When are the first 'regular' space tourist commercial flights actually due to start?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 12 Aug, 2023
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Virgin Galactic is now saying it will be in 2013 ( http://m.engadget.com/2012/07/15/richard-branson-confirms-virgin-galactics-first-space-tourism-f/ and http://www.virgingalactic.com/news/item/xxx/ ) and $200,000 per person. I have no affiliation; a friend of mine is on the waiting list. As http://www.virgingalactic.com/booking/ explains, your choices are to pay the entire refundable amount up front and be sure of a seat on the first flight (thus becoming one of the first thousand people in space, since about 500 people have been on NASA or Soviet missions and a little over 500 are on this list), or pay $20,000 and join the waiting list.
Space tourism has been taking place since 2001
The first real space tourist1 was Dennis Tito, spending a week on the ISS in mid-2001. The trip cost him about $20 million US and was organized by Space Adventures, who organized a total of 8 trips for 7 tourists (Charles Simonyi went twice) to the ISS between 2001 and 2009. All trips were made aboard Soyuz-TMA spacecraft. The most recent trips cost around $30-$35 million US. The program is currently on hold, but set to resume next year:
On January 12, 2011, Space Adventures and the Russian Federal Space Agency announced that orbital space tourism would resume in 2013 with the increase of manned Soyuz launches to the ISS from four to five per year.
1 The term “space tourist” is disputable.
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