space tourism in 2010

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Space Tourism: To Infinity And ... Right Back To Earth

Virgin Galactic is developing a suborbital spacecraft to carry spaceflight participants to about 65 miles above Earth. The craft, SpaceShipOne, is carried high above the Earth by a special plane called The White Knight, then launched. Courtesy of Scaled Composites hide caption

If your idea of the perfect vacation is a ride into space in the morning and some scuba diving in the afternoon, there's good news. A company from the Netherlands says it hopes to offer rides into space from a spaceport in the Netherlands Antilles by 2014.

If this sounds fantastic and impossible, you're right about one adjective and wrong about the other. Space Experience Curacao has signed a memorandum of understanding with XCOR Aerospace to lease a Lynx suborbital spacecraft.

Related NPR Stories

The history of space tourism,  special series, forty years after space race, what's next.

The Lynx takes off from a runway, but its rocket engine can propel it to about 65 miles above the Earth -- what's considered the edge of outer space. When the rocket engine shuts off, the Lynx glides to a landing back at the airport's runway.

XCOR is just one of several companies planning to get into the space tourism business. Armadillo Aerospace is making a vehicle that Space Adventures will sell tickets for, and Virgin Galactic is making its own suborbital craft modeled after Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne, the first commercial vehicle to carry spaceflight participants into space.

If spaceflight participant sounds like a cumbersome phrase, it has legal importance. Apart from the myriad technical challenges facing the would-be rocketeers, there are also legal hurdles. For example, "passengers" have certain legal rights, whereas Congress has determined that spaceflight participants must sign an informed consent releasing from liability the company that's carrying them into space.

Despite the challenges, it appears likely the first commercial suborbital flights are only a few years away. It won't be cheap; $200,000 seems to be the going rate. But if space tourism takes off, competition could drive down the price.

If a brief suborbital flight isn't enough of a thrill, the company Space Adventures is offering a trip to the moon for $200 million. And the company isn't joking, although it admits that circumlunar trips are a few years off.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Published: 22 October 2010

Space tourism to accelerate climate change

• Adam Mann  

Nature ( 2010 ) Cite this article

7782 Accesses

4 Citations

114 Altmetric

Metrics details

• Aerospace engineering
• Climate change

Scientists predict that soot from commercial space flight will change global temperatures.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 51 print issues and online access

185,98 € per year

only 3,65 € per issue

Buy this article

• Purchase on Springer Link
• Instant access to full article PDF

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Ross, M., Mills, M. & Toohey, D. Geophys. Res. Lett. advance online publication doi:10.1029/2010GL044548 (2010).

Download references

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Related links

Related links in nature research.

Nature Physics

Related external links

Spaceport America

Virgin Galactic

The Aerospace Corportation

National Center for Atmospheric Research

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Mann, A. Space tourism to accelerate climate change. Nature (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2010.558

Download citation

Published : 22 October 2010

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2010.558

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

The Rise of Space Tourism

F or millionaires and billionaires, space tourism is considered the next step of the human race into space.

Fortunately, for potential space tourists in 2021, advanced technology, space station construction and new knowledge of space travel has opened the door for a new type of leisure.

The advent of space tourism occurred at the end of the 1990s, incited by a deal between a Russian company, MirCorp, and an American company: Space Adventures Ltd .

MirCorp was a private venture in charge of its own space station, "Mir," and to generate income for maintenance, the company decided to sell a trip to Mir. The first paying passenger for this trip was ex-NASA engineer, Dennis Tito .

Space Adventures Ltd. was founded in 1998 by Eric Anderson , providing  zero-gravity atmospheric flights, orbital space lifts and other spaceflight-related experiences. They also hoped to offer the first commercial space flight.  zero-gravity atmospheric flights, orbital space lifts and other spaceflight-related experiences. They also hoped to offer the first commercial space flight.

Before Tito could make his trip with MirCorp, however, the decision was made to deorbit its space station, and Space Adventures Ltd. handed off the mission to the International Space Station (ISS). 

Tito paid $20 million in 2001 for his flight on the Russian spacecraft, Soyuz TM-32 . He spent seven full days on board the ISS and is considered the world’s first space tourist. 

While many companies have tried to chart a path in space tourism, only three main ones have made an impact: SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.

Shivram Mahendran, a sixth year Software Engineering graduate  student , is a professional Product Designer; his previous works include is previous works include multiple space projects for Microsoft.

Elon Musk, the current CEO of Tesla, created SpaceX with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and expanding our reach within the solar system.

SpaceX has gained an opportunity to work with NASA. This contract has given the company greater commercial visibility.

Musk hopes to build 1,000 starships over a span of 10 years , helping the company to later explore Mars.

"SpaceX’s mission is simple ... taking crew and spaceships to Mars by 2050," Mahendran said.

"SpaceX’s mission is simple ... taking crew and spaceships to Mars by 2050."

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is also using his wealth to establish space-based properties. While SpaceX's goal is directly related to exploring other planets, Bezos's is to create a space hotel.

Blue Origin was also in the running to partner with NASA, but SpaceX won the bid instead.

Despite this, Blue Origin continues their work towards space tourism. Announced in Oct. 2021, Blue Origin and Sierra Space hope to launch Orbital Reef, their own space station, by the late 2020s.

This commercially developed, owned and operated space station will be built in low Earth orbit, with the main goal of creating a human habitat in space. It is expected to be operating in the second half of the current decade.

Another company,  Virgin Galactic, was the first to openly offer space trips to civilians. However, it has been postponing its commercial flights due to various factors, including manufacturing defects .

2021 seems to be the year of private companies launching civilians, alongside with trained astronauts, into space. As of Nov. 8, 2021, only 16 people have made the journey so far: four with SpaceX, four with Virgin Galactic and eight with Blue Origin.

As space tourism evolves, the number of spaceflight participants will grow. Suborbital and orbital flights will inevitably give way to lunar excursions and trips to Mars. By that time, space tourism may become a full-fledged industry capable of truly opening the frontier of space.

Convenient Space Gadgets

Due to space tourism's current popularity, a trend has led to the creation of various new technologies that space tourists will be able to utilize.

Product designers have envisioned several instruments to meet the basic needs of future space tourists including, but not limited to: air, heat, light and food.

One instruments that may be used is the " aerating loop, " designed to provide an extra kick of oxygen. Other items such as a personal heater, spatial food steamer and floating light may also be useful.

While we wait for space tourism to ramp up though, Virtual Reality (VR) technology While we wait for space tourism to ramp up though, Virtual Reality (VR) technology While we wait for space tourism to ramp up though, Virtual Reality (VR) technology has been developed to see space from Earth.

Michelle Bobilev is a fourth year Digital Humanities and Social Sciences student and is currently developing her CAPSTONE project:  a virtual reality planetarium .

"The VR Planetarium is a virtual reality model of a planetarium designed in Unreal Engine with 3D assets created with Blender modeling software," Bobilev explained.

She added that with the use of VR headsets and controllers, users can navigate the virtual space and choose from a variety of locations to explore.

"If the people have the tool to see the galaxy and what is out there ... VR will be an essential gadget before taking a flight there," she said.

"If the people have the tool to see the galaxy and what is out there ... VR will be an essential gadget before taking a flight there."

In the future, space tourists would be able to utilize these gadgets as a way to visualize and get a taste of what they are looking to experience out there.

Collateral Benefits

Some people are concerned about the environmental impact of space tourism. Experts claim rocket launches could damage our ozone layer. Certain chemicals in rocket fumes may be getting trapped in the stratosphere allowing them to eat away at it.

Until now, this problem hasn't been a huge issue due to limited launches. With rocket launches becoming more frequent due to space tourism, however, it could become a much bigger contributor to climate change.

Another issue is that space tourism is a luxury only available for few due to the cost. Private companies and billionaires will not be the only ones to benefit from leisurely space travel though.Another issue is that space tourism is a luxury only available for few due to the cost. Private companies and billionaires will not be the only ones to benefit from leisurely space travel though.

The rise of space tourism can provide further development of terrestrial observation systems and the preparation of technologies for interplanetary travel, among other things.

This new era of research could make space science more accessible. In addition, improvements in technologies on earth are often based on innovations that started in space. Our trip to the moon gave us our running shoes, foam mattresses and even bulletproof vests.

Space Tourism

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 14 June 2022
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Sam Spector 3  

Space tourism often refers to nonprofessional astronauts traveling into outer space for recreational purposes (Cohen and Spector 2019 ). Activities such as traveling to watch a rocket launch, tour a space museum, or visit a planetarium are sometimes categorized as forms of “terrestrial” space tourism (Cater 2010 ). High altitude fighter jet flights, zero-gravity experiences, and virtual reality simulations can also be conceptualized as related to space tourism.

Touristic travel into outer space is commonly demarcated as necessitating reaching the “Kármán line” at 100 km above Earth’s surface. This boundary, while widely used, is artificial, as the atmosphere becomes progressively thinner rather than ending abruptly. Travel into outer space can be divided into three main categories: suborbital, orbital, and beyond orbit.

Suborbital spaceflights briefly travel beyond the Kármán line and then return. For a few minutes, passengers experience weightlessness, see the curvature of Earth, and...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Cater, C. 2010. Steps to space; opportunities for astrotourism. Tourism Management 31: 838–845.

Article   Google Scholar  

Cohen, E., and S. Spector. 2019. Space tourism: The elusive dream . Bingley: Emerald.

Google Scholar  

Crouch, G., T. Devinney, J. Louviere, and T. Islam. 2009. Modelling consumer choice behavior in space tourism. Tourism Management 30: 441–454.

Damjanov, K., and G. Crouch. 2019. Virtual reality and space tourism. In Space tourism: The elusive dream , ed. E. Cohen and S. Spector. Bingley: Emerald.

Ormrod, J., and P. Dickens. 2017. The Palgrave handbook of society, culture and outer space . Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Ross, M., and J. Vedda. 2018. The policy and science of rocket emissions . The Aerospace Corporation. https://aerospace.org/sites/default/files/2018-05/RocketEmissions_0.pdf

Toivonen, A. 2020. Sustainable space tourism . Bristol: Channel View.

Book   Google Scholar  

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

Sam Spector

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

School of Hospitality Leadership, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, WI, USA

Jafar Jafari

School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Honggen Xiao

Section Editor information

School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK

David Airey

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Spector, S. (2021). Space Tourism. In: Jafari, J., Xiao, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Tourism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_755-1

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_755-1

Received : 06 March 2021

Accepted : 16 July 2021

Published : 14 June 2022

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-01669-6

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-01669-6

eBook Packages : Springer Reference Business and Management Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

• Accessibility

Chicago Unbound

Home > CJIL > Vol. 6 > No. 1 (2005)

Up, Up and … Back: The Emergence of Space Tourism and Its Impact on the International Law of Outer Space

Steven Freeland Follow

In April 2002, the aptly named South African, Mark Shuttleworth, became the world's second space tourist. Like Tito, he was launched onto the ISS by the Russian Space Agency. This "Afronaut" spent eight days on the ISS conducting scientific experiments, including a number relating to the HIV virus. The symbolic relevance of his work-South Africa is one of the countries worst affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic-provided an additional "credibility boost" to the orbital space tourist phenomenon. South African president Thabo Mbeki described Shuttleworth as "a courageous pioneer for South Africa and his continent, Africa." These two wealthy entrepreneurs, who each reportedly paid up to twenty million dollars to engage in the ultimate tourist adventure, along with those responsible for the success of SpaceShipOne, have made it almost inevitable that commercial space tourism will emerge as a realistic and foreseeable use of outer space within the near future. The prospects for both suborbital and orbital space tourism do, however, give rise to some interesting and conceptually difficult legal questions. This article sets out to examine some of the more pressing issues that must be addressed in order to allow for the appropriate regulation of space tourism activities. Legal questions involving liability, the development of property rights, and the legal status of tourists are just some of the myriad issues that require careful thought. These questions are all the more complex given the limitations of the legal regime that has already been established for Outer Space and its categorisation as a res communis "common asset"-part of the "Common Heritage of Mankind"-which also raises broader ethical questions about space tourism activities. [CONT]

Recommended Citation

Freeland, Steven (2005) "Up, Up and … Back: The Emergence of Space Tourism and Its Impact on the International Law of Outer Space," Chicago Journal of International Law : Vol. 6: No. 1, Article 4. Available at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cjil/vol6/iss1/4

Since March 12, 2015

• Journal Home
• About This Journal
• CJIL Web Site
• CJIL Managing Board and Staff
• Most Popular Papers
• Receive Email Notices or RSS

Advanced Search

ISSN: 1529-0816

Privacy Copyright

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

The Future of Space Tourism Is Now. Well, Not Quite.

From zero-pressure balloon trips to astronaut boot camps, reservations for getting off the planet — or pretending to — are skyrocketing. The prices, however, are still out of this world.

By Debra Kamin

Ilida Alvarez has dreamed of traveling to space since she was a child. But Ms. Alvarez, a legal-mediation firm owner, is afraid of flying, and she isn’t a billionaire — two facts that she was sure, until just a few weeks ago, would keep her fantasy as out of reach as the stars. She was wrong.

Ms. Alvarez, 46, and her husband, Rafael Landestoy, recently booked a flight on a 10-person pressurized capsule that — attached to a massive helium-filled balloon — will gently float to 100,000 feet while passengers sip champagne and recline in ergonomic chairs. The reservation required a $500 deposit; the flight itself will cost $50,000 and last six to 12 hours.

“I feel like it was tailor-made for the chickens like me who don’t want to get on a rocket,” said Ms. Alvarez, whose flight, organized by a company called World View , is scheduled to depart from the Grand Canyon in 2024.

Less than a year after Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson kicked off a commercial space race by blasting into the upper atmosphere within weeks of each other last summer, the global space tourism market is skyrocketing, with dozens of companies now offering reservations for everything from zero-pressure balloon trips to astronaut boot camps and simulated zero-gravity flights. But don’t don your spacesuit just yet. While the financial services company UBS estimates the space travel market will be worth $3 billion by 2030, the Federal Aviation Administration has yet to approve most out-of-this-world trips, and construction has not started on the first space hotel. And while access and options — not to mention launchpads — are burgeoning, space tourism remains astronomically expensive for most.

First, what counts as space travel?

Sixty miles (about 100 kilometers) above our heads lies the Kármán line, the widely accepted aeronautical boundary of the earth’s atmosphere. It’s the boundary used by the Féderátion Aéronautique Internationale, which certifies and controls global astronautical records. But many organizations in the United States, including the F.A.A. and NASA, define everything above 50 miles to be space.

Much of the attention has been focused on a trio of billionaire-led rocket companies: Mr. Bezos’ Blue Origin , whose passengers have included William Shatner; Mr. Branson’s Virgin Galactic , where tickets for a suborbital spaceflight start at $450,000; and Elon Musk’s SpaceX , which in September launched an all-civilian spaceflight, with no trained astronauts on board. Mr. Branson’s inaugural Virgin Galactic flight in 2021 reached about 53 miles, while Blue Origin flies above the 62-mile mark. Both are eclipsed by SpaceX, whose rockets charge far deeper in to the cosmos, reaching more than 120 miles above Earth.

Balloons, like those operated by World View, don’t go nearly as high. But even at their maximum altitude of 18 or 19 miles, operators say they float high enough to show travelers the curvature of the planet, and give them a chance to experience the overview effect — an intense perspective shift that many astronauts say kicks in when you view Earth from above.

Now, how to get there …

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, which are both licensed for passenger space travel by the F.A.A., are open for ticket sales. (Blue Origin remains mum on pricing.) Both companies currently have hundreds or even thousands of earthlings on their wait lists for a whirl to the edge of space. SpaceX charges tens of millions of dollars for its further-reaching flights and is building a new facility in Texas that is currently under F.A.A. review.

Craig Curran is a major space enthusiast — he’s held a reserved seat on a Virgin Galactic flight since 2011 — and the owner of Deprez Travel in Rochester, N.Y. The travel agency has a special space travel arm, Galactic Experiences by Deprez , through which Mr. Curran sells everything from rocket launch tickets to astronaut training.

Sales in the space tourism space, Mr. Curran acknowledges, “are reasonably difficult to make,” and mostly come from peer-to-peer networking. “You can imagine that people who spend $450,000 to go to space probably operate in circles that are not the same as yours and mine,” he said.

Some of Mr. Curran’s most popular offerings include flights where you can experience the same stomach-dropping feeling of zero gravity that astronauts feel in space, which he arranges for clients via chartered, specialized Boeing 727s that are flown in parabolic arcs to mimic being in space. Operators including Zero G also offer the service; the cost is around $8,200.

You can almost count the number of completed space tourist launches on one hand — Blue Origin has had four; SpaceX, two. Virgin Galactic, meanwhile, on Thursday announced the launch of its commercial passenger service, previously scheduled for late 2022, was delayed until early 2023. Many of those on waiting lists are biding their time before blastoff by signing up for training. Axiom Space, which contracts with SpaceX, currently offers NASA-partnered training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. Virgin Galactic, which already offers a “customized Future Astronaut Readiness program” at its Spaceport America facility in New Mexico, is also partnering with NASA to build a training program for private astronauts.

Would-be space tourists should not expect the rigor that NASA astronauts face. Training for Virgin Galactic’s three-hour trips is included in the cost of a ticket and lasts a handful of days; it includes pilot briefings and being “fitted for your bespoke Under Armour spacesuit and boots,” according to its website.

Not ready for a rocket? Balloon rides offer a less hair-raising celestial experience.

“We go to space at 12 miles an hour, which means that it’s very smooth and very gentle. You’re not rocketing away from earth,” said Jane Poynter, a co-founder and co-chief executive of Space Perspective , which is readying its own touristic balloon spaceship, Spaceship Neptune. If all goes according to plan, voyages are scheduled to begin departing from Florida in 2024, at a cost of $125,000 per person. That’s a fraction of the price tag for Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, but still more than double the average annual salary of an American worker.

Neither Space Perspective nor World View has the required approval yet from the F.A.A. to operate flights.

Unique implications

Whether a capsule or a rocket is your transport, the travel insurance company battleface launched a civilian space insurance plan in late 2021, a direct response, said chief executive Sasha Gainullin, to an increase in space tourism interest and infrastructure. Benefits include accidental death and permanent disablement in space and are valid for spaceflights on operators like SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, as well as on stratospheric balloon rides. They’ve had many inquiries, Mr. Gainullin said, but no purchases just yet.

“Right now it’s such high-net-worth individuals who are traveling to space, so they probably don’t need insurance,” he said. “But for quote-unquote regular travelers, I think we’ll see some takeups soon.”

And as the industry grows, so perhaps will space travel’s impact on the environment. Not only do rocket launches have immense carbon footprints, even some stratospheric balloon flights have potentially significant implications: World View’s balloons are powered by thousands of cubic meters of helium, which is a limited resource . But Ted Parson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that space travel’s environmental impact is still dwarfed by civil aviation. And because space travel is ultra-niche, he believes it’s likely to stay that way.

“Despite extensive projections, space tourism is likely to remain a tiny fraction of commercial space exploration,” he said. “It reminds me of tourism on Mt. Everest. It’s the indulgence of very rich people seeking a transcendent, once-in-a-lifetime experience, and the local environmental burden is intense.”

Stay a while?

In the future, space enthusiasts insist, travelers won’t be traveling to space just for the ride. They’ll want to stay a while. Orbital Assembly Corporation, a manufacturing company whose goal is to colonize space, is currently building the world’s first space hotels — two ring-shaped properties that will orbit Earth, called Pioneer Station and Voyager Station. The company, quite optimistically, projects an opening date of 2025 for Pioneer Station, with a capacity of 28 guests. The design for the larger Voyager Station , which they say will open in 2027, promises villas and suites, as well as a gym, restaurant and bar. Both provide the ultimate luxury: simulated gravity. Axiom Space , a space infrastructure company, is currently building the world’s first private space station; plans include Philippe Starck-designed accommodations for travelers to spend the night.

Joshua Bush, chief executive of travel agency Avenue Two Travel , has sold a handful of seats on upcoming Virgin Galactic flights to customers. The market for space travel (and the sky-high prices that come with it), he believes, will evolve much like civilian air travel did.

“In the beginning of the 20th century, only very affluent people could afford to fly,” he said. “Just as we have Spirit and Southwest Airlines today, there will be some sort of equivalent of that in space travel, too. Hopefully within my lifetime.”

52 Places for a Changed World

The 2022 list highlights places around the globe where travelers can be part of the solution.

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook . And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places for a Changed World for 2022.

What’s Up in Space and Astronomy

Keep track of things going on in our solar system and all around the universe..

Never miss an eclipse, a meteor shower, a rocket launch or any other 2024 event  that’s out of this world with  our space and astronomy calendar .

A celestial image, an Impressionistic swirl of color in the center of the Milky Way, represents a first step toward understanding the role of magnetic fields  in the cycle of stellar death and rebirth.

Scientists may have discovered a major flaw in their understanding of dark energy, a mysterious cosmic force . That could be good news for the fate of the universe.

A new set of computer simulations, which take into account the effects of stars moving past our solar system, has effectively made it harder to predict Earth’s future and reconstruct its past.

Dante Lauretta, the planetary scientist who led the OSIRIS-REx mission to retrieve a handful of space dust , discusses his next final frontier.

Is Pluto a planet? And what is a planet, anyway? Test your knowledge here .

Keen to sign up for space tourism? Here are 6 things to consider (besides the price tag)

Professorial Fellow, Bond University / Emeritus Professor of International Law, Western Sydney University, Western Sydney University

Disclosure statement

Steven Freeland is a Director of the International Institute of Space Law

Western Sydney University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

View all partners

It’s been a momentous month for space-faring billionaires. On July 11, British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson’s Unity “rocket-plane” flew him and five fellow passengers about 85 kilometres above Earth. And this week, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard capsule reached an altitude of 106km , carrying Bezos, his brother, and the oldest and youngest people ever to reach such a height. Passengers on both flights experienced several minutes of weightlessness and took in breathtaking views of our beautiful and fragile Earth.

Both flights created an avalanche of media coverage and brand recognition for Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Bezos’s Blue Origin. There is renewed anticipation of a lucrative commercial space tourism industry that could eventually see thousands of paying passengers journey into space (or not quite into space, depending on your preferred level of pedantry).

This year marks 60 years since Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Since then, almost 600 trained astronauts have gone into outer space, but very few people have become space tourists.

The first, US engineer Dennis Tito, paid a reported US$20 million to spend six days orbiting Earth in the Russian section of the International Space Station in April 2001, after three months’ training at Russia’s Star City complex. He was followed by a handful of other very wealthy “orbital tourists”, most recently Cirque de Soleil founder Guy Laliberté in 2009, whose ticket reportedly cost US$35 million.

Unlike their predecessors, Branson’s and Bezos’ flights were suborbital – they didn’t reach the velocity needed to orbit Earth. Bezos’s entire flight lasted just over 10 minutes. Suborbital flights are much less technically complex, and in theory cheaper (although one seat on the New Shepard flight was auctioned for US$28 million ).

While they might quibble over billionaire bragging rights, there’s no denying that suborbital “space” flights have the potential to be less eye-wateringly expensive than going into orbital outer space and beyond.

But before you sign up – assuming you’re lucky enough to afford it – here are a few things to consider.

Where does space start, anyway?

Despite assertions to the contrary , there is no legal definition of “outer space”, and thus no official boundary where airspace ends and outer space begins. In the past, the International Aeronautical Federation has looked to the von Karman line , but this does not coincide with the boundary of any of the atmosphere’s scientifically defined layers, and the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space , which deals with such issues, has not yet resolved the question.

Conveniently for Branson, 80km has been proposed by some experts as an appropriate boundary.

Outer space is undeniably influenced by Earthly geopolitics. Essentially, the larger space-faring countries see no need to legally define a boundary that would clearly demarcate the upper limits of their sovereignty.

Will you be an ‘astronaut’?

The 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty designates astronauts as “envoys of (hu)mankind in outer space”. Certainly, that seemed to be the case as the world watched the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing and prayed for a safe return of the stricken Apollo 13 capsule. However, the 1968 UN Rescue Agreement refers to “personnel of a spacecraft”, which may imply not everyone on board should be considered a fully fledged astronaut.

Of course, these legal niceties won’t deter space tourism companies from awarding “astronaut wings” to their passengers.

What laws apply when things go wrong?

The 1986 Challenger and 2003 Columbia shuttle disasters are stark reminders of the dangers of space travel. Human space travel has always involved determining acceptable levels of risk for trained astronauts. But commercial space tourism is different to state-sponsored space programs, and will need the highest possible safety standards.

Commercial space travel will also require a system of responsibility and liability, for cases in which a space tourist suffers injury, loss or damage.

Space tourists (or their families) can’t claim for compensation under the 1972 UN Liability Convention which, in terms of space, applies only to collisions between space objects such as satellites and space debris. While there may be scope to take legal action under national laws, it is likely space tourists will be asked to sign carefully worded waivers of liability.

Read more: Want to become a space tourist? You finally can — if you have $250,000 and a will to sign your life away

The same is probably true of international air law , which applies to “aircraft” — a designation space tourism operators will understandably be keen to avoid.

Ultimately, we may need to develop a system of “aerospace law” to govern these suborbital flights as well as “transorbital” transport such as the keenly envisaged flights that might one day take passengers from Sydney to London in just a few hours.

What activities should be allowed in space?

The advent of space tourism will give rise to some interesting ethical questions. Should there be advertising billboards in space? What about casinos, or brothels? On what legal basis should these things be restricted?

How does tourism fit with the underlying philosophy of space law: that the exploration and use of outer space “shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries”?

Will space tourism harm the environment?

Space tourism will inevitably put pressure on Earth’s environment – there are claims that space vehicles may one day become the world’s biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions. We will need to manage space traffic carefully to avoid disastrous collisions and steer clear of space debris .

Read more: It's not how big your laser is, it's how you use it: space law is an important part of the fight against space debris

If tourists go to the Moon, they may cause pollution or damage the heritage of earlier exploration, such as Neil Armstrong’s footprints .

Will tourism workers have to live in space?

If space tourism does become truly widespread, it will need infrastructure and perhaps even staff. People may end up living permanently in space settlements, perhaps having children who will be born as “space citizens”. What legal rights would someone have if they were born at a Moon base? Would they be subject to terrestrial laws, or some version of current international legal rules for outer space?

These are obviously questions for the future. But given the excitement generated by the brief journeys of a couple of wealthy entrepreneurs, we should start contemplating them now. Outer space is the new frontier, but it is not — and must not — be a lawless one.

• Sustainability
• United Nations
• Space tourism
• Space debris
• Richard Branson
• Virgin Galactic
• Blue Origin
• Space treaties
• Suborbital flight

Scheduling Analyst

Assistant Editor - 1 year cadetship

Executive Dean, Faculty of Health

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer, Earth System Science (School of Science)

Sydney Horizon Educators (Identified)

Space tourism took a giant leap in 2021: Here's 10 milestones from the year

From suborbital space to high Earth orbit, space tourism is just getting started.

This year saw more space tourists fly to space on a bunch of different systems, and the story has only just begun. 

Virgin Galactic , Blue Origin and SpaceX each flew their first tourist-focused missions this year, sending aloft several people each with minimal training in professional spaceflight. Meanwhile, Roscosmos (the Russian federal space agency) brought two sets of space tourists into space, including a mission with Space Adventures.

With 2022 also set to be busy, between more tourist flights and the expected addition of company Axiom Space (using a SpaceX Crew Dragon), we rounded up some of the main milestones of 2021 below.

Video: Life on the International Space Station in 2021

1) Axiom Space announces first crew for 2022

Axiom Space  revealed its clients Jan. 26 for its first privately-funded and operated mission to the  International Space Station  (ISS). Called Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1), the flight is arranged under a commercial agreement with NASA.

Slated to launch on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft   are Larry Connor, an American real estate and technology entrepreneur; Eytan Stibbe, a businessman and former Israeli fighter pilot; Mark Pathy, a Canadian investor and philanthropist; and  Michael Lopez-Alegria, a retired NASA astronaut  with nearly 260 days in space already across four missions.

In June, SpaceX and Axiom announced an agreement to fly three more missions to the orbiting complex after Ax-1. NASA officially cleared the Ax-1 crew for flight on Dec. 20.

Get the Space.com Newsletter

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

2) Starship launches test flight and sticks the landing

After several attempts on previous test landing that didn't make it safely to landing, SpaceX's  Starship  SN-15 prototype launched its own test flight May 5 and made it all the way from takeoff to touchdown. 

The uncrewed test flight coincidentally fell on the 60th anniversary of the United States' first-ever crewed spaceflight, which saw NASA astronaut  Alan Shepard make it to suborbital space. SpaceX has said it hopes to use Starship to branch out in the solar system, especially for crewed Mars missions.

3) Virgin Galactic launches Richard Branson

On July 11, Virgin Galactic launched its first operational tourist flight , featuring founder Richard Branson . It was "the experience of a lifetime," Branson said during a live broadcast of the flight. 

The four-person crew and two pilots of the Unity 22 test flight mission took off from the company's  Spaceport America  facility in New Mexico and flew just above the boundary of space, where everyone experienced about four minutes of weightlessness. 

Future flights of Virgin Galactic, though, have been delayed due to a Federal Aviation Administration investigation into a reported incident that happened during the spaceflight. That said, Virgin has opened up tickets again to paying spaceflyers, now at $450,000 apiece .

4) Blue Origin launches Jeff Bezos to space

Days after the Virgin flight, Blue Origin launched its first crewed spaceflight on July 20, featuring founder Jeff Bezos and a set of other three space tourists, including Mercury 13 aviator Wally Funk . 

Since the system flies autonomously, no pilots were required to be on board (although Funk is highly qualified as an aviator) as the New Shepard system lifted off from Blue Origin's Launch Site One near the West Texas town of Van Horn.

While Bezos and Branson denied their companies were in competition , the broadcast of Bezos' flight made several cutting remarks about the company flying above the Kármán line , an internationally recognized boundary of spaceflight that Virgin Galactic flights don't reach. 

Bezos also said in an interview in July that Blue Origin is not focused on competition, but building a "road to space." The company has adopted that catchphrase as a tagline and repeats it frequently during live broadcasts.

5) SpaceX stacks tallest booster ever with Starship

SpaceX's newest  Starship  prototype (SN-20) perched on its massive Super Heavy booster for the first time on Friday (Aug. 6), briefly setting a new record for the world's tallest rocket during preparations for an orbital mission.

The hour-long fit check brought the stack to 395 feet tall (120 m), taller than NASA's massive Saturn V moon rocket, which was 363 feet tall (110 m). Super Heavy alone stands 230 feet (70 meters) tall and Starship SN4 includes another 165 feet (50 m) of height. 

The next major milestone for Starship is the orbital launch that may take place in 2022, pending an environmental review by the Federal Aviation Administration and related government groups. SpaceX founder Elon Musk has pushed back launch estimates several times due to the review.

6) Inspiration4 launches 4 civilians on first orbital mission

Billionaire Jared Isaacman's privately chartered spaceflight  launched on Sept. 15, 2021 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, flying high in Earth orbit on a nearly three-day mission. Inspiration4 was the first crewed orbital mission with no professional astronauts on board (as the Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin flights preceding it were all suborbital missions.)

Isaacman, a pilot, commanded the flight and was accompanied by physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux, data engineer Chris Sembroski, and geoscientist and science communication specialist Sian Proctor. Sembroski and Proctor won their seats in contests to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, while Arceneaux is employed at that hospital.

Resilience and its crew circled Earth for three days,  splashing down off the Florida coast on Sept. 18 . The mission exceeded its fundraising goal for St. Jude.

7) Blue Origin launches William Shatner

A "Star Trek" star boldly went into suborbital space Oct. 13 on Blue Origin's second crewed space mission, called NS-18. William Shatner, 90, is best known for playing Captain James T. Kirk on "Star Trek: The Original Series."

"That was unlike anything they described," Shatner was heard saying via a radio link as the capsule parachuted back to Earth, after carrying him and three other crew members to suborbital space.

Shatner is now the oldest person to have ever flown to space, beating the record set by Wally Funk , 82, who flew on Blue Origin's first crewed flight July 20. Crew member Glen de Vries died in a plane crash weeks after the flight and Blue Origin dedicated their next crewed mission in December to him.

8) Russian film crew shoots drama on ISS

Just days after Shatner's ride to space, a Russian film crew including actress Yulia Peresild and producer Klim Shipenko landed with cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy of the Russian federal space corporation Roscosmos on Oct. 17 .

"Вызов" ("Challenge" in English) is the movie in production. It follows the fictional story of a surgeon (Peresild) who is launched to the station to perform emergency surgery on a cosmonaut (Novitskiy, who would play the role well given he is a cosmonaut in real life.)

The effort is a joint production of  Roscosmos , the Russian television station Channel One and the studio Yellow, Black and White. Given the small crew on hand in space, Shipenko took on several behind-the-scenes roles, including director, make-up artist, sound editor and cinematographer. 

9) Blue Origin launches 'Good Morning America' host to space

Blue Origin's next (and likely last) crewed flight of 2021 filled out all six seats in the New Shepard spacecraft during a successful launch and landing Dec. 11 . The starring guest was Michael Strahan, host of "Good Morning America", who is a retired football player. (The crew threw mini-footballs in space to celebrate his past career.)

Strahan said the experience was amazing. "I want to go back," he told Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos after returning to Earth. "Touchdown has a new meaning now!!!"  he wrote on Twitter  after the flight.

Also on the flight was Laura Shepard Churchley, 74, the daughter of NASA astronaut Shepard after whom the New Shepard system is named, and four other individuals who paid for their seats. Blue Origin has not yet released per-seat pricing for customers, and we are also awaiting details on their next planned crew launch.

10) Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa flies to ISS

A Russian  Soyuz spacecraft  carrying Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, video producer Yozo Hirano and cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin launched on Dec. 8 to the International Space Station for a 12-day mission to the orbiting lab.

Maezawa is also planning to fly around the moon on a SpaceX mission that he paid for, tentatively slotted for 2023 , but chose to visit the space station as well on a mission brokered by the U.S. space tourism company Space Adventures with Russia's Roscosmos space agency. It was not revealed how much Maezawa paid for the flight, but single seats in the past have cost up to $35 million. And Maezawa bought two seats, one for himself and for Hirano, who recorded videos of Maezawa in space .

Maezawa, the CEO of Start Today and the founder of online clothing retailer ZOZO, bought the seats for himself and Hirano. Hirano documented the mission and participate in some  health and performance research . They also made the first Uber Eats delivery in space on the flight. The trio returned to Earth on Dec. 19 .

And that's a wrap at the biggest space tourism moments in 2021. The year 2022 is expected to bring more milestones as the company Axiom Space plans to launch its first fully private crew to the International Space Station early in the year, with SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic all expected to continue their private spaceflight pace. 

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter  @howellspace . Follow us on Twitter  @Spacedotcom  or on  Facebook . 

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, " Why Am I Taller ?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace

China launches Chang'e 6 sample-return mission to moon's far side (video)

SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites in 2nd half of spaceflight doubleheader (video)

Celebrate Lego Star Wars Day with 20% off the Millennium Falcon

Most Popular

• 2 Did the James Webb Space Telescope really find life beyond Earth? Scientists aren't so sure
• 3 Eta Aquarid meteor shower peak could spawn over 100 'shooting stars' per hour this weekend
• 4 'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace' returns to theaters for its 25th anniversary today
• 5 Citizen scientists find remarkable exoplanet, name it after Harry Potter character