Space Tourism

Ready to book a space flight?

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Courtesy NASA

(This is a slightly different version of a story we prepared for NBC News)

A trip to space has rocketed to the top of travel bucket lists for those who can afford it, after successful suborbital jaunts by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX’s recent launch of four civilians into orbit.

The well-publicized trips are bringing space travel up a notch on an extreme — and pricey — travel menu that already includes adventures such as climbing Mount Everest, skiing in Antarctica, and a wilderness safari in Africa.

“For many extreme adventure travelers, we are there now where space is as accessible as Mount Everest and other places,” said Joshua Bush, CEO of luxury travel agency Avenue Two Travel and an accredited space agent for Virgin Galactic. “It will take a sizeable budget and a lot of planning — but the successful launches this past summer indicate all systems go.”

While many people inquiring about booking space travel are aviation and space enthusiasts, others see this as “the next great adventure to a place fewer than 1,000 people have been to before,” Bush said. “Others see this as the dawn of a new industry and how they, too, can be pioneers.”

“These future astronauts all have unique and personal reasons for going. Their common thread is a passion just to go,” he said.

There are more ways for people to get to space now than ever before, said Geoff Nunn, adjunct curator for Space History at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

“Space is definitely opening up. There are other options for those who might want something more ambitious,” Nunn said, including space tourism company Space Adventures, which books flights to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

For suborbital flight tickets, “Virgin Galactic already has a waiting list of about 600 customers who reserved flights for $250,000. However, the company recently raised its prices to $450,000 a seat, and increased the deposit to $149,000,” Nunn said.

Blue Origin has not yet made its prices public, but the company auctioned off a seat on its first spaceflight for $28 million.

There are some lower-cost options to get a seat on a space flight.

Later this month, Virgin Galactic and charity fundraising platform Omaze will announce the winner of a contest held over the summer to give away a pair of seats on an upcoming commercial spaceflight.

But even with a ticket, the wait time to get on a commercial suborbital flight may be long.

For suborbital there will be very limited opportunities over the next few years,” said Tom Shelley, president of Space Adventures. “Virgin and Blue Origin have demonstrated their long-talked-about capability. But now they need to go from showing it can be done once to doing these safely and regularly.”

That could take years, Shelley said. “But this is the beginning of that transition from being a dream and a possibility, to becoming a regular scheduled flight reality.”

While waiting and saving up for their space flights, citizen astronauts have other issues to consider.

“Leaving the atmosphere is hard, and you want to make sure you understand the danger and the safety precautions in place before agreeing to go,” Nunn said. “Regulations around space tourism are still being worked out and participants fly under informed consent requirements for the time being.”

Missed opportunity?

Back in 2012, Gregory Schneider won a ticket for a suborbital space trip, presented to him by astronaut Buzz Aldrin, in a contest sponsored by Seattle’s Space Needle and Space Adventures. Contestants had to complete a series of challenges, including a tethered outdoor walk on the top of the 520-foot-tall Space Needle.

“The prize was for a flight that was going to be on a rocket being built by Armadillo Aerospace, which went out of business a few years later,” Schneider said. “Then, one of the Virgin Galactic spaceships exploded, and it seemed like this space trip wasn’t going to be happening any time soon.”

Schneider asked for the $110,00 cash value of the prize and paid off his law school student loans.

Now that suborbital flights are a reality, Schneider says he is “a little nostalgic and a little disappointed” that he no longer has a ticket.

“But I’m optimistic that the technology will improve, and the price will come down,” he said.

Space tourism: do real astronauts want tourists in space?

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Are real astronauts in favor of space tourism?

 Spaceship toy - space tourism

Space tourism is a modern-day reality and a bucket list item for many travelers who have already ticked off many of the awe-inspiring spots on earth.

But do professional astronauts want tourists up there with them?

Earlier this summer I had a chance to ask a dozen or more former and current astronauts that question  — and to gather their travel tips – during the shakedown cruise of the Viking Orion.

The ship is named after the prominent Orion constellation and has at its ceremonial godmother, American chemist, emergency room physician and retired NASA astronaut Dr. Anna Fisher. As the guest of honor on the cruise Fisher was able to invite dozens of her friends along for the ship’s maiden voyage.

Astronauts discuss space tourism and other topics

Non-astronauts can now contemplate how they want to visit space, thanks to private companies such as  Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, SpaceX and others, which are developing a variety of space tourism programs and out-of-this-world experiences.

To a one, every astronaut I spoke with is enthusiastic about untrained citizens heading to space.  I gathered their opinions about space tourism for a story just posted on Travel +Leisure. 

Here are some of the responses:

“I seriously believe that if more people had the opportunity to go into space and see the earth from that vantage point they would definitely stop thinking of themselves as being from this country or that country and slowly start feeling like they’re just from this planet,” said Anna Fisher, the first mother in space and one of the “original six” women accepted into NASA’s Astronaut Training Program.

While he wouldn’t have wanted extraneous people on board when he was flying multibillion-dollar missions, “That’s different than having a spacecraft designed from the get-go for tourists, which I applaud,” said former NASA astronaut Frederick (Rick) Hauck, a veteran of several Space Shuttle missions.

Jean-Francois Clervoy, a European Space Agency astronaut and veteran of three NASA Space Shuttle missions, is all for space tourism even if, for the foreseeable future, it’s an experience only available to rich people.

“The travelers who have the money, the time, and the courage to try space tourism are and will be great ambassadors” for the experience, said Clervoy, “They know people will want to hear about their adventure and that is what explorers and pioneers going first are supposed to do. Bring back the experience.”

Former NASA astronaut Sherwood (Woody) Spring, who logged 165 hours in space, 12 of them doing spacewalks, said while the views from space are great, space tourists need to keep the downsides of space travel in mind.

“When you get into orbit, 99 percent of astronauts go through what we call ‘space adaption syndrome’;” said Spring, “Some people throw up, some don’t, but you’re probably not going to feel well the first two days.

Spring said IMAX space movies offer the same great views without the high ticket price, but if getting out of this world is what you’re after “Go for it,” said Spring, “You don’t need my permission.”

Would you like to take a trip into space?