Space Tourist Plans 40 Years After Apollo 11

In the forefront of private enterprises trying to get average people into space 40 years after Neil Armstrong moon landing is Space Adventurers.

Space Adventurers has a good record for delivering. So far, it has sent a handful of clients to the International Space Station. The first space tourists, Dennis Tito and Mark Suttleworth, each paid $20 million for their eight-day stay on the ISS. Former Microsoft exec Charles Simonyi has, in fact, completed two trips to the ISS, described on his website at http://www.charlesinspace.com/.

Quoting from the "The Space Tourist's Handbook" by Space Adventures president Eric Anderson and author Joshua Previn (The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook), "Governments (and government-controlled aerospace contractors) have neither the ability no the desire to make space travel available for the paying consumer -- costs and risks are too high, and benefits too low."

For much of this, we can thank developments no one could have forseen: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the need for hard currency for the Russian space program. Oddly enough, a Communist achievement helps democratize space.

Getting John Q. Public Into Space

The real question is "when can I go?"

The missions will unavoidably remain costly until need and improvements bring down the price-per-pound for passenger or cargo payload. There are some options that make the hard news a little easier to bear.

Let's take a look at Space Adventurers' Spaceflight Club menu.

Current Short-Range Plans

The Spaceflight Club has envisioned a $200 million mission to the Moon, the first private manned mission to the moon, with two seats going at $100 million each. The circumlunar mission will utilize a Soyuz spacecraft, aided by supplemental fuel from an unmanned rocket booster.

For those with pockets not as deep, a $3 million Back-Up Cosmonaut Experience can be purchased. As you might think, it entails the full training and preparation to make you a qualified cosmonaut for a back-up mission to the ISS at the Gargarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia.

Next is the $102,000 suborbital spaceflight which takes you above the 62 mile limit of the Earth's atmosphere with, following engine shutdown, up to five minutes of full weightlessness. Four days of training precede your flight.

Also on the menu:

For $89,500, you can undergo cosmonaut training at Star City. For $33,750, you can get underwater in a spacesuit for neutral buoyancy training.

For $15,950 you can learn how to fly a full mission on a Soyuz simulator.

For $9,750, there's the centrifuge.

For $7,650, there's the spacewalk training experience at Star City.

For $4,950, you can book a Zero Gravity flight or you can take a more expensive zero-gravity charter flight.

To get into the spaceflight mindset, you can lay out a couple bucks for The Space Tourist's Handbook, quoted earlier in the article, provides readers a look at what the space experience will be like.

Spaceflight Club

The Spaceflight Club is planning to establish two spaceports, one in the United Arab Emirates, the other in Singapore. Space Adventures is working with corporate partners like Pepsi and Vokswagen Brazi to provide space flights as promotions. In 2002, US Airways began a program that allowed the use of frequent flyer miles for spaceflights.

Club dues are a little stiff ($980 a year) for the average guy, but spaceflight is not cheap. One good point: the dues are automatically applied to a future flight. You also get invitations to events featuring astronauits, cosmonauts, and others who share the dream, newsletters, priority bookings, and other members-only benefits.
For more details, the website is at http://spaceadventures.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Space_Flight_Club.welcome.

Space Adventures is not the only group trying to commercialize space, of course, although quite successful. There've been proposals for trips, an idea to land a rover on the Moon and let people pay to operate it remotely with a joystick, and there've even been launched of private space vehicles, including a manned spacecraft.

Finally, access to space by the average person is slowly beginning to open up.