Space Tourism

Space tourism involves traveling to space by people for adventure, leisure, or investments by established space tourism entities. This is a costly process to gratify the curiosity of individuals about how space appears. By 2015, only seven people had traversed into space as tourists. Between 2000 and 2010, Space Adventures Corporation brokered pacts between seven billionaires alongside the Russian space organization, sending them to the International Space Station using Russian rockets for two weeks, at a fee of $20 to $45 million each (Chang, 2015).

The flights were provisionally put on hold in 2011 majorly because the retirement of the Space Shuttle implies NASA had to dig deeper into their pockets to reserve the slots for American astronauts.

Space tourism, which resurfaced in 2015, is a distinct class of space travel, which further incorporates traveling into space for purposes of work mainly by government staff. Recently, it has been argued that although government space organizations lack interest in space tourism, this form of recreation is an aim of development of activities in space (Chang, 2017).

Get quality help now
Prof. Finch
Prof. Finch
checked Verified writer

Proficient in: Space Exploration

star star star star 4.7 (346)

“ This writer never make an mistake for me always deliver long before due date. Am telling you man this writer is absolutely the best. ”

avatar avatar avatar
+84 relevant experts are online
Hire writer

Space tourism can help considerably in funding space activities and operations. The research paper introduces space tourism in regards to its top destinations, activities, events, trends, as well as news relevant to this form of travel.

Top Destinations

Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England

Arguably, one of the most renowned pre-historic shrines in the world, Stonehenge draws 800,000 tourists every year who marvel at the bluestone circle and linteled sandstone. Historians and archeologists lack an explanation about the builder of this Stonehenge approximately 5 centuries ago. The Neolithic developers would have had to erect the shrine, which served as a place for burial lacking the contemporary technology and would have towed the bluestone of the inner sphere from Wales, approximately 200 miles away (Damjanov & Crouch, 2018).

Get to Know The Price Estimate For Your Paper
Topic
Number of pages
Email Invalid email

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy. We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

"You must agree to out terms of services and privacy policy"
Write my paper

You won’t be charged yet!

There are people who trust the sole explanation for the construction of the holy site is that aliens put the massive stones in their place.

Area 51, Great Basin Desert, Nevada, United States

Area 51 represents an air force ground in southern parts of Nevada’s Great Britain Basin Desert. Treachery philosophers trust that the site houses the concealed wreckage of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Such people further contend that aliens are stored in foreign autopsy units and their UFO machines are placed abundantly. Some space tourists claimed to have seen UFOs in the region in the start of the mid-20th century and the United States administration’s categorization of information in respect to this further fuels speculation by a section of people that men are not the sole residents of the world (Guerster & Crawley, 2018). UFO predators normally drive State Road 285, which was selected by the government as the Interplanetary Highway in 1996 for the many alien and UFO detections supposedly seen along the way and its close propinquity to this region. Rachel is a nearby town that provides for UFO hunters with domestic local trades such as Little A’Le’Inn, a name for the alien-themed hotel, restaurant, trailer park as well as gift shop.

Australian Astronomical Observatory, New South Wales, Australia

Mounted at an altitude of approximately 4,000 feet at the top of a mountain in the Warrumbungle Range, about 260 miles northwest of Sydney, this tourist hotspot reflects the largest infrared and optical astronomy facility in Australia. The Australian Astronomical Observatory houses many functional telescopes, most strikingly the 13-foot Anglo-Australian Telescope stored in a huge white dome, alongside the United Kingdom Schmidt telescopes placed at Siding Spring Observatory. Over 25,000 tourists visit the place annually, incorporating 3,500 stargazers who attend the yearly StarFest in October (Spector, Higham & Doering, 2017). This is the sole day of the year when the facility fully opens the huge telescope for tourists to get a closer view and host discussions by renowned astronauts.

Space Adventures, Russia

For space tourists with an interest in taking flights alongside being astronauts, this hotspot provides the opportunity at a cost of $35 million dependent on trip length as well as other aspects. Tourists fly in the Russian Soyuz ship to the International Space Observatory guided by qualified astronauts for missions that can take ten or more days. The corporation has used eight flights to date flying rich people to space. It is worth noting that Singer Sarah Brightman is among the celebrities who flew to space using Space Adventures in 2015 after undergoing extensive training. Space Adventures in 2017 offered a trip around the far-end of the moon, 60 miles of the surface of the moon to be precise (Naumann & Pinto, 2018). The company is planning to unveil its first lunar mission by the closing stages of 2018.

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, Canary Islands, Spain

Located on the side of the Caldera National Park, this Roque de los Muchachos Observatory houses some of the biggest collections of telescopes across the globe. Space tourists wishing to visit the station need to apply earlier. Guerster and Crawley (2018) believe that tours of the observatory, positioned one-and-a-half miles above sea level incorporate an 80- to 100-minute journey of the observation amenities and the inner parts of one of the massive telescopes.

Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico

Housing the universe’s biggest single-dish radio telescope (which operated as a backdrop to some gallant James Bond instants in “Golden Eye”), the Arecibo Station is one of the most essential global centers for studies in radio astronomy, terrestrial radar as well as terrestrial aeronomy. This facility operates all day and all night every day and is open to anyone wishing to visit the place. The Arecibo Observatory is famous for discovering the initial planets outside the solar system and is better placed to recognize signals from interplanetary existence by emphasizing on numerous star systems (Damjanov & Crouch, 2018). It is, however, essential to note that no signals have been recognized to date.

Activities in Space Tourism

During its approximately 15 years of incessant habitation, 220 individuals from 17 different states have visited the International Space Station. Space tourists onboard are normally active for about 9 hours every day doing science, training, and maintaining systems with the help of astronauts. Apart from planned time for lunch and sleep, astronauts have a few hours of free time per week, and that involves time for food alongside general hygiene. Despite having a full calendar, the few space tourists with the chance to live in the microgravity space find ways to make the most of such experience (Chang, 2017). There are limited activities space tourists do while in space hey include flying, eating, playing games, going out for walks, and drinking. The most self-explanatory and utterly fun element of visiting space for tourists is flying. In space, there exist no up or down, so the floor does not exist.

Space tourists use rails to push themselves in modules, majorly with their hands. The activity requires some time to get used to, but over the course of a few days stay, tourists, turn into acrobats. After such time, space tourists can successfully use their feet, flipping skills and feet to move from one end to the other. Then there is eating as an activity. Space tourists have described the food in space in space as tasty. This is partly because space tourists have a large responsibility in deciding what to eat. An elongated stay in space may lead to experiencing desensitized taste buds thanks to the shifting fluid towards the head. When the end of a visit nears, space tourists tend to favor spicy meals attributed to such a phenomenon. In space, tourists can enjoy meals using floating spoons (Chang, 2015). It is also essential to note that in space, liquids operate differently compared to earth. Space tourists cannot just pour a cup of coffee in a cup. Since there is no gravity, the coffee will stick to the walls of the jug and would create problems when sipping. Mostly, space tourists fill bags with liquids and use special straws with clamps to prevent the content moving out.

Space tourists are also afforded downtime that can be spent as wishes but under the guidance of professionals. This time can be used to watch movies, take photos, and read books among other activities. Sometimes space tourists can come up with games to keep themselves busy. The activities incorporate hitting targets, flying from one side of the observatory to the other or playing zero gravity sports, such as soccer. The absence of gravity makes a fruitful bicycle kick much cooler to achieve. Preparing and implementing a spacewalk requires approximately 8 to 12 hours, and can be a crammed schedule (Chang, 2017). Space tourists have to be focused on the activity at hand and adhering to the timeline, nonetheless, every once in a while, they might catch a spare instant to watch the Earth some miles underneath. Many space tourists describe the observation from a spacewalk as one of the most attractive sights in their existence.

Events

The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT) is currently confident that it will be completing its first experimental flights in the coming few years and open up for commercial space tourists. The firm’s spaceplane is still in archetype stage, but has emptied all of the ground trials and all the subsections of the test vehicle have been said to operate properly. Such designs show a refillable, rocket-powered car with the volume to carry 25 people to a height of approximately 150 km. A smaller make can house five individuals and fly at an altitude of about 200 kilometers. The spaceplane weighs approximately a 100 ton and contains a wingspan of about 12 meters, and predictable to reach Mach 8 in a matter of minutes of taking off perpendicularly from a devoted launch pad (Damjanov & Crouch, 2018).

Subsequent to giving space tourists a considerable chance of about 8 minutes of buoyant spaceflight as well as an unbelievable perception of planet Earth, the spacecraft would come back to Earth and land on a landing field like a traditional aircraft. The designers note that the spacecraft would be able to make as many as 40 flights in its entire life. As compared to SolarStratos’s $20-million charge for every mission, CALVT approximates that the fee for each passenger will be approximately between $250,000 as well as $300,000 (Guerster & Crawley, 2018). This among other current events is happening in the current world to ensure space tourists gain a better experience when traveling to space. It is also essential to note that such progress will make easier research concerning space.

Trends

The declaration of the draft Spaceflight Bill according to the Queen’s Speech will permit the design of spaceports in the United Kingdom. Such a measure could see participants of the paying public established into as space tourists, or taking pre-orbital flights from London heading New York in less than one hour. Companies in the form of as Virgin Galactic will permit tourists, mere humans, to experience weightlessness that will make such escapades likely via revolutionary spaceplanes, as are now in making (Naumann & Pinto, 2018). If such sounds only of interest to individuals who can manage to pay for the six-figure ticket fee, it further has key implications for systematic finding. Space travel-related study has perhaps already had a more considerable positive influence on a life than one realizes, and this statement could enhance this still further.

Space agencies involving ESA as well as NASA today provide access to replicated microgravity for methodical research utilizing parabolic flights. They allow human functioning studies to be conducted more easily compared to the International Space Station, nonetheless, the time used in microgravity is very petite (Naumann & Pinto, 2018). Spaceplanes might offer elongated sessions, which might enable detailed research to inform the scheme of experiments into the longer-term biological alterations from spaceflight. Maybe one day, space tourists will see research groups establishing teams of members to spend a few weeks sometimes months in space hotel in order to research medical involvements that would relax the aging procedure on Earth and to assist the human species to inhabit the Moon as sometimes even Mars (Spector, Higham & Doering, 2017). Commercial spaceflight entities such as Orbital as well as SpaceX are already initiating rockets taking provisions and research tools to the International Space Observatory. SpaceX is evolving its habitable Dragon pill to take space tourists round the moon, with determinations to use its brother, Red Dragon, to land people on Mars.

News

The two corporations leading the rest in the chase of space tourism say they are only months away from their opening out-of-this-world traveler flights, though none has set a precise date. Virgin Galactic, established by British magnate Richard Branson, alongside Blue Origin, founded by Amazon developer Jeff Bezos, are competing to be the main to complete their trials with both entities using fundamentally dissimilar technology. Neither Blue Origin nor Virgin’s tourists will find themselves circling the Earth: but, their weightless involvement will last a few minutes. This will offer a far new experience from the first space passengers, who parted with millions of money to be in the International Space Station (ISS) early the 2000s. The new round of space tourists will be driven many miles into the atmosphere, prior to coming back down to Earth. By contrast, the ISS is in revolution 400 kilometers from Earth (Naumann & Pinto, 2018). The aim is to approach or move through the make-believe line marking in which space commences, either the Karman line, 62 miles or the 50-mile borderline accepted by the US Air Force. At such altitude, the sky appears dark and the curving of the earth is seen openly.

Updated: Feb 02, 2024
Cite this page

Space Tourism. (2024, Feb 02). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/space-tourism-essay

Live chat  with support 24/7

👋 Hi! I’m your smart assistant Amy!

Don’t know where to start? Type your requirements and I’ll connect you to an academic expert within 3 minutes.

get help with your assignment