Space Tourists

Over 40 years ago man first went into space. Ever since ordinary people have dreamt of getting there themselves. But after several false starts, a group of space obsessed entrepreneurs believe the first commercial flights into the final frontier are only a few years away. In 1986 a civilian finally made it onto the launch pad when NASA put school teacher Christa McAuliffe on board the shuttle Challenger. But just over a minute into the mission Challenger exploded and the entire crew was killed. The accident had an immediate impact. Commercial ventures were cancelled.

It wasn't until ten years later that the dream of space tourism was revived by space entrepreneur Peter Diamandis. Convinced that it was the job of the commercial world to open the space frontier for the masses, Diamandis established the X Prize. The prize would eventually offer $10 million for the first craft to make it to sub orbital space – 62 miles above the earth – twice in 14 days.

Space tourism is the recent phenomenon of individuals paying for space travel, primarily for personal satisfaction. As of 2007, space tourism opportunities are limited and expensive, with only the Russian Space Agency providing transport. The price for a flight brokered by Space Adventures to the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft is now $30 million. Flights are fully booked until 2009. Among the primary attractions of space tourism are the uniqueness of the experience, the thrill and awe of looking at Earth from space (described by astronauts as extremely intense and mind-boggling), the experience's notion as an exclusive status symbol, and various advantages of weightlessness. The space tourism industry is being targeted by spaceports in numerous locations, including California, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Florida, Virginia, Alaska, Esrange in Sweden and Wisconsin, as well as Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. Some use the term "personal spaceflight" as in the case of the Personal Spaceflight Federation.

After initial successes in space, many people saw intensive space exploration as inevitable. In the minds of many people, such exploration was symbolized by wide public access to space, mostly in the form of space tourism. Those aspirations are best remembered in science fiction works (and one children's book), such as Arthur C. Clarke's A Fall of Moondust and also 2001: A Space Odyssey, Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Joanna Russ's 1968 novel Picnic on Paradise, and Larry Niven's Known Space stories. Lucian in 2 A.D. in his book True History examines the idea of a crew of men whose ship travels to the Moon during a storm. Jules Verne also took up the theme of lunar visits in his books, From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon. Robert A. Heinlein’s short story The Menace from Earth, published in 1957, was one of the first to incorporate elements of a developed space tourism industry within its framework. During the 1960s and 1970s, it was common belief that space hotels would be launched by 2000. Many futurologists around the middle of the 20th century speculated that the average family of the early 21st century would be able to enjoy a holiday on the Moon.The end of the space race, however, signified by the Moon landing, decreased the importance of space exploration and led to decreased importance of manned space flight.

While it is sometimes jokingly argued that John Glenn was essentially a tourist on his 1998 shuttle flight (STS-95), space tourism did not resume for another three years. MirCorp, a private venture by then in charge of the space station, began seeking potential space tourists to visit Mir in order to offset some of its maintenance costs. Dennis Tito, an American businessman and former JPL scientist, became their first candidate. When the decision to dismantle Mir was made, Tito opted to book a trip to the International Space Station through U.S.-based Space Adventures, Ltd., which remains the only company to have sent paying passengers to space.

On April 28, 2001, Dennis Tito became the first "fee-paying" space tourist when he visited the International Space Station (ISS) for seven days. He was followed in 2002 by South African computer millionaire Mark Shuttleworth. The third was Gregory Olsen in 2005, who is trained as a scientist and whose company produces specialist high-sensitivity cameras. Olsen planned to use his time on the ISS to conduct a number of experiments, in part to test his company's products. Olsen had planned an earlier flight, but had to cancel for health reasons. After the Columbia disaster, space tourism on the Russian Soyuz program was temporarily put on hold, because Soyuz vehicles became the only available transport to the ISS.

In conjunction with the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation and Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, Space Adventures facilitated the flights for the world's first private space explorers: Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Gregory Olsen, Anousheh Ansari and Charles Simonyi. The first three participants paid in excess of $20 million (USD) each for their 10-day visit to the ISS. In 2010 space tourism to the ISS could become much more common as NASA hopes to rely on COTS (commercial orbital transportation systems) to send both astronauts and cargo to the ISS[citation needed]. Furthermore it is quite likely other vehicles will be ready by then.

NASA Public Affairs has used the term Spaceflight Participant to designate space tourists. Tito, Shuttleworth, Olsen, Ansari, and Simonyi were designated as such during their respective space flights.[6] lists Christa McAuliffe as a "Space Flight Participant" (although she did not pay a fee), apparently due to her non-technical duties aboard the STS-51-L flight.

(From: BBC)

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