Tourists who have lost their way to Spaceport America in the middle of the New Mexico desert in recent years have been able to look at the gigantic runway in the middle of nowhere, and be shaken upside down in a rotating device in the futuristic terminal building designed by the architect Norman Foster and – with a lot of luck – spot the Virgin Galactic carrier aircraft. That’s it.
The system has been ready for ten years and Virgin boss Richard Branson actually wanted to start the first flight for space tourists there in 2013, but technical problems and a fatal crash during a test flight in 2014 delayed the project. So far there have been test starts, rocket competitions or a balloon flight. But soon things could really get going for all-tourists. In any case, the demand is there. According to earlier information, Branson already has around 600 advance registrations for a short trip into space. And now the price of a ticket into suborbital space is likely to continue to rise. So far there has been talk of about $ 250,000 that amateur astronauts have to pay to be able to experience the view of the earth weightlessly for a few minutes.
However, Branson is likely to become Virgin Galactic’s first space tourist. On Friday night he did a short Video announced that they want to fly with five other crew members on the next test flight on July 11th. “I’ve been waiting to fly into space since the moon landing, and now I’m itching to fly,” he recently told the magazine Fortune. For the mission, he poses as “Astronaut 001” in the video and says: “I’ve always been a dreamer. My mother told me I should never give up and reach for the stars. This July our dream will come true.”
Who is first in space?
If it did, Branson would have beaten his rivals Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Actually, he had only wanted to be part of the Virgin Galactic test flight but one. At the beginning of June, however, Bezos announced that he would fly into space with his brother on the first astronaut flight of his rocket company Blue Origin on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the first manned moon landing. In addition to an as yet unknown $ 28 million auction winner, the 82-year-old former US pilot Wally Funk is said to be boarding the spaceship in Texas. Funk was part of the Nasa women’s selection “Mercury 13” in the 1960s, but was never allowed to fly into space. Reason enough for Branson to reschedule to become first in space among the three space billionaires.
If Branson and Bezos come back safely to earth, other tourists can soon get on board – the travel season would be open. In a tweet, Branson announces great things: “When we return from space, I will announce something very exciting to give more people the chance to become astronauts. Because space belongs to all of us.” So both Branson and Bezos stage themselves with verve for the history books to put Musk in the shade.
Its rocket manufacturer Space-X plays in a completely different league anyway. After all, he is already flying crew and cargo feeders to the ISS space station and is planning moon flights. The other two are not that far yet: Virgin Galactic has already sent its own astronauts into space by the minute on three test flights since 2018, but only to suborbital space. Jeff Bezos’ rocket New Shepard has been there several times – but without a crew.
So Branson could acquire the astronaut badge next Sunday, even if he only floats a few minutes at an altitude of about 90 kilometers in the capsule. For the air sports association Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, space only begins at an altitude of 100 kilometers, but the US space agency NASA draws this limit at 80 kilometers. Bezos has once been unable to resist a swipe: He advertises that his space tourists will fly to an altitude of 106 kilometers to ensure that they also get the badge.
Successful test flight in May: The carrier aircraft “VMS Eve” disengaged the actual spaceship “VSS Unity”.
(Photo: Virgin Galactic / Reuters)
Both the Bezos astronaut capsule and the VSS Unity von Branson each have space for a crew of six people – for the suborbital flight. Elon Musk, who would like to fly to Mars one day, will only smile tiredly. His company Space-X wants its new one in 2023 Starship bring the first tourist to the moon. The Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa wants to spend a week with eight companions to the earth’s satellite, orbit it several times and then fly back to earth. Cost: unknown.
Space-X would also like to put private individuals into orbit. A premiere is already planned for mid-September: Then the first purely private astronaut mission ever called “Inspiration 4”, which is financed by the US billionaire, entrepreneur and pilot Jared Isaacman, is to start. Together with a doctor, a geoscientist and pilot, and an aeronautical engineer, he wants to orbit the earth for three days and advertise a fundraising campaign for a children’s hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. The goal is a runway height of 540 kilometers – further away than the ISS. Scientific experiments are also planned during the flight. “We were founded with the idea of making life multi-planetary,” said Space-X manager Benji Reed. This mission is a further step in this direction.
Investors have also become aware of space tourism a long time ago. Especially since Virgin Galactic has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since October 2019. The paper started at around twelve dollars and is now worth four times as much. Canaccord Genuity analyst Ken Herbert is optimistic about the new industry in view of a million potential customers worldwide: “We believe that the market could be worth eight billion dollars by 2030.”
One company even offers a space walk
At least private flights to the ISS could soon become routine, according to industry estimates for around $ 55 million per person. The Texan space travel agency Axiom Space is planning four missions to the space station, in the Space-X capsule. In the medium term, Axiom also wants to operate its own space station in earth orbit. The first Axiom flight in January 2022 at the earliest is an eight-day private science mission with four passengers. The ISS is slowly developing into a new outpost for researchers. On the second flight in autumn, the winner of a TV show is supposed to fly.
Also the US company Space Adventures, which at the beginning of the century with the Russian Soyuz flew the first tourists to the ISS, at that time for 20 to 35 million dollars according to industry information, signed contracts with Space-X and the Russian space company Energija for ISS flights – for the Russians even including a spacewalk. In December, the Japanese billionaire Yusaka Maezawa wants one Soyuz fly to the ISS. Apparently he can’t wait for his already booked Space X flight to the moon. “I’m so curious about life in space,” Maezawa said. He will probably not meet the actress Yulia Peresild there again, she wants to shoot the first feature film on the space station in October. Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise also wants to be in front of the camera at some point, in the space industry, autumn 2022 is now the date for the ten-day shoot on the ISS.
… private astronauts have to pay for food and drinks on the ISS space station – per day. The fact that the ISS becomes a target for private missions is also in the interest of NASA, which set usage fees in 2019 in order to use the ISS more commercially. In addition to the flight costs, private astronauts initially had to estimate $ 35,000 per day – for food and accommodation. In the spring, NASA raised prices so as not to pay more, as it argues. Crew time alone to support private astronauts now costs $ 5.2 million per mission. In addition, there is a lump sum of $ 4.8 million for mission planning, communications and docking costs for the spaceship. An hour of additional crew time now costs $ 130,000 instead of $ 17,500. Freight and provision of food and personal equipment up to $ 164,000 per day. Nasa transports other cargo, such as measuring devices or film cameras, to the ISS for $ 20,000 per kilo – and back to $ 40,000. It costs half to dispose of garbage on earth. ds