Climate change, so what? The space travel business is picking up

Space nations mix with as well as private companies – as if there weren’t any Climate change .

If you have always wanted to go down in history as a tourist, you would probably have the opportunity to do so in the next year or two . You can book a flight to the International Space Station (ISS) including a walk in space . “ That has never been done by a private person before,” says Tom Shelley. As head of the US company Space Adventures, which specializes in space tourism, he sells the trip together with Russia.

The excursion is only for the very rich. “The price is very high, so there aren’t very many who can afford it,” admits Shelley in an interview with the German Press Agency in Moscow. A flight to the ISS with the Russian space agency Roskosmos costs according to his information the equivalent of up to 50 million euros. The tour with the spacewalk planned for 2023 or 2024 should be even more expensive.

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk

Space tourism received a lot of attention in 2021 – also because of the race between two billionaires. In the summer, the British billionaire Richard Branson and shortly afterwards Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tested their missiles. In the following months Bezos sent two more flights with a total of ten passengers into space – including the actor William Shatner, known as Captain Kirk from “Starship Enterprise” .

Bezos has announced further short trips into All for 2022, the demand for Tickets are very high. Branson also wants to offer flights.

With Elon Musk sent another billionaire with own space company 2021 tourists into space. Its four passengers – none of them trained astronauts – spent several days in space and circled on the earth several times on board a “Crew Dragon”.

In 2022 the company Axiom Space wants to participate in the first such cooperation the US space agency Nasa bring tourists to the ISS. Roskosmos just flew the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano to the ISS.

Rapid bleaching for laypeople

Space tourism has picked up significantly, but there can be no talk of a boom – not only are the prices far too high for that, but also the spaceships and the ISS are simply too small. Since 2001, just nine private individuals have made it to the ISS. After the US space agency Nasa suspended its manned flights to the ISS, only Russian Soyuz rockets flew from 2011 to 2020. For a year and a half private spaceships have been on the road on behalf of NASA – this can boost tourism again.

Russia, on the other hand, has rebuilt its spaceships in such a way that they can only be can be controlled by a trained cosmonaut. This means that there is now room for two tourists in the Soyuz. In the autumn, Russia also tested an extra-short training program for tourists. Nevertheless, the travelers have to bring a lot of time: You have to estimate three to four months for training and flight, says Shelley. “Many have obligations in life, so it is difficult to find a free time.”

The other thing is health. “We have worked over the years to lower the requirements for private individuals,” says the head of Space Adventures. «You don’t have to be perfect. It’s okay to have a few minor health issues. As long as we know the risks, we can manage them. ” So far there are hardly any empirical values ​​such as how the body of older people copes with weightlessness – such data could be interesting for flights to Mars, for example.

Devastating climate footprint for useless fun

From many sides there is sharp criticism of space -Tourism, for example by environmentalists, politicians and celebrities: It is a business of the rich and for the rich, the largely without scientific research interests serving the well-being of mankind and without consideration of the climate, it is said. The rocket launches require huge amounts of fuel, the material and logistics requirements are immense, and the per capita climate balance for all tourists is correspondingly devastating.

Astronauts and cosmonauts from national space agencies were criticized because space tourists like to refer to themselves as astronauts, even if they only spent a few minutes in amazement in space. Due to the increase in the number of to space tourists at the end of the year, the US aviation authority (FAA) ended a program in which everyone who was in space had a coveted wing Brooch got.

« Das 2004 ins The Life Called Astronaut Wings Program has served its original purpose of bringing more attention to this challenge, ”says FAA chief Wayne Monteith. Instead, people flown into space would now only be listed on the Internet.