Several hundred people have already booked their tickets and begun training for a spectacular voyage: a few minutes, or perhaps days, in the weightlessness of space.
The mainly wealthy first-time space travelers are preparing to take part in one of several private missions which are preparing to launch. The era of space tourism is on the horizon 60 years after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space.
Two companies, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin LLC, are building spacecraft capable of sending private clients on suborbital flights to the edge of space lasting several minutes.
Photo: AP
Glenn King is the director of spaceflight training at the National Aerospace Training and Research Center, a private company based in Pennsylvania that has already trained nearly 400 future Virgin Galactic passengers for their trips.
“The oldest person I trained was 88 years old,” King said.
The training program lasts two days — a morning of classroom instruction and tests in a centrifuge.
This involves putting the trainee in a single-seat cockpit at the end of an 8m-long arm and spinning them around to simulate gravitational force, or G force. A medical team is on hand at all times.
NASA’s training for shuttle crew members lasted two years, but the duration has been drastically reduced by the commercial space industry because of the “numbers of people that want to get up in space,” King said.
“We can’t take two years to train these people. We’ve got to get this down to a matter of days to get these people up,” he said.
“These people aren’t crews, just strictly passengers,” King said. “For a passenger, there isn’t a lot of work for you to do other than just relax, endure the G forces of launch or re-entry, and then once you’re orbital, enjoy the view out the window.”
King said the pass rate for the training course has been “99.9 percent.”
The cost ranges from several thousand US dollars to as much as US$10,000 if special care or medical monitoring is needed.
The single biggest barrier to “spaceflight for all” remains the price tag.
About 600 people have booked flights on Virgin Galactic, the company owned by British billionaire Richard Branson, and thousands more are on a waiting list.
The cost per flight? US$200,000 to US$250,000.
Virgin Galactic hopes to take its first private astronaut on a suborbital flight early next year, with eventual plans for 400 trips a year.
Blue Origin, owned by Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos, has not yet published prices or a calendar.
Money aside, pretty much anybody could go on a spaceflight.
“You don’t have to be in perfect physical health now to be able to go to space,” King said. “I’ve trained people with prosthetic devices. I’ve trained people with pacemakers — all kinds of people.”
The US Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees the aviation industry, recommended in 2006 that future “commercial passengers” on suborbital flights fill out a “simple medical history questionnaire.”
Orbital flights that go further and last longer would require a more detailed form and blood tests, X-rays and urine specimens.
Such flights, which cost millions of US dollars each, are envisioned by Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX), the company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, which has at least four planned over the coming years.
The first launch of only civilians, baptized “Inspiration4,” is scheduled to take place in September.
US billionaire Jared Isaacman has fully paid for a trip powered by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that would take him and three passengers on a three-day flight in low Earth orbit.
In January next year, Axiom Space Inc plans to send a former astronaut and three newcomers to the International Space Station. It eventually plans trips to the space station every six months.
Seven “space tourists” visited the space station between 2001 and 2009. A firm called Space Adventures Inc served as the intermediary for those flights and has partnered with SpaceX to send four customers into orbit around the Earth next year.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has reserved a flight on SpaceX’s “Starship” in 2023 and is inviting eight other people to come along for the ride.
So when can we expect space tourism to become commonplace?
Difficult to say, said Robert Goehlich, an adjunct assistant professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide.
“Suborbital and orbital tourist flights are currently near to happen,” Goehlich said. “The exact forecast is a challenge for each scenario.”
“A new investor might accelerate any schedule, while an accident might decelerate any planning,” he said.
Three major factors wold need to come together: Flights would have to be safe, profitable and environmentally friendly.
“In the long run, thinking about a mass space tourism market, surely sustainability aspects will play a more dominant role,” Goehlich said.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is