Space tourism has experienced many false dawns. Companies have come and gone that have offered everything from trips to the Moon to a new home on Mars. But after broken promise after broken promise, things might be about to change.
Seven people have paid to go to space before, with American multimillionaire Dennis Tito becoming the first space tourist in 2001, flying to the International Space Station (ISS) on a Soyuz capsule to the tune of $20 million. Six more space tourists would follow in his footsteps, but despite hopes otherwise, little else followed. No space tourist has flown since 2009.
This year, however, we are expecting several private companies in the US to start taking humans to space, most for the first time. And, if all goes to plan, this could be a vital step towards making space more accessible – where paid trips and privately funded astronauts become the norm. “2019 does feel like the year that’s going to be the culmination of two decades of development work that have gone into space tourism,” says industry analyst Caleb Williams from consulting firm SpaceWorks. “And if we’re lucky, we’ll see the birth of an entirely new industry.”
One of those companies is Virgin Galactic, who on 13 December 2018 conducted their first trip to near-space. Two pilots, Mark Stucky and Frederick Sturckow, took Virgin’s spaceplane VSS Unity to an altitude of 82.7 kilometres (51.4 miles). This year, the company plans to conduct more test flights, with the possibility of taking its first passengers – founder Richard Branson being first of all – to space.
“We hope now to get into a regular cadence of space flights which will be historically unprecedented,” says Stephen Attenborough, commercial director at Virgin Galactic. “[2019] promises to be a turning point after many years of dedication, patience and hard work.”
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More than 700 people have bought tickets on Virgin Galactic at a cost between $200,000 and $250,000 (£155,000 and £193,000). On each flight will be six passengers, who will experience several minutes of weightlessness and be afforded incredible views of Earth as the space plane hops into space, before returning to a runway landing.
Adventure journalist Jim Clash is one such customer, who bought ticket number 610 back in 2010. And despite the long wait, he’s still as excited as ever for the flight. “Weightlessness is one thing, but I’m really going to focus on the view, trying to relax and take it all in,” says Clash. “I understand that it is a life-changing experience.”
Virgin isn’t the only company hoping to reach space again this year. Blue Origin, with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at the helm, has been making waves with its reusable New Shepard rocket, which has flown to space 10 times. Now the company is gearing up to launch humans for the first time, which may very well happen in 2019.
“We are targeting [our] first human flight this year, but we are not in a race to get there,” says a spokesperson for Blue Origin. “We will move through our New Shepard flight test program step by step and fly humans only when we are ready.”
Blue Origin plans to start selling tickets for its reusable rocket this year, with rumours suggesting they will charge a similar price to Virgin. Each launch, like Virgin, will also take six passengers to the edge of space. They will be free to float around the rocket’s capsule for several minutes, before returning to Earth via parachute.
Also this year, we are expecting to see two private US companies – SpaceX and Boeing – begin launching astronauts to orbit. Both are contracted by NASA to take astronauts to the ISS, but the companies also plan to fly their own astronauts, a key step towards making space more accessible and opening up new doors for tourist flights. SpaceX has already begun talking about paid trips to the Moon as early as 2023.
“Space tourism has been taken much more seriously over the past several years,” says space policy analyst Laura Forczyk, founder of the consulting firm Astralytical. “But once we see humans flying on commercial rockets from the US, I think that space tourism will gain credibility, and that will be great for the industry overall.”
Still, for the moment only the rich can afford a ticket. It’s unclear how many will be willing to do so, or how far prices will fall as the cost of flights will always be rather massive, at least in the foreseeable future. But after so many broken promises, 2019 could finally be the year that space tourism evolves from pipe dream to a reality. Four separate US companies could have launched astronauts by the year’s end – and who knows what might follow.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK