First Indian space tourist completes flight: What are sub-orbital trips?

The passengers – among them a 90-year-old American – got to experience weightlessness for a few minutes and observe Earth from a height.

Forever changed. #NS25 pic.twitter.com/g0uXLabDe9

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) May 19, 2024

Space travel begins at about 100 km altitude from Earth, after crossing the so-called Karman line, which is generally considered to be the boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and 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, similar to how most space tourism flights operate.

Are longer journeys possible for space tourists?

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, the permanent space laboratory that goes around the Earth at an altitude of about 400 km.

In fact, the first space tourist was Dennis Tito, an American who paid to travel on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in 2001. He spent over seven days on the International Space Station. Between 2001 and 2009, the Russians took seven tourists to the space station with one of them, Charles Simonyi, travelling twice.

There are plans afoot for having much deeper space trips for interested individuals, potentially to destinations around the Moon, other planets or asteroids. But these are still some time away in the future. For the time being, sub-orbital space flights are the most favoured journeys for space tourism enthusiasts.

Blue Origin, which carried out the latest flight, has taken 37 tourists to space – all of them in suborbital flights. There are about a dozen private space companies offering tourism opportunities. These include established players like Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Axiom Space, Zero Gravity Corporation, and airline companies like Boeing and Airbus.

What are the costs of space tourism?

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, a similar journey on a Virgin Galactic spacecraft, costs about $450,000 (about Rs 3.75 crore).

A journey to the International Space Station 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 it is a market that is predicted to grow rapidly.