Since the first human spaceflight in 1961, it only took 40 years for humans to fly the first commercial customer - Dennis Tito in 2001. Similar to what we consider the birth of human spaceflight, the flight of Yuri Gagarin in April of 1961, we can easily call April of 2001 as the birth date of space tourism.
A company led by a great visionary, made this possible by brokering a deal with Roskosmos - the Russian Space Agency. This company is called Space Adventures and it is currently the only one that has an active, successful private space flight program.
Many have followed the pattern, but it looks like technology needs to take a serious breakthrough to make space tourism affordable to average person. Right now, a handful of companies like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, Rocketplane, and others are developing sub-orbital vehicles that will be capable of crossing the space boundary (officially known to be 100km above the sea level) and returning back to Earth in a matter of few hours if not minutes. This is not exactly going to the International Space Station, but is still considered by many as 'going to space'. Most importantly, when sub-orbital space program takes off, it will be affordable to millions of people. We can only imagine, how different our world will be in maybe 10 years from now!
To be more specific, if you have an extra $20 million to spend - get in touch with Space Adventures, they will arrange your visit to the International Space Station, just like 8 other people have done since 2001. One of their previous clients, Dr. Charles Simoni, has a great website, where he described every step of this great adventure, from training to launch, to landing.
If your budget is a lot less impressive, but still substantial and the only thing you want is to be recognized as an astronaut no matter how high, or how long your space flight was - get in touch with Virgin Galactic. Their program is still a few years away from being properly certified and actually operational, but chances are high that you will fly to space for just $200,000!
Unfortunately, costs are still rather prohibitive for most people, but hey, the Wright brother fly the first ever airplane just 100 years ago and now you don't even think about air travel as something unusual. Let the private space flight industry simmer for a few years; I'm very positive they'll cook something exciting very soon! Space travel is real, and we are witnessing the birth of entirely new industry.
Ad astra!
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Space Travel - how realistic is that? |
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