What is Space Tourism?
Space tourism is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: tourism in space. Space tourists book tickets on spacecraft to get a chance to experience space for themselves, on trips of varying durations. On suborbital spacecraft, for example, a space tourist might get only a few minutes in space, just enough time to experience weightlessness and get a taste for space, while other space tourists book tickets on orbital flights, traveling into space for hours or days at a time. As of 2008, space tourism was largely hypothetical, but the groundwork to turn it into a major industry was being laid. Humans have long been interested in space, and when manned spaceflights began launching in the mid-20th century, a number of people got very excited about the potential for space tourism. Several nations expressed an interest as well, with savvy governments and companies realizing that space tourism could be quite profitable, when handled well. It was Russia which propelled space tourism from an int
Space Tourism is the term that’s come to be used to mean ordinary members of the public buying tickets to travel to space and back. Many people find this idea futuristic. But over the past few years a growing volume of professional work has been done on the subject, and it’s now clear that setting up commercial space tourism services is a realistic target for business today. The first steps will just be short sub-orbital flights, like Alan Shepard made in 1961, since these are easier than getting to orbit. But the technical know-how to make passenger launch vehicles and orbiting hotel accommodation is available, and there is enormous unsatisfied demand – market research has revealed that most people, at least in the industrialized countries, would like to take a trip to space if it was possible. This gives huge scope for reducing the cost of space travel by large-scale operation like airlines. The main obstacle is simply the conservatism of the space industry as it is today. Since Sput
