SpaceX Wants to Launch 4 Tourists Into Super High Orbit
Ticket prices are not being divulged but are expected to be in the millions
By Marcia Dunn ••
SpaceX via AP
This undated photo made available by SpaceX in February 2020 shows the Crew Dragon spacecraft undergoing acoustic testing in Florida. On Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020, SpaceX announced it is working with Space Adventures Inc. to take tourists into a high orbit. Ticket prices aren’t being divulged but are likely to be in the millions of dollars.
What to Know
For this trip, paying customers will skip the space station and instead orbit two to three times higher, or roughly 500 miles to 750 miles above Earth.
The tourist flight “will forge a path to making spaceflight possible for all people who dream of it,” SpaceX said.
Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil, paid $35 million for a 1 1/2-week space station flight in 2009. He said from orbit that it was “worth every penny and more.”
SpaceX aims to launch up to four tourists into a super high orbit, possibly by the end of next year.
The private company is working with Space Adventures Inc. for the flight, officials announced Tuesday. Ticket prices are not being divulged but expected to be in the millions.
Space Adventures already has helped put tourists into orbit with trips to the International Space Station, working with the Russian space program.
For this trip, paying customers will skip the space station and instead orbit two to three times higher, or roughly 500 miles to 750 miles above Earth.
It's a lofty goal that would approach the record 850-mile-high orbit achieved by Gemini 11's Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon in 1966.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"This image of a heart-shaped mesa was taken by the CTX camera on the MRO spacecraft on October 15, 2019. The feature is approximately three kilometers wide and located at 2.4°N, 169.4°W, near the equator of Mars." Released in 2020.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"This somewhat heart-shaped, eroded and partially-filled crater is located near the southeast wall of Columbus Crater in the Mare Sirenum region of Mars. North is toward the bottom/lower left." Released in 2019.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"The image on the left is a scaled and color enhanced image of a heart-shaped cloud feature in Jupiter’s atmosphere taken by JunoCam on the Juno spacecraft on September 1, 2017. The picture on the right is of an approximately 4 km wide mesa landform on Mars taken by CTX on the MRO spacecraft on February 11, 2018." Released in 2018.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"This picture was taken by the Context Camera (CTX) on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft on January 10, 2017. The feature is located at 3.53°S, 71.4°W in Ophir Chasma." Released in 2017.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"This image of a heart-shaped mesa with a crater at the center was taken by the CTX camera on the MRO spacecraft this week, on February 7, 2016. The mesa is located at 56.7°N, 111.4°W in the northern plains, where the atmospheric clarity is still a bit hazy." Released in 2016.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"This picture of a heart-shaped pit north of Gordii Dorsum was taken by the CTX camera on the MRO spacecraft in 2009. The pit is located at 8.6°N, 144.2°W and contains many interesting features, including slope streaks on the northeast wall of the depression." Released in 2012.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"This picture of a heart-shaped feature in Arabia Terra was taken on 23 May 2010 by the CTX camera on the MRO spacecraft. A small impact crater near the tip of the heart is responsible for the formation of the bright, heart-shaped feature. When the impact occurred, darker material on the surface was blown away, and brighter material beneath it was revealed. Some of this brighter material appears to have flowed further downslope to form the heart shape, as the small impact occurred on the ejecta blanket of a much larger impact crater." Released in 2011.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"This picture of a heart-shaped pit was taken on 26 February 2008 by the CTX camera aboard MRO. It is approximately 2 km long and is centered at 3.7° N, 29.9° W. The pit is one of many adjacent to Hydaspis Chaos, a jumbled topographic depression thought to have formed by collapse of the surface due to—perhaps—catastrophic release of groundwater." Released in 2009.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"This picture of a landform that somewhat resembles a Valentine’s Day heart was acquired nearly two months ago by the CTX on 23 December 2007. The heart is about 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) across." Released in 2008.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"This somewhat heart-shaped, eroded and partially-filled crater is located near the southeast wall of Columbus Crater in the Mare Sirenum region of Mars. North is toward the bottom/lower left." Released in 2006.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows a heart-shaped hill surrounded by cracked terrain within a depression in far northwestern Arabia Terra, near the Cydonia region of Mars. Happy St. Valentine's Day from the MGS MOC team!" Released in 2005.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"Happy St. Valentine's Day from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) team! This collection of images acquired over the past 3 Mars years shows some of the heart-shaped features found on Mars by the MGS MOC." Released in 2004.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) captured this unique view of a bright, heart-shaped mesa in the south polar region on November 26, 1999. This feature is located in the Promethei Rupes region near 79.6°S, 298.3°W. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the lower left. The heart is about 255 meters (279 yards) across. The presence of this mesa indicates that the darker, rough terrain that surrounds it was once covered by a layer of the bright material." Released in 2000.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
EMPTY_CAPTION"The heart-shaped pit is about 2.3 kilometers (1.4 miles) at its widest. The image was targeted by the MOC team in order to examine the relationship between a lava flow (margins indicated by white arrows, above right) and the graben and pits that disrupted and cut across the flow. The graben, pit, and lava flow are located on the east flank of the Alba Patera volcano in northern Tharsis." Released in 1999.
The tourist flight “will forge a path to making spaceflight possible for all people who dream of it,” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in a statement.
Elon Musk's California-based SpaceX already is dabbling in space tourism, signing on a Japanese billionaire to fly to the moon in three or so years. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic also plan tourist trips to space, but these will be brief up-and-downs, not orbital.
SpaceX will use the same kind of Dragon capsule that will launch NASA astronauts to the space station, possibly in another few months. The capsule has flown only once in space so far, making its debut last year in a successful test flight without a crew.
Space Adventures spokeswoman Stacey Tearne said the tourist flight could occur in the last quarter of 2021. The company is in discussions with “several potential clients.”
No professional pilot or astronaut will be required, Tearne said, because the Dragon is fully autonomous. But passengers will be able to control the spacecraft if required, she said in an email.
American astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch made history Friday with NASA’s first all-female spacewalk. The astronauts walked outside the International Space Station to replace a faulty battery.
The cost will be in line with previous tourist flights, she said. Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil, paid $35 million for a 1 1/2-week space station flight in 2009. He said from orbit that it was “worth every penny and more.”
Like all previous space tourists, he launched on a Russian rocket from Kazakhstan.
This private Dragon flight from Cape Canaveral will be shorter, lasting up to five days, according to Tearne.
Based in Vienna, Virginia, Space Adventures helped arrange the flight of the world's first space tourist, Dennis Tito, founder and chairman of Wilshire Associates in California. He flew to the space station on a Russian capsule in 2001, igniting the wrath of top NASA officials who opposed visiting tourists.
The company has arranged eight space missions, with one tourist going twice.
Space Adventures' goal is to create “unique and previously impossible opportunities for private citizens to experience space,” Eric Anderson, company chairman, said in a statement.
NASA has softened its stance on space tourists, and is opening the station doors to paying customers once commercial crew flights by SpaceX and Boeing have been established.
