For decades, space travel has been reserved to the select, highly qualified few. But with the emergence of space tourism, it seems that any of us can launch ourselves into outer space, provided we have a mere half a million dollars to spare.
As far as childhood dreams go, becoming an astronaut may be one of the most elusive.
So far, over 700 humans have flown into outer space since Yuri Gagarin’s inaugural Space Race mission in 1961—an exceedingly small number compared to the remaining 8 billion of us who have never gone past the stratosphere. But there is a reason this journey remains so inaccessible: spaceflight is expensive, and risky.
Because of the dangerous nature of these missions, the astronaut selection process is highly intensive. Of thousands of applicants, only a handful are successful. But for those who would prefer to skip such a selection process, there appears to be another path to outer space. One that does not cost you years of training, but may cost you a fortune.
Space tourism is not a new phenomenon. The first self-funded trip to space took place in 2001, when American entrepreneur, Dennis Tito, paid an estimated $20 million to travel to the International Space Station aboard a Russian spacecraft. In 2005, just a few years later, the first space tourism company was founded by Richard Branson. Virgin Galactic planned to offer suborbital flights (below the velocity and altitude needed to complete a full orbit) for paying customers to experience weightlessness and view Earth from space. The company flew their first private passengers in August 2023 on a 15-minute round trip costing $450,000 per person.
Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, is another company that has offered suborbital flights to tourists since 2021. Passengers undergo just two days of flight training before being jettisoned into the cosmos. “Our team is focused on radically reducing the cost of access to space,” says the company’s social media. Upon researching this, I found their ‘radically reduced’ cost to be $1.25 million per ticket.
Perhaps one of the most controversial spaceflight companies is Elon Musk’s SpaceX, founded with the goal of starting a human colony on Mars. Alongside spacecraft and satellite manufacture, SpaceX also provides space tourism opportunities. Unlike Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, which limit passengers to suborbital trips, SpaceX has taken tourists as far as low Earth orbit. Their 2022 expedition transported a private crew to the International Space Station for a duration of 17 days—a trip that reportedly cost $55 million per person.
It is not difficult to see where this demand for space tourism comes from. Space exploration holds a unique appeal, bridging the gap between science fiction and reality. Private spaceflights have the potential to boost the global economy, bring more attention and funding to space research, and increase the accessibility of space travel. (Though I would argue that current ticket prices are anything but accessible—unless you happen to be obscenely rich.)
But is this industry ethical? In a word becoming increasingly focused on sustainability, space tourism feels like a step in the opposite direction. If flying in a private jet is bad, then flying in a private spaceship should be deplorable. It seems irresponsible for a handful of tourists to breach the mesosphere for what is essentially a glorified joyride, when one rocket launch emits approximately 200-300 tonnes of CO2. Black carbon (soot) is a particular issue—when released at high altitudes, it can be 500 times more warming than at ground level. To put this all into perspective, a spaceflight is 50-100 times worse for the atmosphere per passenger than a typical long-haul plane flight.
With the advancement of space tourism, it seems we are entering a new era. One in which the Space Race is not between the United States and the Soviets, but between three billionaires—Branson, Bezos and Musk—all trying to dominate the space industry. I can only hope that these efforts to journey beyond Earth don’t come at the cost of our planet itself.