Space tourism

The space tourism is the Tourisme which relates to the space. It appeared at the beginning of the 21e century, and is of course reserved to the particularly fortunate people.

Space flights

Space Adventures

Currently, the only company providing such a service is Space Adventures, which holds a franchise agreement for four launchings until in 2007 with the Russian federal Space agency (FKA). The price of a stay is estimated in 2006 at 20 million dollars (15 million euros).

Left with Space Adventures, there is, to date (April 2007) five tourists of space:

Dennis Tito: April 28th with the May 6th 2001
Mark Shuttleworth: April 25th with the May 5th 2002
Gregory Olsen: of October 1st with the October 11th 2005. He would have spent 20 million US Dollars (this figure was not confirmed officially).
Anousheh Ansari : September 18th with the September 29th 2006. An américano-Iranian woman, who are the first woman tourist of space, and first Iranian woman. She takes off on September 18th, 2006 on board the mission Soyuz TMA-9, for one 10 days duration on board ISS. Under the pressure of the Russian and American authorities, it will not be able to keep the Iranian flag on its combination, nor to diffuse political message.
Charles Simonyi taking part in the flight Soyuz TMA-10 of the April 7th 2007 in direction the ISS, for a return envisaged the April 20th. According to Eric Anderson, chairman of Space Adventures, this fifth traveller of space spent 25 million dollars. Charles Simonyi is a former employee of Microsoft which was during a time in load of division application of the american company and more particular of the office automation continuation Microsoft Office. He since created his own company, Intentional Software .

The October 10th 2005, Alexeï Krasnov of the FKA, declared that Daisuke Enomoto, a contractor Japanese 34 years had been had a presentiment of to be the fourth tourist of space and to leave the September 14th 2006. But following nonconclusive medical examinations, it is isolated program the August 21st 2006.

Virgin Galactic

The company Virgin Galactic of Richard Branson, created in 2004 proposes as for it a parabolic Vol with more than 100 km of altitude starting from 2008, on board space planes of type SpaceShipTwo (of the company Scaled Composites), being able to carry 7 passengers paying 200.000 dollars initially the place. The price should drop towards the 30 000 with 40 000 dollars if success is with go.

EADS Astrium

The company EADS Astrium revealed the June 13rd 2007 its project of space tourism. The first flight could take place in 2012, if the project as envisaged begins before 2008. A Avion-fusée conceived by Astrium will make it possible four passengers to reach an altitude of more than 100 km, at a cost ranging between 150.000 and 200.000 euros per anybody. The duration of the flight will be of approximately an hour and half.

Space hotels

At the end of the Years 1990, several companies had fun with the idea to create hotels placed in terrestrial orbit using the principal reserve of the American Space shuttle, or the inflatable structures. But none of these ideas exceeded the feasibility study.

More recently, the businessman Robert Bigelow, Tycoon of the hotels Inn Budget, acquired the plans of a inflatable space habitat resulting from an abandoned program of NASA, Transhab. Its company, Bigelow Aerospace, launched a first prototype on reduced scale of orbital hotel, Genesis, in July 2006.

Other companies are also interested by the construction of space hotels. chairman of Virgin, Richard Branson, hopes to see the construction of such a hotel during its life.

See too

External bonds

Prospective of Space exploration on espace-archipel.info

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