“Affordable” Space Tourism

September 9, 2012 in Daily Bulletin

Ever wanted to travel to space? It turns out that you have several options available, all catered towards whatever price range you may be looking at. Jesse McKinley reported:

  • For $150 million one company promises to send you to the dark side of the moon by 2017.
  • The budget conscious can go up 60 miles in a two hour flight which includes five minutes of weightlessness for $200,000.
  • If you don’t want to go that low, you can spend $50 million to make a trip to the International Space Station.
  • The space industry is already beginning to see the kind of price competition that might make space trips (relatively) more affordable. Some upstart challengers are promising to cut costs by more than half.
  • The sudden interest in space flights doesn’t come just from advances in technology. There are very few unexplored places left to go on earth and space is the next frontier. There is a primal animal drive – for males especially – to prove their manhood by doing remarkable things. Perhaps this is why 77% of the space customers of one company are male.

Read more about the future of this industry and the various competitors that are trying to dominate the market over here.

Source: The New York Times