“Being able to provide for the family is important but when living without recreation, is like a car without gas. It’s stopped and parked waiting to be taking away. So why not give it some gas and take it to a wonderful place.” Said Lian Chin. Of our hectic life schedule, each of us is running behind our jobs or the organizations we work in, forgetting about all the fun and pleasure in our daily lives. The value of adventure amusing us has got no space today in our to-do list. The act of enjoying out of the busy program is itself like to boost up our efficiency to work. There is a long list of exciting and activities we can ensure ourselves to do. One such adventurous activity is space tourism which means human beings traveling into space for entertainment purposes. Let’s understand space tourism at a glance through this blog. you can read more about space tourism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tourism
Space Tourism
It is a well-understood fact that nothing valuable comes easy. Everything starts with lots of hardships to get into the reputation. It was in April 2001, when the spacecraft of Dennis Tito, was launched to outer space. Spaceflight is nothing but a primary launch services provider. They manage your mission to space, offering a journey in a very cost-effective manner. With them, reaching the space has now become a piece of cake. Anyone can easily access the celestial bodies, experiencing heavenly pleasure. One can innovate and benefit from the space viewpoint and can explore beyond our planet. Not only exploration, but space tourism is one of the best activities having much higher economic potential. In 2010, it was reported by the Federal Aviation Administration, that “The Economic Impact of Commercial Space Transportation on the U. S Economy in 2009”, cites studies done by Futron, the aerospace predicting the space tourism to become a billion-dollar market within 20 years.
Some Space Tourism Trips To Date
1. Dennis Tito.
Dennis Tito, a wealthy businessman, was the first fare-paying private citizen to visit the International Space Station. He paid US$20 million for a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The flight took up on 28 April 2021 and landed on 6 may 2021, completing a successful journey of 8 days.
2. Mark Shuttleworth and Gregory Olsen.
After Tito, they M.Shuttleworth and G.Olsen visited the space on April 25, 2002, and October 1, 2005, respectively. They traveled via spacecraft (Soyuz TM-34) and returned to the planet after completing a journey of 10 days.
3. Richard Garriott.
Among certain others, Garriott invested US$30 million to travel via the spacecraft named Soyuz TMA-13 on October 12, 2008, and landed back on earth on October 24, 2008, after 13 days.
4. Guy Laliberté.
G. Laliberté, a Canadian billionaire businessman visited space by spending US$35 million on spacecraft (Soyuz TMA-16). He took the flight up on September 30, 2009, and landed on October 11, 2009, completing 12 days of his space journey.
Some advantages of space tourism.
1. Inspiration for the new generation engineers.
The workplace at spaceport seems like a campus in college, that helps to clarify the relics of space research to the young engineers. Taking the example of Jeremy Voigt, a 26-year old Xcor engineer. Showing one of his rocket engines, he is helping to develop the mass of pipes, wires and valves said “Most engineers sit behind a desk all day, I don’t. I get to come out here in the shop, turn wrenches, and fire rocket engines.” This determination is something, each of the young engineers will develop in themselves, to achieve even more as part of their research that can have equally world-changing effects.
2. Space tourism will become cost-effective.
Currently, a cost upwards of $12 is needed to be invested for launching a satellite. Being extremely expensive to launch, conventional space rockets can be only used once, leaving the limited competition for them. On the other hand, the Virgin spaceplane having a cost of $250,000 per flight and is reusable. Scientific institutions are trying to massively reduce the cost of visiting space which means that we’ll be able to launch any spacecraft or space exploration missions at a very low cost. It would become economically viable for most of the space adventurers.
3. A new viewpoint for our planet.
Changing the view of Earth from outer space has always fascinated the astronauts. So try to evaluate the forthcomings, if we started sending business and political leaders into space and back? It would help change the view of the world in the way it affected astronauts. Also, can provide an opportunity to locate the hazards of the solar system in advance to prepare an encounter that could help to preserve our race.
Some limitations.
Apart from a long list of gains, space tourism may have some detrimental causes to the sustenance of a human being. A few of them are mentioned as follows:
- Chances of tourists getting exposure to natural dangers while visiting the space.
- Requirement of a valid reason to start exploring space on the individual level at this time.
- Creation of a lot of trash surrounding our planet.
Requirements of cost and time.
Both the cost and time for the space tour are dependent on the company’s approach to taking up space and the spacecraft being designed to make the tour possible.
Recent in News.
To take upon a tour to outer space, here are the few companies you should consult and fix your flght that has recently made the rounds across news channels worldwide.
1. Blue Origin.
This company established by Jeff Bezos offers short “suborbital “hops for tourists. It has the new shepherd rocket which takes off vertically and following the detachment of its crew capsules, crosses the Karman line (62 miles, or 100 kilometers, in altitude), and after experiencing the microgravity lands back to earth using three parachutes at Texas dessert. The spacecraft can carry six passengers per flight who are able to unbuckle from their seats to experience a breathtaking view of earth from space. Blue Origin provides you the guidebook namely “ the day before you launch” that mentions everything you need to learn before the journey. On 20 July 2021, Jeff Bezos’s blue origin launched its first space tourism passengers carrying a team of four members along with two pilots.
2. Virgin Galactic.
V.Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, is similar to that of blue origin in some aspects. A massive carrier plane is used by the spacecraft, that takes off from a horizontal runway and drops a rocket-powered spaceplane. As a result, soars to over 50 miles altitude before landing back on the planet. It has a capsule holding capacity of six passengers per flight. As reported by some of the newsletters, Virgin has started its services for regular commercial flights from 2020. On 11 july 2021, Richard Branson, along with his team flew to the edge of space. The flight window for the launch was titled ‘Unity 22 Mission’. Branson holds a 24-percent stake in Virgin Galactic, which is an emerging marketable spacecraft and targets to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. The third Indian-American woman named Sirisha Bandla also joined Branson to the space tour along with four other mission specialists starting their journey from the US state of New Mexico.
