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On Sunday (May 19), India-born aviator and commercial pilot Gopi Thotakura along with five other space tourists became the latest set of individuals to make a short recreational trip to space. Thotakura, who is based in the United States, is the first space tourist from India but about 50 others have made such trips, most of them in the last three years.
Thotakura flew aboard a spacecraft of Blue Origin, one of the few private space companies offering a joy ride to people wanting to venture into space. The whole journey, from take off to landing lasted only about ten minutes, during which the spacecraft attained a maximum height of about 105 km from the Earth. The passengers — among them a 90-year-old American — got to experience weightlessness for a few minutes and observe the Earth from a height.
It was one of the shortest and quickest trips to space. Space travel begins at about 100 km altitude from Earth, after crossing the so-called Karman line, which is widely accepted as the boundary line separating the Earth’s atmosphere from outer space. Anything flying below this altitude is called an aircraft while those crossing this line get classified as a spacecraft.
Thotakura’s journey was what is called a sub-orbital space flight. The spacecraft did not get into an orbit around the Earth. It crossed the Karman line, stayed there for some time, and then descended back to Earth. Most space tourism flights on offer are of this nature only.
Longer journeys
But longer joy rides in space are also available. Space tourists have orbited around the Earth, and even spent a few days on the International Space Station (ISS), the permanent space laboratory that goes around the Earth at an altitude of about 400 km.
In fact, the first space tourist, Dennis Tito, an American who paid to travel on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in 2001, spent over seven days on the ISS. Between 2001 and 2009, the Russians took seven tourists to the space station, and one of them, Charles Simonyi, travelled twice.
However, there was a lull in private space tourism after 2009, till the year 2021 when suddenly it became hyperactive.
Three of the leading players in private space tourism — Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and SpaceX — executed their first missions in 2021. Within 10 days of each other in July of that year, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin launched their respective bosses — Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos — into space. Both these flights were suborbital missions, lasting a few minutes just above the boundary line of space, giving their passengers, four of them on each spacecraft, an experience of weightlessness.
SpaceX did not have a mission of its own, but its Crew Dragon spacecraft was chartered by billionaire Jared Issacman to go into space. Issacman and his three co-passengers circled the Earth for three days, becoming the first set of people to orbit the Earth without the help of professional astronauts.
That same year Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, and two others, boarded the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to reach the ISS where they spent 12 days.
These first flights, which were used either by the owners of the space companies or were chartered by other billionaires, opened up space tourism for anyone willing to pay. Virgin Galactic carried its first paying customers in August last year. Blue Origin has executed seven such flights till now, carrying 37 tourists in all.
SpaceX has not had a space tourism flight till now, but it is accepting bookings from interested people, not just for orbital flights or the ISS, but also for journeys around the Moon and Mars. SpaceX is not the only one eyeing deep space manned missions. Almost everyone in the competition is planning to carry people to destinations around the Moon, other planets or asteroids. But these are still some distance away in the future.
These missions, and even those going into an orbit around the Earth or to the ISS, require sophisticated training, much like regular astronauts. Passengers opting for sub-orbital flights need to undergo minimal training, which is usually offered as part of the ticket price.
Costs
Blue Origin has not disclosed the price that its latest set of passengers paid for a seat on this journey. But according to space.com website, a similar journey on a Virgin Galactic spacecraft costs about $450,000 (about Rs 3.75 crore). A journey to the ISS is now estimated to cost anything between 20 to 25 million dollars (about Rs 160 to 210 crore). A recent NASA paper mentions that space companies SpaceX and Space Adventures were planning to offer a journey around the Moon for about 70 to 100 million dollars (about Rs 600 to 850 crore).
Clearly, space tourism is accessible to only the super-rich right now. But some other, more affordable options, are also coming up, though these do not exactly qualify to be called space travel. Some balloon companies have been offering high-altitude rides, at heights greater than the flying zones of normal aircraft.
These balloons, with enclosed seating arrangements, take their passengers to altitudes of about 100,000 feet (about 30 km), typically three times higher than those attained by commercial airliners, and cost about $50,000 for six to 12-hour flights. Passengers do not get to experience weightlessness but are able to see the curvature of the Earth.
