Space tourism is a growing industry. Experts from the UBS agency announced that in 2030 the space tourism market will reach $ 3 billion. This is a relatively modest estimate, since now the number of companies that are ready to send people into space is gradually increasing. He talks about market participants ...
Space travel as an idea has existed for a long time, but private business and state corporations have begun to implement this idea quite recently.
Space Adventures is an industry pioneer
This is the first company that was able to agree with state corporations and space agencies on the launch of not professional astronauts into space, but ordinary people who wanted to go to space.
For several years of its existence, the company has organized 8 flights into space - namely, to the ISS. At the moment, a flight to the ISS is the maximum package for a tourist. Space Adventures has signed contracts with Roscosmos, SpaceX, Boeing and some other companies.
The company currently plans to send two tourists to the International Space Station. They will fly on a Russian ship. Two years later, two more people will be sent there, one of whom is going to go into outer space with the support of a professional cosmonaut.
Long-term plans include the organization of flights to the Moon. At the moment, this is no longer a fantasy, but real plans. Space tourists will be sent on a flight along a trajectory that runs a few hundred kilometers from the surface of the Moon.
NASA
The National Space Agency is actively engaging private business in cooperation, so the agency should not be ignored. Two years ago, NASA announced the opening of its own section on the ISS. The section, according to the plan, will be used by space tourists; it is also planned to hold business events here.
The agency allows tourists to stay in orbit for up to one month. It is planned to send people to the ISS by means of the Crew Dragon and CST-100 Starliner spacecraft.
The cost of the travel package in this case is $ 58 million.
Spacex
In addition to NASA and Roscosmos, this is the only organization, moreover, a private one, who is already sending people into space. Elon Musk's company delivered a team of astronauts to the ISS in November last year.
SpaceX is now planning to launch regular flights into orbit. True, we are not talking about the ISS, space lovers will be sent into near-earth space for only a few hours.
By 2023, the same company plans to send a Japanese man named Yusaka Maezawa on a flight around the moon. This is a famous entrepreneur, billionaire. He will not fly into space himself, but with the people for whom he bought seats on the SpaceX spacecraft. He will not take friends with him, but the winners of the qualifying round, which will be held on Twitter.
The cost of a low-orbit flight from SpaceX is about $ 20,000. The flight to the Moon will cost much more - several tens of millions of US dollars.
Blue origin
Amazon owner Jeff Bezos is consistently developing his own space company. It will work exclusively for the benefit of space tourists. The New Shepard rocket will not fly to the ISS, it will fly to an altitude of no more than 100 km.
The rocket is now undergoing testing to demonstrate the reliability of the New Shepard. For the development of space tourism, the reliability of transport is one of the fundamental factors.
Virgin galactic
This company has chosen its own path of development. She plans to launch space tourists into space using a special high-altitude aircraft, rather than a rocket. It is lifted to a height of several kilometers by another apparatus - in fact, a very large plane. And then from this flying airfield the second device rises into near space.
Space tourists will have only a few hours to admire space and feel weightlessness.
The cost of the flight is $ 250,000.
Prosto Cosmos
It is a private Russian space tourism company that, through contracts with space agencies, organizes the sending of people to the ISS.
The company's first space tourist plans to go on an excursion to near-earth space in 2025. Now the company conducts tours to sensitive facilities, including cosmodromes.
In 2019, the company was engaged in ground escort of the Arab cosmonaut Khazal Mansuri before sending him into space.
For a space tourist, the cost of Prosto Cosmos will range from $ 40 million to $ 50 million.
Other companies
This list includes those organizations that are just planning to start working in the space tourism industry and do not yet have the necessary base. Among them:
- Orion Spain — , . 12 . — $9,5.
- — , , — . — $200 .
- World View Enterprises — , , Virgin Galactic , .
- Zero 2 Infinity — , .
Most likely, in the near future, other companies will appear that will offer travel to space for tourists. There are more and more opportunities for this activity, so the industry is developing - and, most likely, the development will be even more active than experts predict.