The Case for Space Tourism
It took 41 years for a paying tourist to enter the dangerous spaces beyond our Earth. However, is now the time for non-astronauts to be riding into space? Some believe that the wait has been too long; some never want to see these people gain access to the new frontier.
Currently the idea of space tourism is very appealing. People see the relative routine of the Space Shuttle or the Russian Soyuz capsule and wonder why regular, everyday people aren’t riding them yet? What these people do not realize is that these modes of transportation are still very dangerous and expensive. Anyone who boards these spacecraft is not just getting onto a train or an airplane for a ride, they are literally handing their lives over to a machine that must work perfectly. It could be argued that this is the same premise of flying a commercial jet, but unlike a commercial jet a spacecraft is a pressurized vehicle that must be lifted into space by using highly volatile rocket fuels. An airliner can pick and choose where it can land and takeoff in an emergency. During liftoff and reentry of the Space Shuttle for example, there is only one chance. Any abort during liftoff gives the astronauts about a 30% percent chance of survival. Add to this the grim fact that every shuttle mission has a 1 in 100 chance of failing. If this were the case with commercial airline travel it would not exist. Every component of the Space Shuttle must work near flawlessly twenty-four hours a day for every day it is in space. The Space Shuttle is also an extremely expensive venture at around 400 million dollars per mission. Because of its terrific cost, every second of spaceflight must be productive and justifiable.
In today’s world regular everyday people like you and me catching a ride into space really hinges on only one thing: a spacecraft that can takeoff from a runway under the power of its own engines, enter orbit, and then land under the power of those same engines. Once this type of vehicle is created, and becomes reliable, the floodgates should open for space tourism. Currently this technology does not exist. While several companies are trying to create this system, or a similar one, right now it seems to be years away. A vehicle called the X-33 was perhaps the closest vehicle to making this type of travel a reality but it was recently cancelled in an effort to streamline NASA’s budget.
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