Introduction:
If you're interested in space tourism, then you might have heard about Virgin Galactic. It's the largest commercial spaceflight company in the world and they are preparing to take its first paying customers on a trip to suborbital space. Theoretically, they can charge $250,000 per person per flight. But how much do those flights actually cost? Some people talk about it as only $200k but they don't seem to be able to come up with any figures. Thus, I decided to try and find out myself.
Since the moment of history, man has been fascinated by the stars and galaxies. Space travel is often called out as one of humanity's greatest achievements, a spectacular achievement that most of us will never be able to achieve in our lives. But with man's curiosity comes desire — many people dream about being among the first humans to ever fly into space and experience the wonders of space for themselves.
How much does it cost to be a space tourist?
To be a space tourist, you'll need to know what you're getting into. The price tag for the experience includes the cost of your flight into space and back, plus an initial payment of $20 million that covers the services of a Russian cosmonaut who will control your trip.
Once you're up there, you'll have to wait for your Soyuz capsule to dock with the ISS — which could take up to three weeks. Then it's off to orbit!
The cost of traveling to space is one of the most hotly debated topics in the history of space exploration. NASA has estimated that a roundtrip ticket on a Soyuz rocket from Moscow to the International Space Station will cost $51 million (about £35 million) and that the average tourist would be spending about $200,000 for their trip.
However, this does not take into account any additional costs such as travel insurance. There are also many more variables that could affect the final price tag: how much time you spend in space, whether you want to wait until your return flight before eating or sleeping, and what kind of hotels you choose.
There are many companies that offer private space tours, but they're not cheap. A trip to the International Space Station (ISS) will cost you between $69 million dollars and $150 million dollars. If you want to go up into orbit aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, you'll have to pay $56 million dollars.
Private space tourism is currently very expensive, but it's not just about the price tag for these trips — it's about the experience of being in space. The Hubble Space Telescope, for example, cost $1 billion dollars when it was launched in 1990. That same amount would buy a lot of pizza today and still leave plenty on the table for your next flight in a Soyuz capsule.
Conclusion:
As you can see, it is not too expensive to become a space tourist. Most of these costs are simply funding the training of the would-be space tourist so that they are prepared for a trip into space; this training is an equally important step as building a rocket capable of sending humans into orbit. In fact, it could even be argued that it is more important, as NASA has already shown that it can build rockets capable of reaching low Earth orbit (LEO), but has not sent people further out past LEO since the Apollo moon landings in the 1960s and 1970s. However, all of this does depend on whether or not you are someone who meets all of the requirements for being applied to go on a space tourist mission—and if you do, though, it's more likely than ever that you will set foot on worlds outside of our planet within your lifetime.