Have you ever fantasied about traveling to an exciting exotic destination where none of your friends have visited before you? If so, you probably noticed that are almost no options left: from the evolving countries of the Far East to remote areas in Africa – it seems like everyone has already gone everywhere and there is nothing to explore… Well, at least not on earth. In the future, we will have a chance to explore a whole new type of adventurous vacations – space tourism.
The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) defines tourists as people “traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure and not less than 24 hours, business and other purposes”.
The first evidence for tourism can be found in Egypt, from about 1500 B.C. Later on, in ancient Greece, travelling for pleasure became more popular among the rich, which led to the establishment of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – the world's first “must see” list of remarkable constructions.
Up until the 19th century, tourism was the domain of the adventurous rich, as traveling into other countries was extremely dangerous and expensive. Only a few did so for pleasure, and not for military, religious or commercial reasons.
Nowadays, tourism has become one of the world’s most important economic activities. According to UNWTO, it’s the world's fastest growing economic sectors: in 2017, the number of worldwide tourists reached 1.341 Billion and the worldwide tourism revenue reached 1.34 Trillion dollars.
One of the characteristics of this booming industry is the quest for renewals. Alongside the constant growth in numbers, the popular destinations have become very crowded and people are desperately looking for unique destinations where they can escape the crowds and feel something authentic. It was only a matter of time until people decided that earth is simply not big enough.
The first space tourist
Since the establishment of the International Space Station (ISS), NASA strongly opposed any initiative for space tourism, stating that an unskilled passenger might harm the safety of the astronauts building the station as well as their own. This principle objection held up until June 2001, when financial pressures led NASA to open the ISS gates to paying space tourists.
Dennis Tito, an American engineer and multimillionaire, is considered to be the world's first space tourist. In 2001, Tito payed $20 Million to an American company named Space Adventures to take him on a trip into outer space. Tito spent eight days in as a crew member of ISS.
Since then, Space Adventures has flown 6 more space tourists. Each of them had to go through an extensive space training program that lasted several months. Not an easy walk in the park, but then again – a small price to pay in order to “reach for the starts”.
The race for the stars
The exciting possibilities of this new evolving domain has drawn the attention of several well-known figures. Blue Origin is a spaceflight company founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon. The company is developing technologies to enable private human access to space with the goal to dramatically lower costs and increase reliability. While the company had a successful test flight last year, it has not yet started selling tickets for this flight carrying passengers.
In 2004, Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic - a spaceflight company within the Virgin Group that is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights. On December 2018, Virgin Galactic’s flight reached an altitude of 82.7 km (51.4 miles), which is technically considered to be outer space by US standards.
In February 2017, Elon Musk announced that his spaceflight company, SpaceX, will fly 2 space tourists on a trip around the moon by the end of 2018. Later on, he updated his prediction and said that the moon orbiting flight will happen in 2024. It’s important to note that if this indeed does happen, it will be the first time in 50 year that any man has flown into deep space.
According to optimistic predictions, about 500 people will become space tourists during the next several years. It may seem like an insignificant number, but it’s quite impressive if we take into account the fact that up until 2013, only 534 people have traveled to space in all of mankind's history. There is no doubt that we are only in the beginning of an era and that with time prices will drop dramatically - and it doesn’t end with spaceflights.
The first space hotel
In the beginning of 2018, the Trump Administration declared that they intend to end the direct federal government support of the ISS by 2025. Later that year, the Aurora Space Station was announced - a technology concept for a private commercial space station in low Earth orbit.
Frank Bunger, the company's founder and CEO, stated that the Aurora Station would offer space tourists a 12-day stay for $9.5 million – about half the price Dennis Tito paid for his trip.
The company has stated that this commercial station is planned to be deployed in low Earth orbit in 2021, and start to receive passengers in 2022. Travelers will be required to complete a three-month training program before launch.
Aurora is not the first initiative for a space hotel, and it’s not clear what exactly its chances for success are. Nevertheless, its founders are very serious about it and we will probably see more space hotels initiatives in the future.
16 sunrises and sunsets in 24 hours
So what is so exciting about outer space? For start, this is the only place from which you can see planet earth with your own eyes. When only 66 % of 18- to 24-year-olds in the U.S. are confident that the world is round, space travel may be found to be very educating…
For those who just love watching sunrises and sunsets – they will probably be delighted to know that they can see one every 90 minutes while out there. For others, maybe the zero gravity will appeal mostly.
But above all, the main reason to want to travel to space is simply because it’s there. We can’t help it - it’s in our nature to want to try new things and explore new places.
It’s all about the money
The main advantage of the transition of the space industry into private initiatives is the costs reduction. The Apollo program, for example, which succeeded in landing the first men on the moon in 1969, cost $25.4 billion back then – equivalent to $112 billion of 2018. No other nation or entity in the world, apart from the US government, was ever been able to invest such a huge amount of money – especially not in a project without any clear short term gain.
This is one of the reasons why projects like Space IL aroused such a great interest among the global community. With a relatively tiny budget of $100 million, this private organization aspired to land an unmanned spaceship on the moon. Recently, SpaceIL failed their first attempt as its lander “Beresheet” crashed, yet two days after the failed attempt to soft land on the Moon, SpaceIL announced plans for a second attempt, Beresheet-2.
When the sky is not the limit
The future of space tourism doesn’t lie only in short trips around earth – this is only the beginning. In the future, space travel and space tourism are expected to evolve, and destinations that seem impossible today will become within reach. It will probably still be very expensive, and a trip to Mars will still take at least 6 months, but still – technically possible.
In conclusion
How does a long trip to Mars sound to you? Or maybe you are more into the mystery of Venus, or the rings of Saturn? If these options sound interesting to you, you should start saving money. If you won’t save enough, you could spend the weekend in a nice space hotel. As they say: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars".