Out Of This World Trips Aboard Space Ships

In 2001, Russian space agency Rosaviacosmos and an adventurous billionaire - Dennis Tito - initiated space tourism, and now corporate lotteries and private space liners are set to make space tour accessible to even the ordinary person.

Rocketplane has been active in the corporate market. As early as 2004, it got software giant Oracle to offer a seat on Rocketplane space flight to the winner of its software development contest. It is another matter that the winner - Brian Emmett - surrendered the ticket on learning that he will have to pay $25,000 tax for accepting the ticket.

So far only five private citizens have been up there without government sponsorship. They all went to International Space Station (ISS), 350 kms above Earth’s surface, for 8-10 days and paid $20 million - $25 million. Four of them - Dennis Tito, Greg Olson, Anousha Ansari, Charles Simonyi - are Americas and one - Mark Shuttleworth - is a South African.

However, not every space tourist may want to go as far as that, spend $20 million on a trip, train for six months, and hang out for 8-10 days going around the Earth every 90 minutes and looking at 16 sunrises and sunsets each day. Instead, one may just want a brief ascent into the space, lose all weight for a few minutes, and see Earth’s curves from 100 km up there, all in 60 minutes with just a couple of days training and at a fraction of the cost of getting to the ISS. It is this sub orbital flight that is the focus of private space tourism industry.

Concerns about safety is a prime issue. In September 2007, Scaled composites, the company associated with manufacturing SpaceShipOne in 2004 and now SpaceShipTwo, suffered an explosion during a propulsion fuel test killing three people. Viability of space flights is another issue. Space vehicles cost more than a hundred million dollars to build. So utilization and operating costs will prove decisive.

Despite the above issues, the bookings for space tour flights planned in 2009 and beyond are already underway. Take a look at the options available for the out-of-this-world trips at www.8vacation.com/space-tourism.html