exploration, compared with just 12% who say they are doing a mostly bad job; 40% of Americans say they aren’t sure.
• Public ratings also tilt positive when it comes to the role these companies are playing opening up space travel to more people: 41% say they are doing a mostly good job in this area, while 15% say they are doing a mostly bad job and 43% say they’re not sure.

By contrast, evaluations of the job private space companies are doing limiting space debris are much less positive.

Slightly more Americans think private space companies are doing a mostly bad job than a mostly good job limiting debris from rockets and satellites in space (26% vs. 21%). Roughly half of U.S. adults (53%) say they are not sure how private space companies are doing on this issue.

Democrats are especially critical of private space companies’ efforts to limit debris in space. Among Democrats, 34% say they are doing a mostly bad job at this, while just 16% say they are doing a mostly good job (49% say they aren’t sure). Among Republicans, more say private companies are doing a mostly good than mostly bad job limiting debris in space (27% to 18%, with 54% not sure).

For the three other aspects of private space company performance included in the survey, partisan groups are largely in agreement, though Republicans offer positive assessments by a wider margin than do Democrats. For more, refer to the Appendix .

Americans who are most familiar with private space companies offer largely positive evaluations

About two-in-ten Americans say they have heard or read a lot about private space companies developing space exploration capabilities, while 54% say they have heard a little about this and 24% say they have heard nothing at all. The share of Americans who have heard at least a little about private space companies’ efforts is up 13 percentage points since 2018. Men and those with higher levels of education are particularly likely to say they are familiar with private space companies.

Americans most familiar with private companies’ space efforts are especially positive in their evaluations of the job they are doing. Large majorities of those who have heard a lot about private space companies say they are doing a mostly good job building reliable spacecraft and rockets, as well as making important contributions to space exploration.

For example, among those who say they have heard a lot about private space companies, 72% say they are doing a mostly good job making important contributions to space exploration, while 12% say they are doing a mostly bad job and 16% are not sure.

Those with less familiarity are far less likely to give these private companies a positive rating in building reliable spacecraft and rockets and making important contributions to space. Still, small shares in this group give private companies negative ratings; sizable shares say they are not sure.

When it comes to interest in space tourism, more Americans say they would not be interested in orbiting Earth in a spacecraft (65%) than say they would be interested in this (35%). Interest is down 7 percentage points from 2018, when 42% said they would definitely or probably be interested in this.

The space tourism industry is expected to expand significantly in coming decades, with multiple companies engaged in commercial spaceflight operations.

Younger adults are more interested in orbiting Earth than older ones. About half of those ages 18 to 29 say they would definitely or probably be interested in orbiting the Earth in a private spacecraft. Interest is lower among older adults. For instance, just 17% of those ages 65 and older say they would want to do this. Still, interest among the youngest adults in orbiting the Earth is significantly lower than in 2018, when 65% expressed interest.

In addition to age differences, men (46%) are more likely than women (25%) to say they are interested in traveling on a private spacecraft to orbit the Earth.

Americans’ engagement with space-related activities

The survey measures some of the ways Americans can engage with space-related activities and events in their own lives. Most Americans say they’ve done at least one space-related activity before, like visiting a planetarium or watching a space launch, though the shares who have done so more recently (within the last year) are more modest.

Overall, 26% of U.S. adults say they have looked at an image from a space telescope, such as the James Webb Space Telescope , in the past year. The James Webb Space Telescope was launched at the end of 2021 and is the largest telescope in space.

A similar share (23%) say they’ve seen an astronomical event such as an eclipse or meteor shower in the last year, and 19% say they’ve watched a space launch within the last 12 months. A relatively smaller share (11%) say they’ve visited a planetarium or space museum recently.

Taken together, nearly half of Americans (47%) say they’ve done at least one of these space-related activities in the last year.

Men are more likely than women to say they’ve participated in at least one space-related activity within the last year (55% vs. 38%). The gender gap is seen across most items included in the survey; the largest gap across these items is in the shares who say they’ve looked at an image from a space telescope in the last year (36% of men vs. 17% of women).

There are also differences in engagement with space activities by education and income levels.

Those with higher levels of education are more likely to have participated in a space-related activity recently than those with lower levels of education. For instance, 59% of postgraduates have done at least one of four space-related activities within the last year, compared with 39% of those with a high school diploma or less education.

There’s a similar pattern by income, with higher earners more likely to engage with space activities than those earning less.

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As private satellites increase in number, what are the risks of the commercialization of space?

The Global Risk Report says some governments “are encouraging private space activity to further national ‘territorial’ claims. Image:  Unsplash/ NASA

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• Around 11,000 satellites already orbit the Earth, together with tons of space junk.
• Life on the planet increasingly depends on space technology.
• As the risk of collisions grows, is it time to think again about how we use - and govern - space?
• Read the Global Risks Report here .

Space is getting more crowded and more commercialized. This is leading to a growing risk of collisions between satellites and space junk, and means that new regulations on the use of space are urgently needed.

Those are some of the conclusions of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2022 , which warns that if satellites fail, whether due to natural or human events, the consequences for life on Earth could be profound.

Global navigation and communication systems are heavily dependent on space technology, the report says, but so too are energy and water supplies, financial infrastructure, broadband internet and television and radio services.

Yet if a single piece of space junk strikes just one satellite, it could cause a cloud of debris that takes out many more and results in a “cascading effect” on critical services. That’s according to one theory, called the Kessler Effect.

“With such possibilities becoming likelier in a congested space, the lack of updated international rules around space activity increases the risk of potential clashes,” the report says.

Crowded space

Around 11,000 satellites have been launched since Sputnik 1 became the first human-made object to orbit the Earth in 1957, but almost seven times that number are planned to join them over the coming decades, the report notes.

There are also an estimated half a million pieces of debris in orbit, presenting a growing threat to our use of space. A piece of space junk even hit the International Space Station (ISS) in May 2021, making a hole in a robotic arm.

Only 3% of those surveyed for the Global Risks Report say that mitigation measures to prevent conflict in space are effective, while 59% think they are still at an early stage and 17% believe they have not even started.

Space regulation falling behind

Since 1967, 110 countries have ratified the United Nations Outer Space Treaty , which bans the stationing of weapons of mass destruction in space. But the report points out that space regulation has not kept pace with evolving technologies and new military threats.

It says there is a “pressing need” for an international body to govern the launching and servicing of satellites, to establish space traffic control and provide common enforcement principles to back them up.

The 1972 Space Liability Convention covers only spacecraft, but the report says that clarity is needed on how to deal with the likes of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic ships, which launch from a plane and use wings to help them land.

Virgin Galactic is just one example of a growing trend towards private investment in space technology. Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets are already delivering satellites and supplies for government agencies such as NASA , including Christmas gifts to the ISS crew.

Early space exploration was the exclusive province of governments. But the Global Risk Report says some governments “are encouraging private space activity to further national ‘territorial’ claims, or to foster the development of high-value jobs … as well as enhancing their military or defence-oriented presence”.

In the United States, SpaceX’s Starship rocket has been selected to carry NASA astronauts to the moon as part of the Artemis programme, which also aims to send humans to Mars. Starship will be the first US-manned lunar mission since Apollo 17 landed in December 1972 .

Increased private investment in space is also driving down the cost of launching satellites into orbit, says the report. Lower costs mean more organizations can launch smaller satellites, opening up the prospect of innovations such as space-based energy generation and even tourism.

Have you read?

The big space clean-up - and why it matters, how many space launches does it take to have a serious climate impact, in pictures: the history of space travel, space arms race.

Among the less welcome aspects of new space technologies is the development of hypersonic weapons – missiles that are so fast and agile they can evade conventional defences. The report says a “hypersonic arms race” is already underway.

“Gaps in space governance render arms races even more likely,” says the report. “New rules are unlikely in the near future, as there is little agreement over key issues such as boundaries, control over space objects, or dual-use systems. Any further decline in cooperation on space governance will only exacerbate risks,” it adds.

Warning that critical space technology is vulnerable to hazards other than space junk, the report calls for space powers to work together to avoid conflict and agree standards and norms for space operations.

“Critically, and like other realms where technology is developing at a faster pace than its regulation, bringing private-sector actors into the agreement processes will help ensure that such pacts reflect both commercial and technical realities,” the report concludes.

Emerging and frontier technologies can help tackle social, economic and health challenges. But designed improperly, they could exacerbate the problems that they are intended to address.

For this reason, the World Economic Forum will launch its inaugural Global Technology Governance Summit on 6-7 April 6-7. The first-ever event will be hosted with Japan to create a collaborative neutral space where senior leaders, CEOs, board members, startups, innovators, entrepreneurs, academics, policymakers and civil society can come together to discuss and share issues related to the governance and protocols critical to new technologies.

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World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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In 2019, NASA kicked off a strategy to enable a vibrant low Earth orbit economy which included offering flight opportunities for commercial providers to utilize the International Space Station (ISS) as a destination for private astronaut missions. Private astronaut missions to the ISS would be pathfinders to demonstrate and stimulate demand for future commercial destinations. Enabling private astronaut missions to the ISS could also potentially increase the US crew vehicle transportation customer base which could drive down transportation costs for the future.

Benefits of private astronaut missions to the ISS:

• Allows commercial industry the ability to gain insight into the costs associated with owning and operating a future commercial low Earth orbit economy destinations
• Reduces market risk to commercial low Earth orbit economy destination developers by demonstrating the market (i.e. non-government human missions to low Earth orbit economy are a key market element for future commercial low Earth orbit economy destinations)
• Expands range of commercial activities that can be performed on ISS
• Potential to increase flight rate and reduce costs for access to low Earth orbit economy

For news releases and announcements related to private astronaut missions, see our  Latest News page .

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Space Travel, Privatized

Hosted by Michael Barbaro; produced by Alexandra Leigh Young, Michael Simon Johnson and Jessica Cheung; with help from Sydney Harper and Luke Vander Ploeg; and edited by M.J. Davis Lin

How SpaceX is ushering in a new era in the exploration of the cosmos.

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

Today: For the first time in history, a private company is sending astronauts into space. Science reporter Kenneth Chang on the dawn of a new era in space travel.

It’s Thursday, May 28.

Ken, how many space launches have you covered in your career?

I’ve forgotten. Because I started covering these at the end of the space shuttle era. So it was probably five or six then. And there was a few other scattered ones. And I’ve actually made more trips than that. Because especially with the space shuttle, they would postpone the launch at the last second a gazillion times. So I would just fly in in, fly out, fly in, fly out, and not even see a launch.

But if you had to guess, how many fly-ins and fly-outs have you made to try to watch a space launch?

Oh, I’d say 20.

[LAUGHS] That’s a lot.

And that’s where you are right now, when we say fly in, fly out, you are “in” at the moment.

I am in. I’m actually currently in a Hampton Inn in Titusville, which is 20 minutes from the Kennedy Space Center.

Give me the scene there in Florida at the Kennedy Space Center. I know you’re not there, but you’re soon to be there. What’s it look like right now?

So because of the coronavirus, NASA’s basically limiting the number of people there. The visitor’s center, where the public usually gathers for the launch, is closed. So when I go there, I’ll get to watch it. But I’ll be outside the whole time and with a mask and at least six feet away from everyone else.

So Ken, at this point, it’s about 1:20 p.m. Where are we in the countdown for today’s launch?

So the astronauts have put on their space suits. They’re about ready to get in a car to drive to the launch pad. And this is part of what’s really different about this launch versus what’s happened in past years from the Kennedy Space Center. In the past, it was NASA having the space shuttle and such. This time, it is a private company, one called SpaceX that was founded by Elon Musk, the billionaire who also operates Tesla, which is a company that makes electric cars.

So what’s happening where you are in Florida on Wednesday is that a private company is putting NASA astronauts into space on a privately owned vessel?

Yes. And this has never been done before. If you think, there’s been three countries that have sent people to space: the United States, the former Soviet Union and now Russia, and China. And now you have this small company called SpaceX, which I guess is not so small anymore. But it is now joining these big nations to do something that’s really hard.

Ken, when I think of the space program, I think of it as the pride and joy of the United States. And I think of it first and foremost as a federal government program, NASA. So how did we get to this point where a private company has more or less supplanted NASA in sending astronauts into space?

So of course, at the beginning of the space era, you think of Sputnik.

[RADIO SIGNAL BEEPING] Until two days ago, that sound had never been heard on this Earth. It’s a report from man’s farthest frontier —

The Soviets sent a satellite up before the great, mighty United States did.

— a radio signal transmitted by the Soviet Sputnik, the first manmade satellite as it passed over New York earlier today.

This spurred, of course, a lot of fear and worry in the United States.

Is it possible that it is transmitting a code, not just a beep signal for radio listening? Yes, it’s quite possible that it’s transmitting a code.

So the United States started a major space program and created NASA to do things that would counter what the Soviet Unions were doing.

The space age had begun.

And so the first space missions, you just think of —

Shepard himself had been hauled up into the helicopter.

— you think of Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space.

John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.

A little bumpy along about here.

And each of these baby steps that led to Apollo.

Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.

And of course, Neil Armstrong walking on the surface of the moon.

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

These were all events tied up in the identity of the United States as a nation.

This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the creation. The world is bigger, infinitely. I only hope that all of us in government, all of us in America, we can reach for the stars just as you have reached so far for the stars.

And so that was the mentality that drove the space program through the ‘60s into the early ‘70s. And then after that, it was a transition to try to figure out what to do. Once we’ve gotten to the moon, how do we get to the next step?

So NASA basically came up with three options to present to President Nixon. You could go for broke, you could start planning to go to Mars. Or you could build a space station and a space shuttle to go to the space station. Or you could just build a space shuttle. And Nixon chose just to build the space shuttle. That was the cheapest that he was willing to invest in. And so because the space shuttle did not have a space station to go to, it had to serve other purposes. One of them was that the military wanted to use it to launch spy satellites. Other people want to use it to run science experiments in orbit. And so this sort of became this pickup truck that was supposed to do all these different chores for different parts of the federal government. It ended up being a technological marvel that was not great at doing any one particular task.

8, 7, 6, 5.

I mean, with the space shuttle, if you think about the launch, if you watch one, it was an amazing sight.

2, 1, [INAUDIBLE]. [LAUNCH SOUND]

You could hear the rumble as it goes up.

But you could never get over just how bright the light from the engines are. It never does justice to see it on a computer screen or a TV.

But it didn’t capture the imagination of people like going to the moon did for Apollo. Tasks were not the grand dreams that fueled the Space Age.

So what happens to this kind of underwhelming NASA space program that you’re describing?

The space shuttles were actually designed to be run almost like a commercial enterprise. They were reusable. The thought was that they could land and fly very quickly. And that they would fly often enough that the cost of a mission would be fairly cheap as NASA got better and better at running the shuttles. In fact, at various points, there were actually discussions that NASA would outsource the operation of the shuttles to a private company.

Those didn’t happen.

We have main engine start — 4, 3, 2, 1, and liftoff, liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission. And it has cleared the tower.

Because first, in 1986 —

The engine’s throttling up. Three engines and now at 104 percent.

Challenger, go with throttle up.

There was a Challenger accident where the shuttle disintegrated during launch.

We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded. Flight director confirms that. We are looking at checking with the recovery forces.

And it killed Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who was aboard.

President Reagan has declared a week of mourning for the seven astronauts — five men and two women — who lost their lives on their way into space this morning.

And this was a huge setback. And NASA had to go back and fix the design. And then they became very careful to make sure that it was safe enough for the astronauts. And of course, once you’re very careful about safety, you’re safer. But that means that everything costs more, everything is slower. And this piece of the space shuttle program continued. Then in 2003, there was another accident.

A few minutes ago, it was about eight o’clock, the space shuttle Columbia was going over north Texas.

Columbia, it was actually on a mission conducting some science experiments. And —

You’ll notice here it looks like you can see pieces of the shuttle coming off.

— as it reentered the atmosphere for landing —

Some kind of objects leaving some kind of trail over the skies of North Texas.

— the structure of the shuttle disintegrated and the seven astronauts aboard died. And this was a turning point, for NASA and the country to decide going to space is dangerous. We are risking our astronauts’ lives to do something in space. What should we be asking them to risk their lives for?

And this soul-searching led to the decision that the shuttles were now too old, too complex, too dangerous to continue operating.

The shuttle’s chief purpose over the next several years will be to help finish assembly of the International Space Station.

So that there would be a few more flights, and then it will be retired.

In 2010, the space shuttle, after nearly 30 years of duty, will be retired from service.

So after all these years of neglecting the space shuttles and running into safety problems, the decision is not to invest more in them, but essentially, to kind of walk away from the program?

That’s essentially what happened. But still, NASA needed a way to get its astronauts to and from the space station.

Included in the White House’s two billion dollar budget is $850 million to help along commercial space ventures, like SpaceX’s Falcon rocket and Dragon capsule.

So when the Obama administration came in, they took a look at what NASA was doing and decided that was an opportunity to get more commercial companies into this business of sending people to space.

And what is NASA thinking at this moment, as it starts to contemplate farming out travel to the space station?

So the thinking of the NASA officials were, we really want to go back to the moon. We really want to go to Mars. We want to go send astronauts off on new places where they can go look at things that we have never seen before. And because too much of the budget was tied up with the space shuttle, they wanted to find some way to spend less money on what they thought was routine missions, so that they could do something that was more exciting and could better justify what they were created to do.

Got it. So the thinking is: let a private company do the kind of grunt work of space travel. And that would free the federal government, NASA, up to do the grand explorations.

That was exactly the reason. And NASA chose two of them that they liked and decided to fund them. One was Boeing and one was SpaceX. And of course, NASA wanted both of these to be operational as soon as possible. It became a sort of friendly competition. Both companies actually ended up three years behind schedule.

And at this final time, SpaceX is going to be first. And Boeing is still, perhaps, a year behind.

So SpaceX wins the competition.

There actually is a flag on the space station. So on the very last space shuttle mission, the astronauts left a flag there. And whoever was going to be on the first vehicle to get to the space station would capture the flag.

And so that will be SpaceX.

OK. So Ken, I know you need to go actually watch this rocket launch. So we will let you go —

— and talk to you once the launch is done and you are off deadline.

If I miss the launch, my editor is going to kill me. This was actually a conversation I had with my editor. [LAUGHS]

We’ll be right back.

— we want to make that call. Because shortly after that, we will begin loading liquid oxygen onto the second stage. Standby.

We continue violate a couple different weather rules that we now do not expect to clear in time to allow for a launch today. And today’s launch attempt, Launch Control would end the launch auto sequence and proceed to the launch abort auto sequence, please.

Launch abort has started.

And Dragon SpaceX, unfortunately, we are not going to launch today. You are go for 5.100. Launch scrub.

We’ve heard the call from the crew. They have been informed. Launch director —

So Ken, it’s nearly 7 p.m. And things did not quite go as planned. What actually just happened down there in Florida?

So through the whole day, the weather looked really icky. It was raining. It was cloudy. And then, about an hour before liftoff time, the rain sort of cleared up. The clouds start thinning out. And it looked like, for a while, that they were going to actually be able to get the rocket off the launch pad. But then, at the very end, about 15 minutes before the liftoff time, the weather officer said we’re still red for launch. They called off the launch. And they’re going to try again on Saturday.

So no launch on Wednesday, but perhaps a launch over the weekend?

So I want to talk about, Ken, this private company that, I guess, almost just put American astronauts into space — SpaceX. I mean, what was it about this company that attracted NASA to it and allowed it to get this coveted contract?

So SpaceX was this upstart small company. It was very ambitious. And they found ways to do rockets and such that was less expensive and faster than many of the bigger companies in the past. And I always described them for the longest time as the Southwest of the rocket business, Southwest Airlines.

They found efficiencies that other companies did not that has allowed them to find new markets and find ways to do things that weren’t a business model before, because it was too expensive and too slow in the past.

What are some examples, Ken, of ways that they inexpensively innovated and seemed to save a lot of money on this kind of a launch?

So in the very beginning, their engineering decisions were often driven by how things could be done efficiently. And this could have been as simple as recycling parts of their rockets. So if you’ve ever watched a rocket launch, the bottom part of the rocket, which is the first stage or booster stage, is the part that lifts up the rocket through the thick bottom part of the atmosphere. And it usually just drops away when it’s done after a few minutes.

And for the longest time, this piece would just fall back into the ocean and be lost.

Right. And that sounds like a pretty expensive thing to just toss off into the ocean.

It’s a very expensive thing. Just each engine would be several million dollars.

So one of the things that, from the very beginning, Elon wanted to do was, we should try to use them again. And for a while, when they were trying to land these boosters, they would just crash and abort. And there was these fantastic explosions as the thing almost landed. And then, finally, they succeeded. They actually managed to land this booster back on the ground at Cape Canaveral. And then now, they do this almost routinely. For every SpaceX launch, you watch it go up, you see the booster drop off. And about 10 minutes after launch, you see it land vertically, almost like those rockets in those 1950s science fiction movies.

It’s amazing.

This is where SpaceX went from being the Southwest Airlines to a true innovator in this field.

So Ken, how much, in the end, does it feel like SpaceX has saved in terms of cost from what NASA might have paid to put someone into space a decade ago?

So the clearest comparison that we have is that before SpaceX came along, NASA had a plan to develop its own rocket and capsule for taking astronauts to the space station. And when that program was canceled, the estimated cost to do this would have been at least $20 billion dollars.

Now SpaceX has a contract with NASA basically to provide the exact same service, so that all the development costs, plus providing some of the actual launches, for $2.6 billion.

Wow. So a fraction of that $20 billion dollars?

Saving that much money would seem like a tremendous boon for NASA, for the federal government, for the American taxpayer. Does anyone at NASA worry that something fundamental is lost when a private company — that is ultimately a business that’s interested in making profit — is running a launch like this?

I think they’re most excited about what the rocket does as opposed to who builds it and who operates it.

I always remember the Saturn V rocket from the Apollo missions in the ‘60s, the most impressive thing that’s flown to date. However, it wasn’t because it was so big. It’s because it went to the moon. That’s why we remember it. It doesn’t necessarily matter whose rocket goes to the space station or ultimately takes people to the moon and beyond. It’s that these systems, if they work well, they enable NASA and other agencies to go explore the solar system in new ways that we weren’t able to do before.

Ken, is this ultimately a positive development that you’re describing here, the privatization of space exploration? Which, I guess, at first blush, seems like something people might be worried about. Is it turning out that this is a very natural evolution of a process that began with the government creating a market, taking these serious risks and opening up to a more efficient private company, and that that’s a pretty good progression?

So if we go back in history, think of an example where this has happened before. And that is the airplane.

So in the very earliest days, there was various people building different types of an airplane. But there’s no real business for doing it. It is when the government decides to start sending air mail that it created a business where people could start airlines to carry the mail. And that’s led to this wonderful air travel system that we have in the United States and around the world today.

So if we follow that logic, eventually private space travel could be a vast network that many companies enter and perhaps many civilians use, just like civilian aircraft?

So once it’s no longer just NASA astronauts going to space, there’s all sorts of new possibilities that open up. So if you have a commercial space station that has nothing to do with NASA that could be filled with millionaire space tourists to spend a couple of weeks in space. It could also be a pharmaceutical company that wants to try out new drugs that can only be made in zero gravity. So once there is a market of going to space that doesn’t involve the government, then everyone else can start thinking of how can I get up there, too? How can I make money up there?

So when SpaceX does pull off this launch, maybe it’s in a couple of days, you’re saying it’s not really just putting two astronauts into space on a private aircraft. It’s truly launching a new era in the space program. And it’s, I guess, the private era of space travel.

Yes. And it’s coming sooner than you realize. There’s a company out there doing it right now called Axiom Space. They have a contract with SpaceX. They have an agreement with NASA to use part of the space station for these tourists. And this could be launching as soon as the second half of next year.

So Ken, everything that you’re describing is very exciting. But it occurs to me that it’s also somewhat conditional. I mean, what happens if, now that it’s delayed on Saturday, on Sunday, whenever this launch occurs, what happens if it fails? What happens if it goes badly? Is everything you’re describing then in doubt?

It’s certainly pushed into the future and delayed. Is it such a setback that everyone says this was a bad idea, we give up, we need to go back to the way things were? I don’t think so. Space is still a very hard business, no matter whether it’s SpaceX or NASA or someone else running these programs. There is a risk to whoever is riding on top of that rocket every time it launches. Everyone who’s down there watching is nervous. They always go, I hope this is not a bad day. Because they realize it could be a bad day. And I don’t think that one bad day means we never go back to space.

Well, Ken, good luck. I hope that you do get a launch in the next few days. And we’ll check in with you after that.

Great. Thank you very much.

Here’s what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, just four months after the first case of the coronavirus was confirmed in the U.S., the American death toll reached 100,000, according to The Times, more than any other nation in the world. The virus has now claimed more American lives than the U.S. wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Most statisticians say that the actual death toll is probably much higher, given how few Americans have ever been tested.

So far, the virus has infected more than 1.7 million Americans.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

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After nearly a decade on the sidelines of space travel, Cape Canaveral is again launching a shuttle into space. But this time, a private company will be sending NASA astronauts into orbit. What does this moment mean for human exploration of the solar system?

On today’s episode:

Kenneth Chang , a science reporter at The New York Times.

Background reading:

Here’s a look inside the vessel that is scheduled to become the first crewed spacecraft launched in the United States since the end of the shuttle program in 2011.

Meet SpaceX’s first NASA astronauts : Robert L. Behnken and Douglas G. Hurley, who have been friends and colleagues for two decades .

Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at [email protected] . Follow Michael Barbaro on Twitter: @mikiebarb . And if you’re interested in advertising with “The Daily,” write to us at [email protected] .

Kenneth Chang contributed reporting.

“The Daily” is made by Theo Balcomb, Andy Mills, Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Annie Brown, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Wendy Dorr, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Jonathan Wolfe, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, Adizah Eghan, Kelly Prime, Julia Longoria, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, M.J. Davis Lin, Austin Mitchell, Sayre Quevedo, Neena Pathak, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Daniel Guillemette, Hans Buetow, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Bianca Giaever and Asthaa Chaturvedi. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Mikayla Bouchard, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani and Nora Keller.

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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.

For Hungry Minds

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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NASA working to get private space stations up and running before ISS retires in 2030

Microgravity research and technology development on the ISS will continue "full throttle" through the end of 2030, the agency says.

SEATTLE — With the International Space Station (ISS) scheduled to retire in 2030, NASA is placing a huge emphasis on a seamless shift to future private space stations in low- Earth orbit. Many details of that transition are still being worked out, agency officials say.

"The reason this is so important is because we do believe that the impact of a gap will be disruptive," said ISS director, Robyn Gatens, during a panel discussion at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference earlier this month.

A few key players who could be impacted by that "gap" include scientists looking to send research experiments to space as well as crew and cargo transportation providers. Given NASA's expected two-year transition period , a commercial successor must be operating by 2028 to prevent any such complications.

To plan for a smooth shift of research and operations to private space stations by 2030, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a strategy in March of this year that outlines a plan of action. The policy's overlying objective is for the U.S. to lead in "an emerging marketplace run by commercial and private enterprises engaged in LEO," ultimately allowing NASA to maintain an "uninterrupted U.S. presence" in low-Earth orbit.

Related: NASA looks to private outposts to build on International Space Station's legacy

"The reason we at the White House level released a policy on this topic this year is to prepare seven years in advance, so that we do not have to plan for a scenario where there's a gap," Ezinne Uzo-Okoro, an assistant director for space policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said at the conference.

Because commercial space station services is still an unproven market, however, carrying out such a seamless transition will not be without its challenges. For instance, experts will need to worry about things like technical costs and scheduling risks in terms of design and development of the space station platforms, John Mulholland, the Boeing program manager for the ISS program, said at the conference. "They will get there but it will not be easy."

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Mulholland also underscored the need for increasing the budget for the United States Deorbit Vehicle (USDV), a spacecraft expected to dock on the ISS before performing a safe deorbit and re-entry sequence back to Earth. (NASA is expected to award the contract for the design and production of this vehicle in March 2024).

The new funds are also likely to be used for an upgrade that significantly improves the science capability of a physics instrument on the ISS that hunts for dark matter , cosmic rays and antimatter galaxies. The detector, known as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer ( AMS ), was installed as an external module on the ISS in 2011. Its upgrade is expected to take an entire cargo flight, which "deserves a plus-up in the budget ahead," Mulholland said.

With a majority of the research on the ISS funded by the federal government, and the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 suspending the debt ceiling until the end of 2024, "we will be faced with difficult budget cycles in the near future," he said.

—  Gallery: Private space stations of the future imagined

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—  The International Space Station will eventually die by fire

Angela Hart, manager for NASA's Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations (CLD) program, said the space agency will pass on its expertise in technology to private space station providers, but such responsibility and involvement will decrease as the latter finds surer footing. Over the next year, NASA will focus on working with partners and the science community to avoid cost overruns and schedule issues, she explained during a talk on Aug. 3.

After the ISS retires in 2030 , NASA is likely to operate a national laboratory that would support various commercial platforms. Although details are few, the LEO National Lab, which is still a working name referring to "low-Earth orbit," is expected to represent all government-sponsored research to be carried out on a combination of available private space stations.

"The idea is that it would be platform agnostic. So it's not a single place, it's not a single laboratory," said Gatens. "One really important tenet that we're looking at is it needs to support but not compete with commercial platforms and service providers."

Currently, ISS partners including Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency ( ESA ) have committed to support the ISS until its phased retirement operation planned for 2030. Russia has confirmed its support only until 2028, however, after which it will focus on building its own orbital space station, whose first module is expected to launch in 2027.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Sharmila Kuthunur is a Seattle-based science journalist covering astronomy, astrophysics and space exploration. Follow her on X @skuthunur.

SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites from Florida (video)

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• Unclear Engineer It was somewhat disconcerting to read through this article and find that it says nothing about the schedules for any of the potential commercial LEO space stations. At least Boeing is not one of those planning one, which is a relief, considering how delayed Boeing has been on its recent space deliverables. But, with SpaceX not planning a space station, it seems like it will be up to some of the less successful groups to get this done. Any "gap" in the availability of LEO access from the U.S. will just hand the business from the rest of the world over to China. Russia might also be a contender for that business, but that will depend on how the Ukraine war plays out over the next several years. Reply
• Mental Avenger Like so many other NASA and combined space projects, the ISS was a huge waste of time, money, and resources. If all that had been applied to building a proper space station, the basic main framework and several working sections would now be up there. Instead of retiring the ISS and replacing it with even more limited use stations, we could be expanding a REAL Space Station, like Space Station 5 envisioned in 2001 A Space Odyssey. Reply

Admin said: NASA is emphasizing a seamless transition to future private space stations in low-Earth orbit, but officials say the shift will not be easy. NASA working to get private space stations up and running before ISS retires in 2030 : Read more

• bobbardin Nasa IS AN ANTIQUATED piece of work. They certainly have reached their level of incompetence. Retire them in Florida with my Dad who has retired from NASA. Leave it to Elon. Reply
• View All 4 Comments

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The Pros and Cons of Private Space Exploration

Space exploration isn’t just limited to NASA and other government entities anymore. Recently, we’ve seen a switch from government-owned agencies to private space companies. As a result, many wealthy individuals are interested in exploring space for different reasons. While private space exploration has numerous benefits for the entire planet, many wonder about the downsides.

Let’s dive into private space exploration and examine the pros and cons.

What Is Private Space Exploration?

Richard branson, establishing contact with extraterrestrial life, are you over the moon about private space exploration.

Let’s start by defining space exploration as using technology and astronomy to explore outer space. Space exploration enables us to confirm or reject the scientific theories developed on Earth.

The 20th century was a turning point for space exploration due to numerous discoveries and milestones. Humans have successfully launched the first satellite, sent the first mammal to space, taken the first photograph of Earth from its orbit, landed on the moon, traveled to outer space, etc. While these discoveries are incredible, space exploration has existed for centuries, and everything humans have learned in the past has made the achievements possible.

Until the beginning of the 21st century, most space exploration was directed by government-owned agencies like NASA (the U.S.), Roscosmos (Russia, previously the Soviet Union), ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan), ISRO (India), etc. Then, we noticed an emergence of private space companies. While government-owned agencies continued to operate, private companies started conducting their own research to achieve different goals.

What exactly is private space exploration? It’s still the use of technology and astronomy to explore outer space. The only difference is that private space exploration is funded by an entity instead of a government agency. Most private space companies are owned by wealthy individuals investing millions of dollars into the technology and workforce.

Major Players

You may have heard of the space race, a 20th-century competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The two countries competed to prove their superiority in terms of technology and achievements. The Soviet Union was the first to launch an Earth-orbiting satellite and send a mammal — a dog named Laika — into space. The U.S. was the first to launch a weather satellite to space and obtain photos of Earth. Then, the Soviet Union hit back and sent the first man to space. Ultimately, the U.S. won the race by being the first to send men to the moon.

Today, we are in the middle of another competition: the billionaire space race. Several major players have entered the space exploration and tourism industry with different ambitions and goals they want to achieve as soon as possible. Here are some of these players:

Richard Branson is a British entrepreneur and business magnate. He’s known as the founder of the Virgin Group, a corporation that owns more than 400 companies worldwide.

In 2004, Branson founded Virgin Galactic, a spaceflight company headquartered in California. Branson established the company because he recognized the importance of space tourism and commercial spacecraft.

On July 11, 2021, Branson and three employees traveled to outer space. Branson became the first private space company owner to travel to space and the first person to travel in the space vehicle he funded.

Jeff Bezos is an American businessman known for founding Amazon. As of July 2022, Bezos is the second-wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of over $135 billion. In 2000, Bezos founded a human spaceflight startup called Blue Origin.

The company’s primary goals are reducing costs, increasing space travel safety, and developing a revolutionary launch vehicle.

In 2022, Jeff Bezos became the second human to travel to space in a vehicle he funded, only nine days after Richard Branson. New Shepard’s vehicle is among the top innovations because it uses clean-burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, making it one of the cleanest space vehicles ever.

We can’t talk about the major players in the private space industry without mentioning Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person with a net worth of more than $220 billion.

In 2002, Elon Musk founded SpaceX, a company that designs, manufactures, and launches spacecraft and rockets. Musk’s goals are reducing space transportation costs and creating reusable innovative space vehicles. The ultimate goal is to colonize Mars.

Although Musk hasn’t traveled to space (yet), unlike Branson and Bezos, his company has made the headlines several times. In 2010, SpaceX became the first company to successfully launch a payload to orbit and return it to Earth. Moreover, the company’s Starlink satellites provide information to the NOAA and improve space weather forecasts that are vital for safe space exploration. Musk stated that Starlink satellites would offer internet access from every Earth location once fully operational.

Besides the three, many other notable names in the industry want to take the lead in the billionaire space race. Hence, many can’t help but wonder whether the privatization of space exploration is the right path.

Private space exploration has its advantages and drawbacks. Let’s check them out.

Many people claim private space exploration has numerous benefits. Here are some of them.

Traveling to space was only a dream until the second half of the 20th century. We’ve seen many innovations and technological advancements that have allowed humanity to reach numerous milestones. Yet, although we’ve learned a lot about outer space, the vast majority of the universe remains unknown.

This uncertainty and the challenges of space exploration represent the driving force for innovations. We are hungry for knowledge, excitement, and discoveries. This results in a continuous effort to develop more advanced, reliable, and efficient systems.

Private space company owners may have different ambitions, but they all contribute to the modernization and development of the technology used for space exploration.

Private space exploration supports innovation and prosperity. We’ve already seen artificial satellites, cleaner vehicles, and other ground-breaking discoveries, so who knows what’s next?

Inspiration

In 2021, millions of people watched Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos fly to space in the vehicles their companies developed. If anything, such missions show us that anything’s possible, sparking curiosity and inspiration.

Private space exploration pushes the limits and inspires people to think outside the box (or the planet). It makes us question our limits, expands our views, and plants seeds for new ideas. Learning more about the universe allows us to change our perspectives and priorities.

A great example of how space exploration can affect us is the Earthrise photo of Earth taken from lunar orbit in 1968. This photo shows the Earth and some of the moon’s surface. In the photo, our planet looks isolated and fragile, and many think it shows how small we are and how we need to take care of the Earth.

Partnership

Contrary to popular belief, private space companies can’t do whatever they want. They must follow specific laws and regulations that allow them to operate and conduct research. Although there is a division between the public and private sectors, like in any other industry, these two sectors often work together.

SpaceX and NASA are excellent examples of a partnership between a private space company and a government-owned agency. SpaceX has become NASA’s “space taxi” because the company transports NASA’s astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

This and similar partnerships can only encourage more discoveries and innovations.

New Discoveries

All private space company owners entered the industry for a reason. Whether it’s colonizing Mars or creating reusable space vehicles, one thing is sure: the ambitions and dreams of these wealthy individuals have and will lead us to new discoveries about the universe.

Investments

As you may know, space exploration is costly. Every mission costs millions of dollars, not to mention the added costs of research, preparation, and construction of the space vehicles. Hence, it’s no surprise that all private space company owners are wealthy.

These individuals know how expensive space exploration is and are willing to invest billions of dollars into the industry. But, of course, they invest this money to achieve their goals. But it’s essential to look at the big picture here. Any discovery by private space companies could be beneficial for all of humanity.

Addressing Global Challenges

We often forget how dependent we are on space technology. For example, many don’t know that NASA is responsible for discovering the technology for vacuum cleaners, invisible braces, and even baby formula. In addition, space exploration allows us to enjoy the internet, navigation, camera sensors, and cardiac pumps.

Therefore, space exploration isn’t just about space. Learning about and overcoming the challenges related to space exploration has led to many discoveries in areas like health and medicine, transportation, public safety, IT, the environment, etc.

Thanks to space exploration, we may be able to combat some challenges we’re faced with on Earth, including disease, air pollution, and climate change, to name a few.

Knowledge Generation

Space exploration enables us to learn so much about the universe. In fact, space is so big that we will probably never be able to explore it entirely. Everything we learn about outer space can be used not only for further space exploration but for other sectors and industries.

After all, we are curious creatures with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Looking at the last few centuries, we can see how far our drive to learn and improve has gotten us.

More Jobs for People From Space Industry

According to the Space Foundation , more than 140,000 people work in the private space industry in the U.S., which is impressive. Since the sector is growing rapidly, private space companies hire more people. All kinds of workers are needed, regardless of their educational background. Besides astronauts and scientists, companies are hiring administrative workers, IT experts, engineers, electricians, chemists, and essential support personnel.

One of the biggest mysteries is whether life exists outside of our planet. Although we still don’t have the answer, private space exploration could help us find extraterrestrial life, if there is any. While the universe is vast, and the chances of us stumbling upon extraterrestrial life forms are minimal, there’s always hope.

Now that we’ve discussed the benefits of private space exploration, it’s time we looked at some drawbacks.

Space exploration is costly. While wealthy individuals owning private space companies have no problem investing billions of dollars into the latest technology, one can’t help but wonder whether this is a waste.

Many people argue this money could go elsewhere. For example, the money invested in private space exploration could be used to improve human lives on Earth in numerous ways. Instead of investing in space exploration, billionaires could invest in medicine, environmental protection, renewable energy sources, and fighting poverty.

Although many people criticize private space exploration, there isn’t much we can do to stop it. After all, private space company owners have money to invest and can support whatever cause they believe in.

Traveling to space is risky and, unfortunately, can result in tragedies. Unfortunately, in the last few decades, many people have lost their lives in space.

While technology has come a long way and space travel has become much safer, it doesn’t mean there’s no risk. Even after years of research and millions of dollars invested in the best equipment, tragedies can still happen.

Everyone who decides to travel to space, whether for scientific or commercial purposes, enters the rocket knowing they may not return to Earth.

Closed Circle

Private space exploration is reserved only for billionaires like Bezos, Musk, or Branson. Hence, this industry is limited to a few privileged individuals. This sparks an ongoing debate about whether the new billionaire space race benefits humanity. Many argue that private space exploration is only a way for wealthy individuals to enjoy self-indulgent adventures; others claim these individuals are vital for solving the world’s biggest challenges.

Either way, private space exploration remains a closed circle to most “ordinary” people.

Space exploration isn’t really the best way to preserve the environment. Since figuring out a way to fight pollution is one of the burning topics, it’s understandable many are against space exploration in general.

With the emergence of private space companies and their satellites and launch vehicles, we’ve seen an increase in space traffic. But unfortunately, every launch takes a toll on our environment; the carbon left behind affects the stratosphere and damages the ozone layer.

While some space vehicles like Bezos’ New Shepard are less damaging to the environment than others, the adverse effects are still present.

International Tensions

We’ve already mentioned the space race from the 20th century that involved the two Cold War participants, the Soviet Union and the U.S. The two countries raced to achieve spaceflight superiority.

As more private space companies emerge from different countries, many fear that conflicts of interest and disagreements could lead to international tensions.

Health Concerns

Although it may seem fun on TV, spending time in space isn’t exactly a walk in the park. There are numerous health concerns one needs to be aware of.

Spending a lot of time in a confined space with no family and friends can affect our mental health. While on a mission, astronauts have no privacy and no ability to stretch their legs or even breathe fresh air. Although every astronaut needs to undergo extensive screening and evaluation before they’re hired, their behavior can change once they’re in space for an extended period. Anyone who spends days or months in space can suffer from symptoms like sleep problems, anxiety, depression, and fatigue.

Another health concern is space radiation. The radiation from space increases the risk of cancer, cardiovascular problems, and cognitive impairment and slows cell regeneration.

Spending time in space causes bone and muscle loss. Astronauts can slow this down by exercising while on a mission, but some bone and muscle loss is inevitable for now.

As you can see, space exploration takes a toll on human health in many ways. Hence, one can’t help but wonder whether achieving some wealthy entrepreneur’s dream is worth jeopardizing human lives.

One of the worst aspects of space exploration is that the results are never guaranteed. One can invest billions of dollars, hire the best experts, and spend years conducting research, and there could still be no results or ground-breaking discoveries.

So, maybe this money, time, and resources could be redirected to something else where the results could be more likely to benefit humanity.

We’ve placed this in both the pros and the cons. Why? While discovering extraterrestrial life would be significant, there’s no way of knowing whether this would be good or bad. We can’t say if the potential extraterrestrial life forms are peaceful. They may have the power to destroy our entire planet, so many who believe there’s life out there say exploring space is like poking a bear.

Some support private space exploration, while others argue it wastes time and valuable resources. Either way, it seems this industry is here to stay, so it’s best to focus on the positive aspects and accept this shift towards the private sector. Although dangerous and unpredictable, private space exploration may be the path toward exciting new discoveries.

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The Atlantic Daily: Welcome to the Era of Private Space Travel

A rich man went to space and back in 11 minutes.

Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.

This is what spaceflight looks like now: A rich person with a dream (and an enormous amount of cash to burn) doesn’t wait for NASA to call, but instead self-launches beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

Richard Branson’s and Jeff Bezos’s recent respective trips to space might very well be the opening acts to a new era defined by rich-guy space ambitions.

Once, our space icons were disciplined pilots like Neil Armstrong. Now they’re “the powerful owners of private companies, who have infused space travel with their own personal narratives and idiosyncratic ambitions,” our space reporter, Marina Koren noted this spring .

Bezos knows who bought his trip. At a press conference following the flight, he thanked Amazon employees and customers for paying his way. “We live in the world Bezos built,” Marina writes from the launch site in Texas. “In that sense, as he floated over the Earth, taking in the beautiful view, he was surveying his kingdom, and adding one more dimension to his realm.”

Space-keen billionaires picked a weird time to be so showy. “Leaving Earth right now isn’t just bad optics; it’s almost a scene out of a twisted B-list thriller,” Shannon Stirone argued earlier this month.

They’re reopening debates about who gets called an astronaut. “If astronauts become synonymous with billionaires, our lofty view of them is bound to come back down to Earth,” Marina writes.

Next stop: the moon. Bezos is still squabbling with Elon Musk and NASA over a contract to provide the technology to land Americans on the lunar surface.

What to read if … you are concerned about America’s stalled vaccination campaign:

At this point, there may be only one tragic path forward, Daniel Engber argues.

Today’s Atlantic -approved activity:

HBO’s Hacks is “ a rom-com that is dedicated to the romance of work ,” Megan Garber writes.

A break from the news:

R.I.P. the carbon tax.

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!

SpaceX makes history with first all-civilian spaceflight

SpaceX has made history. Again.

The spaceflight company founded by the billionaire Elon Musk launched four private  passengers into orbit Wednesday on the first mission to space with an all-civilian crew .

A reusable Falcon 9 rocket carrying Jared Isaacman, a 38-year-old tech entrepreneur, Sian Proctor, a 51-year-old geoscientist, Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old aerospace data engineer, and Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old physician assistant, lifted off shortly after 8 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The four-person crew will now spend three days in orbit around Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s not the first time that private passengers have paid to fly in space, but the so-called Inspiration4 mission is the first expedition into orbit without any professional astronauts on board. The historic flight represents the next stage in the evolution of human spaceflight, as access to the cosmos expands beyond just governments and their space agencies.

“The door is wide open,” Isaacman said as he and his crew members reached space.

SpaceX's rocket roared into the night sky from the same launch pad as NASA's Apollo moon missions, as well as the first and last space shuttle flights. During their ascent into orbit, the crew members celebrated excitedly and flashed thumbs-up signs as they cleared each major milestone.

Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, a Pennsylvania-based payment processing company, paid an unspecified amount for the three-day joyride in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. The Inspiration4 mission is part of a charity initiative to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In addition to giving $100 million to St. Jude, Isaacman donated the three other seats on the Inspiration4 flight to his crew members.

“This dream began 10 months ago,” Isaacman said Tuesday in a preflight briefing. “We set out from the start to deliver a very inspiring message, certainly what can be done up in space and the possibilities there, but also what we can accomplish here on Earth.”

The Crew Dragon spacecraft will circle the planet 15 times each day from an altitude of nearly 360 miles, higher than the current orbits of the space station and the Hubble Space Telescope, according to SpaceX.

The Inspiration4 mission will resemble SpaceX’s routine flights to the International Space Station, except this time, the capsule will not dock at the orbiting lab. As such, the company added a new glass dome to the top of the spacecraft for 360-degree views.

NASA was quick to congratulate the Inspiration4 team Wednesday, tweeting that the launch "represents a significant milestone in the quest to make space for everybody."

The successful launch of the Inspiration4 mission is a key milestone for SpaceX and a boon for the burgeoning space tourism industry. Two months ago, rival billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson both launched to the edge of space in vehicles developed by their own respective aerospace companies. Though both flights over the summer were suborbital jaunts, both Bezos’ Blue Origin and Branson’s Virgin Galactic are planning to offer orbital joyrides for space tourists in the future.

These pioneering flights — for now, limited to those who can afford to spend millions of dollars on a ticket — could accelerate the expansion of private spaceflight, making trips to space more regular, and eventually more affordable.

The first space tourist, American multimillionaire Dennis Tito, launched to the International Space Station on an eight-day expedition in 2001. Tito reportedly paid $20 million to fly to the orbiting outpost aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Until now, only seven civilians, including Tito, had paid to fly in space.

Arceneaux, a bone cancer survivor now works  at St. Jude; Sembroski is a U.S. Air Force veteran; and Proctor is a licensed pilot and former NASA astronaut candidate.

Proctor secured her ticket to space through an online contest conducted by Shift4 Payments and Sembroski won his seat in a charity drive to raise money for St. Jude. 

The crew members have called their journey a “humanitarian mission,” and have spoken about how they hope to inspire people around the world. 

“I want to thank everyone for all the support, encouragement, and love,” Arceneaux tweeted Wednesday , mere hours before the launch. “And thank you to @StJude for being the reason I’m here today. This is for everyone who’s ever been through something difficult, and I know we all have. Hold onto hope because there WILL be better days.”

The Inspiration4 mission is just the start of SpaceX’s ambitions to launch paying customers into orbit. Earlier this year, the company announced that the first private space station crew, led by former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, will launch to the orbiting lab in early 2022. López-Alegría will be joined by three men who are each paying $55 million to spend eight days at the space station.

In 2018, SpaceX also said Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, founder and CEO of the fashion retailer Zozo, would be the first private passenger to fly around the moon on a mission that is planned for sometime in 2023.

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on general science and climate change.

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The Privatization of Space: When Things Go Wrong

A few weeks ago, Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket carrying an unmanned Dragon capsule destined for the International Space Station (ISS) exploded.

The explosion was likely caused by a failed  strut . In October of last year, Orbital Sciences had a rocket destined for the ISS explode for unrelated reasons, just after they were awarded a $1.9 billion  contract  with NASA. In the wake of these incidents, it may be time to assess the implications of private sector involvement in state-sponsored space programs.

Over the past few years, private companies such as Space X and Virgin Galactic have been hailed as the new major players in space. Indeed, they are effectively changing how space exploration is conducted and how related technology is developed and implemented. From an operational point of view, private companies are able to implement decisions and fund projects much faster than most governments can.

These companies have been able to complete missions that only governments had been able to previously, and have garnered major contracts with NASA. But although this takes pressure off of governments and introduces a more competitive environment for space-related innovation, outsourcing government projects can lead to complications, or at the very least, a shift in how space exploration is conducted.

The most cited benefit of the shift to private space exploration is cost. These companies must bid for NASA contracts, which lowers the taxpayer cost of these missions, as some research and development R&D costs are absorbed by the company.  Governments and private companies also function differently in terms of the different interest groups to whom they are responsible. NASA is beholden to the government and the taxpayer, while private companies must deal with a more complex web of investors/shareholders, the bottom line, and the need to keep a secure contract.  Yet with these benefits, there are new challenges that must be addressed; perhaps the greatest of which is “what happens when something goes wrong”? Rocket missions and space travel are inherently difficult and risky; it’s only a matter of time before this becomes a bigger issue.

Government space programs are no strangers to failed launches, or to  human casualties . In fact, the only space  program  which has no known casualties to date is China’s. Private companies have yet to amass significant casualties, with the only death occurring during a failed Virgin Galactic  test flight  in 2014. But because that flight was not part of a mission to the ISS and was not tied to any government contract, the implications were different. If an astronaut from NASA were killed in a launch orchestrated by a private company, there may be far-reaching effects both for NASA and for the company in question.

As aforementioned, governments are most likely not held accountable to the same degree as private companies are, as a government can control to some degree how transparent it wants to be. Furthermore, because there were no alternatives to government space programs, accidents were seen to some degree as par for the course. For instance, while the Challenger and Columbia disasters affected NASA’s operations (including an over two year hiatus form launching shuttles), it did not halt the space program. By comparison, private companies actually have a far more difficult set of issues to face in the case of a mishap. In a worst case scenario, a private company could make an easy scapegoat if ever a government’s legitimacy were to be threatened due to a mishap.

So far, Space X has had a practically flawless track record: under contract with NASA, it has already made seven trips to the ISS. NASA has a strong vested interest in these companies, even geopolitically speaking, as they end the Russian  monopoly  in supplying the ISS. Space X plans on sending humans to space in 2017, and NASA has publicly  said  that this last incident will not hinder that goal.

So far, so good. While these companies remain private, they still have to answer to their investors, and to governments, but otherwise have quite a large amount of freedom. What will happen when they go on the market? Overnight, the company would have to  answer to its shareholders and function in a very different dynamic. The bottom line for a company is arguably more intensely scrutinized than where a government is investing its tax dollars. Given the benefits of private space exploration, it would behoove the government to stand behind such companies when things do go wrong. Whether in the form of subpar profits or launch explosions, the government should remain supportive of these companies. Either way, the shift to using private companies is well underway, and both companies and governments have a lot to gain from such a partnership. Still, it is important to forsee the change in dynamic that will undoubtedly occur once the going gets tough.

This article  originally  appeared on the  ISN Blog .

Professor Nayef Al-Rodhan is a philosopher, neuroscientist, and geostrategist. He is Honorary Fellow, St. Antony's College, Oxford University, United Kingdom, Director of GCSP's Geopolitics and Global Futures Department, Switzerland, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London, United Kingdom, Member of the Global Future Council on Frontier Risks at the World Economic Forum, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). In 2014, he was voted as one of the Top 30 most influential Neuroscientists in the world, in 2017, he was named amongst the Top 100 geostrategists in the World, and in 2022, he was named as one of the Top 50 influential researchers whose work could shape 21st-century politics and policy.

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Petition to Build a Real Star Trek Enterprise Engages Sci-Fi and Space Enthusiasts

Posted: May 14, 2024 | Last updated: May 14, 2024

In a bold call to action reminiscent of science fiction's grandest dreams, a petition seeking to prompt the White House to commission a feasibility study for building a real-life version of the Starship Enterprise from the "Star Trek" series has stirred the imaginations of enthusiasts nationwide.

Despite failing to garner the required 25,000 signatures in 2013, the ambitious concept, championed by an engineer known as BTE Dan, casts a lingering spell over those captivated by the convergence of science, technology, and the timeless allure of space exploration.

The initial petition, which was launched through the White House's official "We the People" portal, aimed to lay the groundwork for what could be humanity's first gigawatt-class interplanetary spaceship capable of providing artificial gravity.

BTE Dan's vision was not only to create a vessel that doubled as a space station and port but also to inspire a new generation of spacefarers by taking on ambitious missions like establishing the first permanent base on Mars.

Despite the setback in signature gathering, the continued advancement of technology in areas such as artificial intelligence, privatized space exploration, and planned missions to Mars suggests that the dream of space travel akin to that in "Star Trek" is inching closer to reality.

The proposed Enterprise would not be a mere novelty but a beacon of progress, with the potential to house up to one thousand crew members and visitors.

The design, as detailed on BuildTheEnterprise.org, included extensive and conceptual specifications, embracing the iconic form of the Constitution-Class vessel as seen on screen, but with a practical, functional twist for real-world application.

While BTE Dan's proposal might seem a leap for current capabilities—especially considering that no technology for artificial gravity exists to date, and the record number of occupants for a space vehicle stands at just 13—it resonates with the grand tradition of dreaming big in American space endeavors.

It is a tradition shared by 100 Year Starship, a venture initiated with backing from NASA and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that similarly seeks to achieve interstellar flight within the coming century.

The petition stands as a testament to the enduring power of science fiction to inspire real-world innovation, reflecting a deep-seated human desire to reach beyond our planetary confines and venture into the vastness of space.

As BTE Dan expressed, the building of such a ship in space would captivate public interest and could stimulate a resurgence in the study of STEM subjects.

The fate of the Enterprise petition diverged starkly from another science fiction-inspired campaign, which called for the creation of a Death Star akin to the formidable space station in the "Star Wars" saga.

That petition exceeded the signature threshold and elicited an official—if not serious—response from the White House.

Reflecting on the petition system, BTE Dan lamented the tendency for emotionally charged issues to dominate, calling for a reevaluation that might allow for more substantive proposals to emerge. He suggested that lengthening the petition signature window could provide such opportunities.

The yearning for a real-life Starship Enterprise may have to wait for another era, perhaps until the fictional timeline of 2063 draws closer, when "Star Trek" lore predicts the invention of the warp drive by Zefram Cochrane.

Relevant articles: - The White House Was Once Petitioned To Build A Real Star Trek Starship Enterprise , Giant Freakin Robot - Engineer Petitions White House for Real-Life Starship Enterprise , Space.com - Engineer Petitions The White House To Build The Starship Enterprise , DigitalOcean - It's dead, Jim: White House petition to build Starship Enterprise fizzles , NBC News

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