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The Future of Space Tourism Is Now. Well, Not Quite.

From zero-pressure balloon trips to astronaut boot camps, reservations for getting off the planet — or pretending to — are skyrocketing. The prices, however, are still out of this world.

By Debra Kamin

Ilida Alvarez has dreamed of traveling to space since she was a child. But Ms. Alvarez, a legal-mediation firm owner, is afraid of flying, and she isn’t a billionaire — two facts that she was sure, until just a few weeks ago, would keep her fantasy as out of reach as the stars. She was wrong.

Ms. Alvarez, 46, and her husband, Rafael Landestoy, recently booked a flight on a 10-person pressurized capsule that — attached to a massive helium-filled balloon — will gently float to 100,000 feet while passengers sip champagne and recline in ergonomic chairs. The reservation required a $500 deposit; the flight itself will cost $50,000 and last six to 12 hours.

“I feel like it was tailor-made for the chickens like me who don’t want to get on a rocket,” said Ms. Alvarez, whose flight, organized by a company called World View , is scheduled to depart from the Grand Canyon in 2024.

Less than a year after Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson kicked off a commercial space race by blasting into the upper atmosphere within weeks of each other last summer, the global space tourism market is skyrocketing, with dozens of companies now offering reservations for everything from zero-pressure balloon trips to astronaut boot camps and simulated zero-gravity flights. But don’t don your spacesuit just yet. While the financial services company UBS estimates the space travel market will be worth $3 billion by 2030, the Federal Aviation Administration has yet to approve most out-of-this-world trips, and construction has not started on the first space hotel. And while access and options — not to mention launchpads — are burgeoning, space tourism remains astronomically expensive for most.

First, what counts as space travel?

Sixty miles (about 100 kilometers) above our heads lies the Kármán line, the widely accepted aeronautical boundary of the earth’s atmosphere. It’s the boundary used by the Féderátion Aéronautique Internationale, which certifies and controls global astronautical records. But many organizations in the United States, including the F.A.A. and NASA, define everything above 50 miles to be space.

Much of the attention has been focused on a trio of billionaire-led rocket companies: Mr. Bezos’ Blue Origin , whose passengers have included William Shatner; Mr. Branson’s Virgin Galactic , where tickets for a suborbital spaceflight start at $450,000; and Elon Musk’s SpaceX , which in September launched an all-civilian spaceflight, with no trained astronauts on board. Mr. Branson’s inaugural Virgin Galactic flight in 2021 reached about 53 miles, while Blue Origin flies above the 62-mile mark. Both are eclipsed by SpaceX, whose rockets charge far deeper in to the cosmos, reaching more than 120 miles above Earth.

Balloons, like those operated by World View, don’t go nearly as high. But even at their maximum altitude of 18 or 19 miles, operators say they float high enough to show travelers the curvature of the planet, and give them a chance to experience the overview effect — an intense perspective shift that many astronauts say kicks in when you view Earth from above.

Now, how to get there …

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, which are both licensed for passenger space travel by the F.A.A., are open for ticket sales. (Blue Origin remains mum on pricing.) Both companies currently have hundreds or even thousands of earthlings on their wait lists for a whirl to the edge of space. SpaceX charges tens of millions of dollars for its further-reaching flights and is building a new facility in Texas that is currently under F.A.A. review.

Craig Curran is a major space enthusiast — he’s held a reserved seat on a Virgin Galactic flight since 2011 — and the owner of Deprez Travel in Rochester, N.Y. The travel agency has a special space travel arm, Galactic Experiences by Deprez , through which Mr. Curran sells everything from rocket launch tickets to astronaut training.

Sales in the space tourism space, Mr. Curran acknowledges, “are reasonably difficult to make,” and mostly come from peer-to-peer networking. “You can imagine that people who spend $450,000 to go to space probably operate in circles that are not the same as yours and mine,” he said.

Some of Mr. Curran’s most popular offerings include flights where you can experience the same stomach-dropping feeling of zero gravity that astronauts feel in space, which he arranges for clients via chartered, specialized Boeing 727s that are flown in parabolic arcs to mimic being in space. Operators including Zero G also offer the service; the cost is around $8,200.

You can almost count the number of completed space tourist launches on one hand — Blue Origin has had four; SpaceX, two. Virgin Galactic, meanwhile, on Thursday announced the launch of its commercial passenger service, previously scheduled for late 2022, was delayed until early 2023. Many of those on waiting lists are biding their time before blastoff by signing up for training. Axiom Space, which contracts with SpaceX, currently offers NASA-partnered training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. Virgin Galactic, which already offers a “customized Future Astronaut Readiness program” at its Spaceport America facility in New Mexico, is also partnering with NASA to build a training program for private astronauts.

Would-be space tourists should not expect the rigor that NASA astronauts face. Training for Virgin Galactic’s three-hour trips is included in the cost of a ticket and lasts a handful of days; it includes pilot briefings and being “fitted for your bespoke Under Armour spacesuit and boots,” according to its website.

Not ready for a rocket? Balloon rides offer a less hair-raising celestial experience.

“We go to space at 12 miles an hour, which means that it’s very smooth and very gentle. You’re not rocketing away from earth,” said Jane Poynter, a co-founder and co-chief executive of Space Perspective , which is readying its own touristic balloon spaceship, Spaceship Neptune. If all goes according to plan, voyages are scheduled to begin departing from Florida in 2024, at a cost of $125,000 per person. That’s a fraction of the price tag for Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, but still more than double the average annual salary of an American worker.

Neither Space Perspective nor World View has the required approval yet from the F.A.A. to operate flights.

Unique implications

Whether a capsule or a rocket is your transport, the travel insurance company battleface launched a civilian space insurance plan in late 2021, a direct response, said chief executive Sasha Gainullin, to an increase in space tourism interest and infrastructure. Benefits include accidental death and permanent disablement in space and are valid for spaceflights on operators like SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, as well as on stratospheric balloon rides. They’ve had many inquiries, Mr. Gainullin said, but no purchases just yet.

“Right now it’s such high-net-worth individuals who are traveling to space, so they probably don’t need insurance,” he said. “But for quote-unquote regular travelers, I think we’ll see some takeups soon.”

And as the industry grows, so perhaps will space travel’s impact on the environment. Not only do rocket launches have immense carbon footprints, even some stratospheric balloon flights have potentially significant implications: World View’s balloons are powered by thousands of cubic meters of helium, which is a limited resource . But Ted Parson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that space travel’s environmental impact is still dwarfed by civil aviation. And because space travel is ultra-niche, he believes it’s likely to stay that way.

“Despite extensive projections, space tourism is likely to remain a tiny fraction of commercial space exploration,” he said. “It reminds me of tourism on Mt. Everest. It’s the indulgence of very rich people seeking a transcendent, once-in-a-lifetime experience, and the local environmental burden is intense.”

Stay a while?

In the future, space enthusiasts insist, travelers won’t be traveling to space just for the ride. They’ll want to stay a while. Orbital Assembly Corporation, a manufacturing company whose goal is to colonize space, is currently building the world’s first space hotels — two ring-shaped properties that will orbit Earth, called Pioneer Station and Voyager Station. The company, quite optimistically, projects an opening date of 2025 for Pioneer Station, with a capacity of 28 guests. The design for the larger Voyager Station , which they say will open in 2027, promises villas and suites, as well as a gym, restaurant and bar. Both provide the ultimate luxury: simulated gravity. Axiom Space , a space infrastructure company, is currently building the world’s first private space station; plans include Philippe Starck-designed accommodations for travelers to spend the night.

Joshua Bush, chief executive of travel agency Avenue Two Travel , has sold a handful of seats on upcoming Virgin Galactic flights to customers. The market for space travel (and the sky-high prices that come with it), he believes, will evolve much like civilian air travel did.

“In the beginning of the 20th century, only very affluent people could afford to fly,” he said. “Just as we have Spirit and Southwest Airlines today, there will be some sort of equivalent of that in space travel, too. Hopefully within my lifetime.”

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Space Tourism: Can A Civilian Go To Space?

2021 has been a busy year for private space tourism: overall, more than 15 civilians took a trip to space during this year. In this article, you will learn more about the space tourism industry, its history, and the companies that are most likely to make you a space tourist.

What is space tourism?

Brief history of space tourism, space tourism companies, orbital and suborbital space flights, how much does it cost for a person to go to space, is space tourism worth it, can i become a space tourist, why is space tourism bad for the environment.

Space tourism is human space travel for recreational or leisure purposes . It’s divided into different types, including orbital, suborbital, and lunar space tourism.

However, there are broader definitions for space tourism. According to the Space Tourism Guide , space tourism is a commercial activity related to space that includes going to space as a tourist, watching a rocket launch, going stargazing, or traveling to a space-focused destination.

The first space tourist was Dennis Tito, an American multimillionaire, who spent nearly eight days onboard the International Space Station in April 2001. This trip cost him $20 million and made Tito the first private citizen who purchased his space ticket. Over the next eight years, six more private citizens followed Tito to the International Space Station to become space tourists.

As space tourism became a real thing, dozens of companies entered this industry hoping to capitalize on renewed public interest in space, including Blue Origin in 2000 and Virgin Galactic in 2004. In the 2000s, space tourists were limited to launches aboard Russian Soyuz aircraft and only could go to the ISS. However, everything changed when the other players started to grow up on the market. There are now a variety of destinations and companies for travels to space.

There are now six major space companies that are arranging or planning to arrange touristic flights to space:

• Virgin Galactic;
• Blue Origin;
• Axiom Space;
• Space Perspective.

While the first two are focused on suborbital flights, Axiom and Boeing are working on orbital missions. SpaceX, in its turn, is prioritizing lunar tourism in the future. For now, Elon Musk’s company has allowed its Crew Dragon spacecraft to be chartered for orbital flights, as it happened with the Inspiration4 3-day mission . Space Perspective is developing a different balloon-based system to carry customers to the stratosphere and is planning to start its commercial flights in 2024.

Orbital and suborbital flights are very different. Taking an orbital flight means staying in orbit; in other words, going around the planet continually at a very high speed to not fall back to the Earth. Such a trip takes several days, even a week or more. A suborbital flight in its turn is more like a space hop — you blast off, make a huge arc, and eventually fall back to the Earth, never making it into orbit. A flight duration, in this case, ranges from 2 to 3 hours.

Here is an example: a spaceflight takes you to an altitude of 100 km above the Earth. To enter into orbit — make an orbital flight — you would have to gain a speed of about 28,000 km per hour (17,400 mph) or more. But to reach the given altitude and fall back to the Earth — make a suborbital flight — you would have to fly at only 6,000 km per hour (3,700 mph). This flight takes less energy, less fuel; therefore, it is less expensive.

• Virgin Galactic: $250,000 for a 2-hour suborbital flight at an altitude of 80 km;
• Blue Origin: approximately $300,000 for 12 minutes suborbital flight at an altitude of 100 km;
• Axiom Space: $55 million for a 10-day orbital flight;
• Space Perspective: $125,000 for a 6-hour flight to the edge of space (32 km above the Earth).

The price depends, but remember that suborbital space flights are always cheaper.

What exactly do you expect from a journey to space? Besides the awesome impressions, here is what you can experience during such a trip:

• Weightlessness . Keep in mind that during a suborbital flight you’ll get only a couple of minutes in weightlessness, but it will be truly fascinating .
• Space sickness . The symptoms include cold sweating, malaise, loss of appetite, nausea, fatigue, and vomiting. Even experienced astronauts are not immune from it!
• G-force . 1G is the acceleration we feel due to the force of gravity; a usual g-force astronauts experience during a rocket launch is around 3gs. To understand how a g-force influences people , watch this video.

For now, the most significant barrier for space tourism is price. But air travel was also once expensive; a one-way ticket cost more than half the price of a new car . Most likely, the price for space travel will reduce overtime as well. For now, you need to be either quite wealthy or win in a competition, as did Sian Proctor, a member of Inspiration4 mission . But before spending thousands of dollars on space travel, here is one more fact you might want to consider.

Rocket launches are harmful to the environment in general. During the burning of rocket fuels, rocket engines release harmful gases and soot particles (also known as black carbon) into the upper atmosphere, resulting in ozone depletion. Think about this: in 2018 black-carbon-producing rockets emitted about the same amount of black carbon as the global aviation industry emits annually.

However, not all space companies use black carbon for fuel. Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket has a liquid hydrogen-fuelled engine: hydrogen doesn’t emit carbon but simply turns into water vapor when burning.

The main reason why space tourism could be harmful to the environment is its potential popularity. With the rising amount of rocket launches the carbon footprint will only increase — Virgin Galactic alone aims to launch 400 of these flights annually. Meanwhile, the soot released by 1,000 space tourism flights could warm Antarctica by nearly 1°C !

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Space Tourism: How Much Does it Cost & Who's Offering It?

Last Updated: December 17, 2022

Many of us dream of going to space and over 600 people have traveled to space as astronauts in government-funded agencies such as NASA, the European Space Agency, and Roscosmos. But how much does spaceflight cost in today and how is that expected to change in the coming years? 

With new advancements in spaceflight technology, the costs of space travel are decreasing, making the dream of spaceflight a little closer for us all.

Evolution of Spaceflight Costs and Technologies

During the space race, the cost of sending something into space averaged between $6,000 to over $25,000 per kg of weight not adjusted for inflation and NASA spent $28 billion to land astronauts on the moon, about $288 billion in today’s dollars.

In recent decades, it has averaged around $10,000 per kg though certain missions have been higher due to other factors including the destination, the size of the rocket, the amount of fuel needed, and the cost of fuel. 

After the retirement of the space shuttle program, NASA paid Russia to transport astronauts to the ISS at about $80 million per seat on the Soyuz rocket. NASA’s biggest and newest rocket, the SLS (Space Launch System) which is currently being utilized for the new moon missions including Artemis and Orion, currently costs about $2-4 billion per launch.

But recent years and the addition of private space companies have drastically changed the game. NASA allowed private space companies to develop equipment for missions, including a 2006 partnership with SpaceX under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to provide resupply for crew and cargo demonstration contracts to the International Space Station (ISS). 

This partnership has continued to flourish over the years with SpaceX successfully launching two NASA astronauts in May 2020 on a Crew Dragon Spacecraft, making SpaceX the first private company to send astronauts to the ISS and the first crewed orbital launch from American soil in 9 years.

With the revolutionary technology of reusable boosters from SpaceX, the cost has plummeted, achieving less than $1,600 per kg with the Falcon Heavy (still totaling more than $100 million per launch) and even a projected cost of under a thousand for their next generation model Star Ship.

 These recent innovations are even making SLS the more expensive, less efficient option if SpaceX’s projections continue to progress as expected within margins of error. We shall see how NASA plans to adapt goals in light of this.

The Falcon Heavy is a cost-effective option for launching payloads into space.

The rise of private space companies

With private space companies, the opportunity for civilians to book a trip to space similar to booking a flight came closer to reality. Dennis Tito was the first private citizen to pay for a trip to space with a trip to the ISS from April 28th to May 6th, 2001 for $20 million dollars. Tito purchased his experience through Space Adventures Inc. which was founded in 1998 and offers a variety of different space experiences. They even acquired Zero Gravity Corporation, NASA’s provider of Reduced Gravity Training (not in space) for its astronauts, in 2008. They offer similar experiences for private individuals starting at about $8,200 as of this publishing (December 2022).

Space Adventures sent seven other space tourists to the ISS through 2009, but due to a number of factors, Space Adventures had to put their ISS offerings on hold until 2021 when they were able to purchase two Soyuz seats due to NASA moving their contract to SpaceX. Space Adventures sent two people to the ISS via the Roscosmos Soyuz rocket in December 2021 and is working on expanding its offerings.

In addition to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, there are a number of other private space companies getting into the commercial spaceflight/ space tourism market, most notably Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origins.

Flight Providers & Rates

What are the current rates for commercial spaceflight tickets? What commercial spaceflight trips have already happened? All prices are per person/ per seat.

SpaceX has had the most experience in sending humans to space thanks to its partnership with NASA and Musk has made it clear that he wants to make space travel an option for the public. To date, SpaceX has offered two commercial spaceflight options and has one big one planned for the future:

• SpaceX completed a Multi-Day Orbital Voyage, the first of their new plan to offer private astronaut experiences through their NASA partnership.  
• Estimated $55 million for a 3-day stay inside a modified SpaceX Dragon capsule orbiting the Earth at 357 miles (574 km) with three crewmates, sponsored by billionaire Jared Isaacman to raise money for St Jude’s Children’s Hospital
• Partnership between SpaceX and Houston-based Axiom Space Inc.
• $55 million for a 10-day trip to ISS at 408 km with a weeklong (8-day) stay in the orbital lab. 
• Expected to continue in 2023
• Axiom plans to build a stand-alone space station to replace the ISS with the first module expected to launch in 2024.
• Steve Aoki: American DJ and record producer
• Everyday Astronaut Tim Dodd: American science communicator, content creator, photographer, and musician
• Yemi A.D.: Czech choreographer, art director and performer
• Rhiannon Adam: Irish photographer
• Karim Iliya: British photographer and filmmaker
• Brendan Hall: American filmmaker and photographer
• Dev Joshi: Indian television actor
• Choi Seung-hyun (stage name: T.O.P.): South Korean rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor
• Cost is unknown, likely a minimum of $500 million

2. Blue Origin

Blue Origin: currently offers a 100km 12-minute ride to the Karman Line, the recognized boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space; pricing is still unclear and dependent on a variety of factors 

• On July 2021, Jeff and Mark Bezos went into space on the New Shepard rocket with Oliver Daemen (who won the trip through an auction bid of around 28 million) and honored guest Wally Funk (a member of Mercury 13, the private program in which women trained to be astronauts but ultimately never went to space)
• Blue Origin has completed 6 commercial space flights as of this publishing. Some “honorable guests” have been invited free of charge, such as Funk and actor William Shatner (Captain Kirk from the original Star Trek). Some have been sponsored or have received special deals due to their nonprofit status.
• $28 million winning auction bid for the first flight ( $19 million was donated)
• $1 million for a board member of a nonprofit
• About $1.25 for a Dude Perfect comedy group crew member, hosted by MoonDAO in August 2022

3. Virgin Galactic Subortbital Joy Ride

Virgin Galactic Subortbital Joy Ride: $450,000 for a 90-minute ride to suborbital space 50km above sea level 

• In July 2021, founder Richard Branson flew to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere with two pilots and three other Virgin Galactic employees as the first test of commercial spaceflight for the company
• Each VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo carries up to four passengers
• Expected flights are currently anticipated to begin in 2023 
• Includes training accommodations and amenities; launches from New Mexico

4. Roscosmos/ Space Adventures Customized ISS Trip

Roscosmos/ Space Adventures Customized ISS Trip: $50-60million for a 12-day trip to the ISS at 408 km

• In October 2021 an actress and director shot scenes for the first movie filmed in space
• December 2021 Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and Yozo Hirano for two days (same billionaire planning to go to the moon with SpaceX)
• With the current situation between Russia and Ukraine, this option is effectively nonexistent currently

5. Space Perspective

Space Perspective: a six-hour balloon ride to space/ the stratosphere on their “Spaceship Neptune” at $125,000

• Rides are currently scheduled to begin by the end of 2024. 
• A pressurized capsule will be slowly lifted by a football-field-sized hydrogen-filled balloon 19 miles (30 km) into the stratosphere, about 3 times the altitude of commercial planes. 
• The passenger cabin features a bar, bathroom, and windows for sightseeing and is expected to carry 8 passengers and 1 pilot per trip.

6. Aurora Space Station (no longer in development)

Aurora Space Station was supposed to be the world’s first luxury space hotel, offering a 12-day stay for $9.5 million allowing them to free float, observe space and earth, practice hydroponics and play in a hologram deck, but they shut down operations and refunded all deposits in March 2021. They received a lot of media attention and therefore are noted here due to that notoriety.

Conclusion: the current cost of flying to space

Currently, it is only available to those who can spend an average of $250,000 to $500,000 for suborbital trips (about a fifteen-minute ride to the edge of space and back) or flights to actual orbit at more than $50 million per seat (though typically a longer trip than 15 minutes).

It could be free/ discounted if you can find a sponsor, often for nonprofit/ charity purposes, or if you are someone of notoriety that can help spread the company’s mission. 

Waitlists are available for most offerings, with a deposit, with many stretching years into the future, which might end up helping you have a spot at a more reasonable price in the future if you can save up.

Many companies are looking to provide extended stay options on private space stations in the future, similar to how you might book a flight somewhere and stay in a hotel for a few days. Again, for the immediate future, this is estimated to cost tens of millions of dollars. The biggest portion of the cost would be launching them, though it is still estimated that a couple million dollars will be needed to cover the expenses of your stay while you are on the space station, whether that is included in the ticket price or added on top of that.

Many companies are hopeful they can eventually price a trip to space down to $100,000 but that will likely take some time, even with the cost-saving measures of reusable boosters. Many forms of recent technology have evolved exponentially in recent years and with dropping price rates as well. Just as plane travel was originally prohibitively expensive, but has now become fairly reasonable for the average consumer, the hope is that the same will eventually happen with space tourism, but we will have to see how long that takes. 

While the possibility of going to space is still out of reach for many of us, hopefully, the advancements in recent years and those yet to come will help to continually lower the costs of going to space, just as has occurred in many other fields. This author, for one, truly hopes that the interest of the elite who are currently able to participate in these offerings will spur research and development, not just of space tourism but space exploration in general, to help fuel a quicker journey to space access for all

Written by Sarah Hoffschwelle

Sarah Hoffschwelle is a freelance writer who covers a combination of topics including astronomy, general science and STEM, self-development, art, and societal commentary. In the past, Sarah worked in educational nonprofits providing free-choice learning experiences for audiences ages 2-99. As a lifelong space nerd, she loves sharing the universe with others through her words. She currently writes on Medium at  https://medium.com/@sarah-marie  and authors self-help and children’s books.

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Space tourism - statistics & facts

What is the public’s opinion on space tourism, do the public want to travel to space, key insights.

Detailed statistics

Global sub-orbital space tourism market size 2021-2031, by flight vehicle type

Amount invested globally into space companies by venture capitalists 2013-2022

Equity investments in space companies worldwide 2013-2022, by type

Editor’s Picks Current statistics on this topic

Travel, Tourism & Hospitality

Forecast revenue of orbital space travel and tourism worldwide 2021-2030

Share of U.S. adults who want to travel to space 2021

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Market overview.

• Premium Statistic Global sub-orbital space tourism market size 2021-2031, by flight vehicle type
• Premium Statistic Forecast revenue of orbital space travel and tourism worldwide 2021-2030
• Premium Statistic Amount invested globally into space companies by venture capitalists 2013-2022
• Premium Statistic Equity investments in space companies worldwide 2013-2022, by type
• Premium Statistic Share of investment deals in space start-ups worldwide by company in 2020
• Premium Statistic Distribution of space start-up investors by type 2000-2020

Sub-orbital space tourism market size worldwide in 2021, with a forecast for 2031, by flight vehicle type (in million U.S. dollars)

Forecast revenue of the orbital space travel and tourism market worldwide from 2021 to 2030 (in million U.S. dollars)

Amount venture capitalists invested into space companies worldwide from 2013 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Cumulative equity investment in space companies worldwide from 2013 to 2022, by type (in billion U.S. dollars)

Share of investment deals in space start-ups worldwide by company in 2020

Distribution of investment deals on space start-ups worldwide in 2020, by company

Distribution of space start-up investors by type 2000-2020

Distribution of investor groups in space start-ups from 2000 to 2020, by investor type

Public opinion

• Premium Statistic U.S. public opinion on which private space companies are leading the space race 2021
• Premium Statistic U.S. opinion on which private space companies are leading the space race 2021, by age
• Premium Statistic Share of U.S. adults that believe space travel should be accessible to everyone 2021
• Premium Statistic U.S. public opinion on profitability of space exploration companies in future 2021
• Premium Statistic U.S. adults that believe billionaires should spend money on space travel 2021

U.S. public opinion on which private space companies are leading the space race 2021

Public opinion on which space companies are leading the private sector's push into space in the United States as of December 2021

U.S. opinion on which private space companies are leading the space race 2021, by age

Public opinion on which space companies are leading the private sector's push into space in the United States as of December 2021, by generation

Share of U.S. adults that believe space travel should be accessible to everyone 2021

Share of adults that believe space travel should be accessible to everyone and not just those that can afford the costs in the United States as of September 2021

U.S. public opinion on profitability of space exploration companies in future 2021

Share of the public that believe private companies focused on space exploration will make a profit in the next 10 years in the United States as of December 2021

U.S. adults that believe billionaires should spend money on space travel 2021

Share of adults that believe billionaires should be spending money traveling to space in the United States as of September 2021

Traveler interest

• Premium Statistic Share of U.S. adults who want to travel to space 2021
• Premium Statistic Share of U.S. adults who want to travel to space 2021, by gender
• Premium Statistic Share of the U.S. public who would go to the moon if money was not a factor 2021
• Premium Statistic Share of the U.S. public who would go to the moon in 2021, by generation
• Premium Statistic Share of the U.S. public who would go to the moon in 2021, by gender
• Premium Statistic Share of U.S. adults who would travel to the moon 2021, by age
• Premium Statistic Share of U.S. adults who would spend over 100 thousand USD to travel to space 2021

Share of adults that would want to travel to space if money was not an issue in the United States as of September 2021

Share of U.S. adults who want to travel to space 2021, by gender

Share of adults that want to travel to space if money was not an issue in the United States as of September 2021, by gender

Share of the U.S. public who would go to the moon if money was not a factor 2021

Share of the public that would go to the moon as a tourist if money was not a factor in the United States as of December 2021

Share of the U.S. public who would go to the moon in 2021, by generation

Share of the public that would go to the moon as a tourist if money was not a factor in the United States as of December 2021, by generation

Share of the U.S. public who would go to the moon in 2021, by gender

Share of the public that would go to the moon as a tourist if money was not a factor in the United States as of December 2021, by gender

Share of U.S. adults who would travel to the moon 2021, by age

Share of adults that would travel to the moon in the United States as of May 2021, by age

Share of U.S. adults who would spend over 100 thousand USD to travel to space 2021

Share of adults that would spend more than 100 thousand U.S. dollars to travel to space in the United States as of September 2021

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You Won’t Hear Much About the Next Chapter of Space Travel

Space tourism is getting less transparent, and more like traveling by private jet.

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Of all the high-flying tourism ventures spawned by space-obsessed billionaires, Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, offers perhaps the most unconventional approach. It doesn’t use big rockets or gumdrop-shaped capsules. Instead, an airplane takes off with a spacecraft strapped to its wing. The spacecraft, shaped like a plane itself, holds the paying customers and more pilots. When the airplane reaches a certain altitude, it releases the spacecraft. The spacecraft’s pilots then ignite its engine, and the vehicle soars straight up, to the fuzzy boundary that separates us from the rest of the universe, before gliding back down and landing on a runway.

The spaceplane experience is a stark contrast to Blue Origin’s suborbital jaunts and SpaceX’s orbital missions, but Virgin Galactic’s passengers still have a few surreal minutes of weightlessness, and they get to see the planet gleaming against the darkness of space. Those passengers have included the first former Olympian to reach space, as well as the first mother-daughter duo and, most recently, the first Pakistani .

In the midst of all that, Virgin Galactic clocked a first that raised some eyebrows: The company withheld the passenger list from the public before a takeoff last month, divulging the travelers’ names only after they had landed. The company never publicly explained its preflight secrecy. (Virgin Galactic did not respond to a request for comment.) Yesterday, Virgin Galactic announced its next flight, scheduled for November; the company kept one of the three listed passengers anonymous, saying only that the person is “of Franco-Italian nationality.”

Virgin is of course within its rights to withhold passenger names before takeoff. After all, airlines and railroads keep private the names of their customers. But Virgin Galactic’s choice to do so marks a subtle shift—the latest in U.S. spaceflight’s arc from a publicly funded national mission to private tourism. NASA, as a taxpayer-funded organization, has always had to provide the public with launch lists and livestreams. But the age of space tourism raises a host of questions: How much openness do space-tourism companies owe the public? How much privacy do they owe their customers? Before the Virgin flight returned home last month, it operated almost like a privately chartered plane, its movements known to relevant aviation agencies but its passengers’ names undisclosed to the public. Commercial spaceflight and air travel are still far from alike, but in this particular aspect, the space-tourism industry may be drifting toward its private-jet era.

Read: The new ‘right stuff’ is money and luck

In practice, the space-tourism industry is barely more than two years old, and it’s “still finding its norms,” says Carissa Christensen, a space consultant and the CEO of BryceTech, an analytics and engineering firm. The first passenger rosters were marquee news in 2021, when Branson and Jeff Bezos were racing to be the first to ride their own spacecraft , and Elon Musk’s SpaceX was working to send a quartet of private astronauts with zero spaceflight experience into orbit.

All three of their companies publicized, and even hyped, the passenger lists, in some cases months in advance. Wally Funk, an octogenarian aviator who had outperformed male candidates in astronaut tests during the 1960s but was kept out of the astronaut corps because she was a woman, flew alongside Bezos . Jared Isaacman, a billionaire businessman, paid for three other people to fly into orbit with him on SpaceX; all of them gave countless interviews before launch. And who can forget the hype ahead of William Shatner’s flight, and the Star Trek star’s unfiltered, emotional remarks after landing?

The rosters became less noteworthy as time went on: The customers were no longer memorable guests who got free rides, but simply very wealthy people who could afford the trips on their own. Last month’s temporarily secret Virgin Galactic fliers included a real-estate investor from Las Vegas, a South African entrepreneur, and a British engineer who founded a company that builds race cars. Michelle Hanlon, a space lawyer and the executive director of the University of Mississippi’s Center for Air and Space Law, told me that she was mildly surprised by Virgin Galactic’s decision to withhold the passengers’ identities before takeoff, but that the decision did not strike her as inappropriate.

“From a paparazzi standpoint, if it’s Ashton Kutcher, the world’s gonna care a little bit more than if it’s Michelle Hanlon,” Hanlon said. (Kutcher did, in fact, purchase a Virgin Galactic ticket in 2012, but he later sold it back to the company after his wife and fellow actor, Mila Kunis, talked him out of going.) And from a legal standpoint, nothing inappropriate occurred, Hanlon said; there are no existing requirements for a private company to disclose passenger names. Space travelers must sign waivers from the Federal Aviation Administration outlining the risks associated with the activity, she said, but the companies they’re flying with are not required to provide the agency with a passenger list.

Read: Jeff Bezos knows who paid for him to go to space

Passenger names aren’t the only details of commercial spaceflight that are becoming more opaque. When SpaceX launched its first set of private astronauts, the company shared significantly less live footage of their experience in orbit than they did when NASA astronauts test-drove the capsule a year earlier. During its last two flights, Virgin Galactic decided not to provide a livestream, giving updates on social media instead.

Because there are no regulations, it’s difficult to say when the companies’ right to privacy becomes a concerning level of secrecy. NASA overshares when it comes to its astronauts and their mission, because the public—which funds the agency—expects it. Americans might also expect a good look at SpaceX customers who visit the International Space Station, which relies on billions of dollars of taxpayer money, and where private visitors share meals with government astronauts. But what about other kinds of SpaceX missions, which go into orbit without disembarking at any government-owned facility? The company developed its crewed launch services with significant investment from NASA, so virtually every SpaceX trip indirectly involves government money. That doesn’t necessarily mean SpaceX is obligated to share as the space agency does, even if people on the ground feel that it should.

Another major difference between NASA missions and private ones, of course, is that astronauts are at work, whereas many space tourists are presumably just having fun. Caryn Schenewerk, a consultant who specializes in commercial spaceflight at her firm CS Consulting, told me that she thinks commercial spaceflight will adopt the practices of other forms of adventure tourism. Take skydiving, for example: Schenewerk said that she has signed paperwork granting the skydiving company permission to use footage of her experience for its own purposes. “There’s some expectation of privacy on the individual’s behalf that then has to be actively waived for the company’s benefit,” she said.

The once-anonymous Virgin Galactic passengers on the September flight have since publicly shared their stories , basking in the awe of their experience. Christensen told me that most future tourists will likely do the same. “A big part of the fun is other people knowing that you’ve done it,” she said. Flying to space isn’t exactly something to be modest about: Fewer than 700 people have done it since human beings first achieved the feat, in the early 1960s, and we know all of their names. If Virgin’s new mystery passenger doesn’t reveal their name, they really will make history.

Read: Seeing Earth from space will change you

Many spacefarers—the Soviet cosmonauts who inhabited the first space station, the American astronauts who shuttled their way into orbit, the Chinese astronauts living in space right now, all of the people who have flown commercial—have spoken about the transformational wonder of seeing Earth from space, a phenomenon known as the overview effect . They reported that they better understood the reality of our beautiful, fragile planet, and that they felt a duty to share their impressions with people on the ground. Gene Cernan, one of the dozen men who walked on the lunar surface, once said, “If only everyone could relate to the beauty and the purposefulness of it … It wouldn’t bring a utopia to this planet for people to understand it all, but it might make a difference.” In this sense, for a space traveler to remain unknown forever would be a sort of anti–overview effect: Just as they may have the right to request some privacy, they have no obligation to bring the transcendent power of their journey back to Earth.

Three years ago, two NASA astronauts made a historic flight on a new SpaceX astronaut capsule. Ahead of the mission, I asked NASA what Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken were going to have for breakfast on the morning of the launch. It was a question with a long tradition in spacefaring history: During the Apollo days, the public was privy to the final Earth-bound meals of history-making astronauts. NASA officials balked, saying they couldn’t divulge that information for privacy reasons. But on the day of the launch, Hurley, as if to sate the space press corps, posted a picture of his steak and eggs on Twitter (as it was still known then).

Hurley and Behnken’s preflight hours seemed like fair game; after all, these men were government employees, doing their job on their assigned mission. But future passengers may decide that we have no business knowing their breakfast order—or even their name.

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Private citizens have been buying their way into the heavens for decades. In the 1980s, McDonnell Douglas engineer Charles Walker became the first nongovernment individual to fly in space when his company bought him a seat on three NASA space shuttle missions. In 2001, American entrepreneur Dennis Tito dished out a reported $20 million to fly on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) and spend eight days floating in microgravity. 

But beyond those few flights, nothing much happened.

At least not until last year. After decades of development and several serious accidents, three companies—SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic—launched their first tourist flights in 2021. William Shatner rode a Blue Origin vehicle to the edge of space in October. Former NFL star and Good Morning America host Michael Strahan took a similar ride in December. Even NASA, which was once hostile to space tourism, has come around and released a pricing policy for private astronaut missions, offering to bring someone to orbit for around $55 million.

Okay, so it’s a new era—but what does it mean? Do these forays represent a future in which even the average person might book a celestial flight and bask in the splendor of Earth from above? Or is this just another way for the ultrawealthy to flash their cash while simultaneously ignoring and exacerbating our existential problems down on the ground? Nearly all those 2021 escapades were the result of efforts by three billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson. Branson is a mere single-digit billionaire, whereas Bezos and Musk have wealth measured in the hundreds of billions. 

“The greatly undue influence of wealth in this country—to me that’s at the heart of my issues with space tourism as it’s unfolding,” says Linda Billings, a communications researcher who consults for NASA and has written about the societal impacts of spaceflight for more than 30 years. “We are so far away from making this available to your so-called average person.”

Each spot on Virgin’s suborbital spaceplane, the cheapest way to space at the moment, will set somebody back $450,000. A single seat on Blue Origin’s initial suborbital launch sold at auction for $28 million, and the undisclosed price tag of SpaceX’s all-civilian Inspiration4 mission, which spent three days in orbit before splashing down off the coast of Florida, has been estimated at $50 million per passenger. 

Not only are such flights ridiculously far out of financial reach for the average person, says Billings, but they aren’t achieving any real goals—far from ideal given our terrestrial problems of inequality, environmental collapse, and a global pandemic. “We’re not really learning anything,” she says. “There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of thought or conscience in the people engaging in these space tourism missions.”

Laura Forczyk, owner of the space consulting firm Astralytical, thinks it’s misguided to focus strictly on the money aspect. “The narrative [last year] was billionaires in space, but it’s so much more than that,” says Forczyk, who wrote the book Becoming Off-Worldly , published in January, in which she interviewed both government and private astronauts about why they go to space.

Forczyk sees the flights as great opportunities to conduct scientific experiments. All three of the commercial tourist companies have carried research projects in the past, studying things like fluid dynamics, plant genetics, and the human body’s reaction to microgravity. And yes, the rich are the target audience, but the passengers on SpaceX’s Inspiration4 included artist and scientist Sian Proctor and data engineer Chris Sembroski, who won their tickets through contests, as well as St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital ambassador Hayley Arceneaux (the trip helped her raise $200 million in donations for the hospital). Blue Origin gave free trips to aviation pioneer Wally Funk, who as a woman had been barred from becoming an Apollo astronaut, and NASA astronaut Alan Shepard’s daughter Laura.

Forczyk also cites Iranian space tourist Anousheh Ansari, who flew to the ISS in 2006. “She talked about how she grew up in a war zone in Iran, and how [the flight] helped her see the world as interconnected,” Forczyk says. 

Billings thinks the value of such testimonials is pretty low. “All these people are talking to the press about how wonderful the experience was,” she says. “But to listen to someone else tell you about how exciting it was to climb Mt. Everest doesn’t convey the actual experience.”

As with an Everest trek, there’s the risk of death to consider. Historically, spaceflight has had a fatality rate of just under 4%—roughly 266,000 times greater than for commercial airplanes. Virgin suffered two major disasters during testing, killing a total of four employees and injuring four more. “A high-profile accident will come; it’s inevitable,” says Forczyk. But even that, she predicts, won’t end space tourism. People continue to climb Everest, she notes, despite the danger.

Another question is how space tourism might affect the planet. A 90-minute jaunt on Virgin Galactic’s suborbital spaceplane is roughly as polluting as a 10-hour transatlantic flight. Other calculations suggest that a rocket launch can produce 50 to 75 tons of carbon dioxide per passenger, compared with just a few tons per passenger from a commercial airplane.

Experts warn that even Blue Origin’s New Shepard, which burns hydrogen and oxygen and emits water, could affect the climate since its combustion products are injected high into the stratosphere, where their ultimate impact has yet to be understood. 

The Federal Aviation Administration oversees all spaceflight in the US and might strengthen safety and environmental regulations. The agency currently has a moratorium on new regulations until 2023, which was designed to give the nascent industry time to develop before legislators came in with too much red tape. But few lawmakers or citizens are clamoring for more regulation. 

“There are a lot of other things for people to worry about than whether or not only billionaires get to fly in space,” says Marcia Smith, the founder and editor of the news website SpacePolicyOnline.com, which covers space programs around the world.

Nobody has yet fully articulated a compelling reason to spend enormous sums on private spaceflight. It may have incidental value for science and engineering, or offer a small number of people a sense of transcendence. 

But at the moment, it seems we do it mainly because we think it’s cool.

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Space Tourism Is Here: Booking a Trip to the Final Frontier

The next era of space exploration and innovation is here — and we're all invited. A billionaire space race is underway as Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and others are testing the technology to take us to places previously visited only by highly trained astronauts. Space tourism is officially taking flight, and it might just save the Earth.

In July 2021, we watched as Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos took to the skies in a giant leap for the space tourism industry, but their launches to the edge of space weren't timed particularly well. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic and climate emergency, two billionaires taking joy rides to space may not have been good optics, but don't underestimate what just happened — and how important it could be for the future of humanity.

With the first crewed launches of Virgin Galactic's supersonic space plane and Blue Origin's reusable rocket, a world of commercial space travel is taking its first step. Both companies plan to begin regular, scheduled trips for paying space tourists in the near future, but their visions stretch back many years to the beginning of human spaceflight.

The Space Race: Then and Now

Bezos's Blue Origin chose an auspicious day to send its first crew to space. July 20, 2021 was exactly 52 years after Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. But that wasn't the only major space travel anniversary celebrated in 2021.

April 12 was the 60th anniversary of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to not only reach space, but also go into orbit around Earth. Meanwhile, May 5 saw the 60th anniversary of NASA's Freedom 7 mission, which launched Alan Shepard on a suborbital flight that lasted 15 minutes. He reached an altitude of 101 miles to become the first American in space before his capsule parachuted to splashdown in the ocean.

The name of Blue Origin's New Shepard launch system is no coincidence. Its mission profile is almost identical to America's inaugural 1961 spaceflight, save for billionaire-grade comfy seats and large windows. From Launch Site One near Van Horn in the West Texas desert, that rocket fires a capsule containing up to six people (but no pilot) into space, which then parachutes down 15 minutes later.

The Virgin Galactic experience is different. Its supersonic rocket-powered spaceplane SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity seats six passengers and two highly trained pilots. It takes off on a runway from Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, while strapped to a mothership. At 52,000 feet, it detaches and burns its rocket engine for one minute to reach Mach 3 speeds and touch the edge of space. After a few minutes of weightlessness (and a chance for passengers to see the curvature of Earth against the blackness of space), it glides back to land on a runway.

The Price for a Ticket to Space

These short trips are anticipated to cost between $250,000 and $500,000, but in January 2022, expect to see a truly out-of-this-world private trip to space with an even more astronomical price tag. It will come from the other, arguably much more important billionaire in the space tourism bubble: Elon Musk. Axiom Mission 1 will see his company, SpaceX, launch four private astronauts on behalf of Houston-based space tourism company Axiom Space. An American real estate investor, a Canadian investor, a former Israeli Air Force pilot, and an ex-Space Shuttle pilot will launch on an incredible orbital mission in its Crew Dragon spacecraft.

At $55 million per ticket, this is ultra-aspirational space tourism of the highest order. "The experience is drastically different because they will be launching on a SpaceX rocket and going to the International Space Station (ISS) for 10 days," says Christina Korp, cofounder of Space for a Better World . "They will be doing what real astronauts do, and I don't think it's an accident that Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin did their flights before Axiom's mission." Axiom Space intends to launch a private space station — the first "space hotel" — as early as 2024 to give space tourists somewhere to visit.

The Future of Space Tourism — and of Our Planet

Musk talks of Mars colonies and humanity spreading out into the cosmos, but since 2012, SpaceX has made a lot of money from NASA contracts to launch supplies to the ISS. In the summer of 2020, it began ferrying NASA astronauts there, too. SpaceX's Starship — currently being tested — will land two NASA astronauts, the first woman and the next man, on the moon in 2024.

You see, space tourism is just a sideshow to a bigger and more worthy goal of saving the planet. Next year, Blue Origin plans to test its reusable New Glenn rocket — named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 — which will be able to take cargo and astronauts into orbit. Bezos has said he thinks we need to go to space to save Earth, specifically by protecting the planet from pollution by moving heavy industry into space. That can only happen when space travel is safe, scheduled, and affordable. Space tourism will help create a competitive space economy, just as mass tourism has lowered the cost of flying.

Similarly, Branson's aim is to increase access to space. "We are at the vanguard of a new space age…Our mission is to make space more accessible to all," he said after his inaugural flight. A microgravity experiment was on board that first flight on July 11, with similar plans for all subsequent trips. Meanwhile, sister company Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne sends small satellites and science payloads into orbit via a small rocket launch from underneath the wing of a Boeing 747.

The scientific spin-offs for all of us down on Earth are currently unknown, but the space community has an incredible track record when it comes to innovation. "Clean energy as solar power is from the space program," says Korp. "Solar panels were invented to power satellites and refined to power spacecraft." Cue GPS, weather forecasting, telecommunications, and even internet access. There are also fleets of satellites large and small that observe how our planet is behaving and changing. "It's the space industry that's monitoring climate change, tracking hurricanes, and learning how to survive in the extreme environment of space — including experiments to grow food with almost no water, for example," says Korp. Every single space mission, including suborbital and even zero-gravity flights, have environmental experiments on board as default.

"This is not about escaping Earth," said Bezos after the flight. "The whole point is, this is the only good planet in the solar system and we have to take care of it." Bezos wants to scale up into affordable space travel. That will enable long-term, commercial projects that ultimately may help prevent further climate change, or at least help us cope with its consequences.

However, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX won't be the only way to reach space. Russian space agency Roscosmos is expected to take "citizen space explorers" to the ISS soon, but the most affordable way to get "black sky time" may be with Space Perspective , which will launch a pressurized capsule propelled by a high-performance space balloon.

The six-hour flight will cost around $125,000 per person and launch from Space Coast Spaceport in Florida in 2024. "Unlike short-lived, adrenaline-fueled moments of weightlessness, Space Perspective flights bring you space calm," says Jane Poynter, founder, co-CEO, and CXO of Space Perspective. The flights on Spaceship Neptune involve a gentle ascent at just 12 miles per hour for a six-hour tour of Earth's biosphere, culminating in a view of our beautiful planet from space.

Space tourism is here at last. Instagram had better get ready for "Earth selfies."

Program Credits

Editorial Lead: Elizabeth Rhodes Contributors: Jamie Carter and Stefanie Waldek Visuals Editor: Mariah Tyler Art Director: Jenna Brillhart Designer: Sarah Maiden

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We have liftoff: Space Tourism and the Space Economy

The past year has been revolutionary for the space economy, with space tourism finally becoming a reality. While traveling to the stars seemed like a far-fetched dream, companies like SpaceX , Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have seemingly made it possible, each having flown their first tourist-focused missions in 2021.  

Following the milestone number of successful commercial space launches in 2021, it seems like every week there are new announcements of plans for space travel. With more private citizens than ever before making the trip outside of the Earth’s atmosphere in 2022, it is clear that Space Tourism is now a reality. But what does the emergence of space tourism mean for the space economy?   

What is space tourism?

Simply put, space tourism refers to the activity of traveling into space for recreational purposes. While to many it seems like an unattainable dream, the concept of space tourism isn’t new, with Dennis Tito, the first space tourist, having paid $20 million in 2001 to go to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.   

While approximately 600 people have traveled into space, only a small fraction of them have been space tourists, meaning they traveled into space for leisure or recreational purposes, and not for any scientific research. Between 2001-2009 eight space tourists reached orbit, each of them utilizing government rockets and/or government space stations for their journey. In fact, the 2021 SpaceX voyage was the first all-private mission to orbit with the crew even planning their own itinerary.   

The rapid growth of interest in space tourism has resulted in many companies researching, designing and testing spacecraft to carry tourists to space on a regular basis. Companies such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are leading the space tourism industry in outlining plans to deliver various forms of commercial space travel in the near future. Individuals who one daydream of being space tourists will be able to choose from three different types of space travel; suborbital space tourism, orbital space tourism, or lunar space tourism.   

Suborbital Space Tourism

Suborbital space flights will aim to reach an altitude that will qualify as reaching space but will not achieve a full orbit. The spacecraft will fly at low speeds with its trajectory intersecting the atmosphere of the surface and will fall back to the earth after the engines are shut off. Suborbital space tourists will reach altitudes of approximately 100 kilometers and will have a few minutes in space, they will also experience some moments of weightlessness as the spacecraft free falls back to earth.  

The suborbital space tourism market is currently dominated by two competing companies: Virgin Galactic, which debuted on the public market in 2019 and Blue Origin, the private space company funded almost exclusively by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Tickets for Virgin Galactic suborbital space flights are being sold at a cost of $450,000 for the 90-minute spaceflight.   

Orbital Space Flights

Orbital space flights will reach altitudes of over 400 kilometers and orbital space tourists tend to spend days or even more than a week in space. The spacecraft will be placed on a trajectory to remain in space for at least one full orbit and should achieve the orbital velocity to remain in the orbital path. Due to the increased length, speed and distance, orbital space flights are significantly more expensive than suborbital space flights, with SpaceX’s four passengers on their September 2021 orbital space flight allegedly paying $50 million per ticket.  

While in the past orbital space tourism has been largely limited to a few flights to the International Space Station that used Russian Soyuz spacecraft, new companies entering the market are making orbital space tourism more possible. SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, has been the market leader, having launched the first all-private orbital space flight in 2021. 

Lunar Space Tourism

Lunar space tourism aims to complete full trips to the moon with a suitable lunar spacecraft. While no lunar space tourism flights have yet been launched, plans to launch Lunar tourism on the moon’s surface or around it between 2023 and 2043 have been announced.   

SpaceX announced plans for the dearMoon project in 2021, the first ever lunar space tourism mission. The project is being financed by Japanese Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, with a proposed launch in 2023. It will make use of a SpaceX Starship spacecraft with the aim of achieving a single circumlunar trajectory around the Moon. The mission is expected to last 6 days and is currently looking for eight crew members to take part in this historic project.  

The space economy

The space economy, as defined by OECD , includes the full range of activities and the use of resources that create value and benefits to human beings while exploring, researching, understanding, managing, and utilizing space. It comprises all public and private sectors involved in developing, providing and using space-related outputs, space derived products and services as well as the scientific knowledge that comes from various space research. Space tourism is a small subsector of the larger space industry that is expected to see exponential growth in the coming decades.  

The space economy can be further divided into two categories, space-for-earth and space-for-space activities. Space-for-earth activities are the activities that produce goods or services in space for use on earth. These activities currently dominate the space economy in terms of revenue and include activities such as telecommunications and internet infrastructure, earth observation capabilities, national security satellites, and more. In contrast, space-for-space activities are the activities that produce goods or services in space for use in space. These activities are currently experiencing high levels of growth, with space tourism opening the door for businesses to start creating an array of space-for-space goods and services over the next several decades.   

The space economy is one that is continuously growing and evolving alongside the development of the space sector as well as the further integration of space into our society and economy.  

Current trends in the space industry including the increasing public interest and investment in space activities worldwide, the unprecedented levels of private investment in space ventures, and the growing space industry revenues have led predictions of the space industry being the next trillion-dollar industry by 2040.  

The space tourism market

Space tourism has finally become a reality, and while the ticket cost is still unobtainable to most, the cost of booking a trip to the stars is expected to gradually decrease as companies continue to find new and innovative ways to make space tourism more efficient and inexpensive.   

Due to significant technological innovations coupled with the increased interest in having access to space, the space tourism market is expanding at a rapid growth rate.  

(Graph 1: 2021 Global Space Tourism Market Share)  

The global space tourism market size was valued at USD 598 million in 2021, with the commercial space tourism market dominating in 2021, gaining a market share of 56.7%. In 2021 alone, there were thirteen commercial spaceflight missions undertaken, with Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and NASA having undertaken the majority of spaceflight missions to transport non-astronaut individuals across space and bring them back to Earth after a certain period.  

(Graph 2: U.S. Space Tourism Market Size 2020-2030)  

North America led the overall market in 2021, with a market share of 38.3%. The U.S. Space tourism market is the largest globally, valued at USD 191.6 Million in 2021. Factors including advancements in technology, rising interest in space travel, and increased focus on research and development activities for space tourism are some of the factors fueling the growth of the market. The U.S. Space tourism market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.1% from 2022 to 2030, meaning the space tourism market is predicted to be a multi-billion-dollar market in the coming decade.  

The future of Space Tourism  

Space tourism is expected to grow far beyond tourists traveling to space just for the ride, with orbital space flights involving tourists staying in space for a period of time, while the international space station is the only habitable structure in space now, companies have begun to look beyond this.   

Designs for Voyager Station , the first ever space hotel were released in 2019 by the Gateway Foundation. The project is now being overseen by Orbital Assembly Corporation , a space construction company, who has recently taken over the project from the Gateway Foundation and is now aiming to launch two space stations with tourist accommodation: Voyager Station, the original design, as well as a new concept design Pioneer Station . Voyager Station is scheduled to open in 2027 and will accommodate an expected 400 tourists. The Pioneer Station is expected to open in three years, housing 28 tourists at a much smaller capacity. While the international space station is primarily a place of work and research, Orbital Assembly’s space hotel fulfills a different niche; they offer a destination for space tourists. While collaborations between Orbital Assembly and the companies organizing space flight such as Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s company SpaceX have not been publicly announced, they are expected.  

It is likely that space tourism will continue to grow in the years to come, and competition between private space companies for leadership will intensify. There is no doubt that private space tourism will have a substantial economic impact. While space tourism is currently a small subsector of the larger space economy, it will redefine it in the coming decades.   

It is likely that the space tourism industry will evolve during the next decade, as barriers to entry will be reduced, competition will grow, costs will be lowered, and eventually, space travel will be affordable for everyone. The future of space tourism has the ability to positively impact many socioeconomic factors on Earth including creating jobs, educating citizens about space and fostering further innovation in the space economy.  

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Space tourism economics – financing and regulating trips to the final frontier

Professor of Strategy, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

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Loizos Heracleous does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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American engineer and businessman Dennis Tito paid US$20m in 2001 to become the world’s first official space tourist . He travelled to the International Space Station (ISS) on a Russian Soyuz capsule and then spent eight days on board, prompting some debate about the appropriateness of using the facility for financial gain. Since Tito, six other commercial passengers have visited the ISS – each on Soyuz spacecraft at US$20m a piece. The last of these travelled in 2009 , after which the Russians halted the practice. But now commercial space travel, albeit at a lower orbit, is set to start again with a price tag that even the average multi-millionaire might be able to afford.

To the ordinary person, commercial space travel may seem like a pipe dream, but at an embryonic level a few well-funded space companies are creaking into action. Jeff Bezos has announced that a passenger flying with his aerospace company, Blue Origin, will pay between US$200,000 and US$300,000 for a ticket – comparable to Virgin Galactic’s proposed price of US$250,000 . Passengers will experience weightlessness for three to six minutes, and enjoy unparalleled views of the stars and the curvature of the Earth.

Most of these space tourism products and technologies are still in their early stages, so for a commercial company setting a price is a delicate balancing act. Operators must settle on a figure low enough to be affordable to sufficient numbers of consumers, but high enough that the service could be commercially sustainable.

Currently, Bezos’ proposed price seemingly doesn’t even attempt to do this. Indeed, given his outgoings, it is more of a gift to those lucky souls who have the money to spare.

A financial black hole

The New Shepard rocket which Blue Origin plans to use for commercial trips has been in development since 2006. It will carry six commercial astronauts on each launch, and launches cost tens of millions of US dollars. Elon Musk has said that it costs US$62m to launch his Falcon 9 rocket, and US$90m for the much larger Falcon Heavy.

If this seems like a lot, then consider the billions the rockets cost to develop. Jeff Bezos reportedly liquidates around US$1 billion per year to fund Blue Origin , and the cost of the company’s New Glenn rocket alone was US$2.5 billion . The cost of the New Shepard, an earlier development built over the course of a decade, was likely the same or even higher.

Six customers each paying US$300,000 drums up US$1.8m for Blue Origin, barely scratching the surface of the tens of millions each launch will cost. Taking into account rocket development and the human and technological resources required for a successful launch, it is a miniscule contribution.

Small steps

That said, this nascent market has to start somewhere. The technical accomplishments of designing and operating reusable rockets has already reduced launch costs by several orders of magnitude. Bezos’ take-offs cost tens of millions; a single-use rocket would have cost hundreds of million. Technology is still developing and the relevant companies are maintaining a healthy mixture of competition and collaboration, so there is no reason why a financially sustainable market might not emerge in the future. Until then, Bezos has said that he sees Blue Origin as his most important work, and has pledged to keep funding it as long as needed .

The planned flight paths will take passengers up to the Karman line – the notional border about 100km above the Earth where the atmosphere ends, and real space begins. In future, flights could once again bring visitors to the ISS, 408km into space, where accommodation infrastructure already exists , tacked onto the station in 2016.

The ISS costs US$3-4 billion a year to maintain and run, and is nearing its projected retirement date within four to eight years, depending on the estimate. Rather than decommission it, the US government favours gradually moving the ISS into the commercial sector . Some years down the line, space tourism might be instrumental in securing the future of one of the great ventures of space exploration.

Regulating an endless vacuum

But a mere glance at the history books reveals the dangers of space flight, and administering the vacuum that is space is a huge challenge to legislators. Under current regulation, commercial passengers will have to sign an “informed consent” form to confirm that they recognise and accept the risks. This provision has been enshrined in US law by the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act 2004 , and in UK law by the Space Industry Act 2018 .

These forms will not cover damage to others, and spaceflight operators will need to have third party insurance. Early international agreements such as the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 state that any activity in space, by government or non-government entities would need to be authorised and supervised by the state – leaving it responsible for any damages caused by entities under its banner. In future, extraterrestrial travel insurance will probably be available from insurance companies, and perhaps even facilitated by operators.

Despite long delays to the plans of Blue Origin, Virgin’s Space Galactic and others, it is a matter of when not if commercial space travel becomes commonplace. Technology will advance, demand will expand, and the costs of launches and tickets will fall, driving the innovations that should help make this a reality for generations to come.

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• Space tourism
• International Space Station (ISS)
• Blue Origin

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Every Space Tourism Package Available in 2021 Ranked: From $125K to $60 Million

From virgin galactic's suborbital ride to spacex's multi-day orbital voyage, we've rounded up every space tourism package available..

2021 is a historic year for commercial space travel. A record number of civilian orbital and suborbital missions launched successfully: Elon Musk ’s SpaceX launched four amateur astronauts into Earth’s orbit for the first time; a Russian film crew spent 12 days on the International Space Station shooting the world’s first movie in space; and two multi-billionaires flew to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere as the first passengers of their respective space companies to show the public that their new spacecrafts are safe and fun.

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As with everything in its early stages, space tourism today is unattainably expensive (although demand appears to be strong enough to keep existing companies in this market busy for several years). But eventually, as technology matures and more companies enter the industry, prices will hopefully go down. As a space tourism entrepreneur told Observer this summer, going to space in the future “will be more and more like going to Europe.”

Below, we’ve rounded up every space tourism package that is either available now or in the near future. We have listed them in the order of price and compared them by travel duration, maximum altitude, passenger cabin amenities, and value for money—if you can afford it, that is.

Space Perspective: “Hot Air Balloon” to Stratosphere

Price: $125,000 Flight altitude: 30 kilometers What you’ll get: A relaxing six-hour ride to the stratosphere in a balloon-borne pressurized capsule. Date available: 2024 Value for money:  ★★★★ (4/5 stars)

Founded by the team that launched Alan Eustace in 2014 for his Guinness World Record space jump , Florida-based Space Perspective in June began selling tickets of its yet-to-be-licensed “Spaceship Neptune” flights.

A pressurized capsule designed to carry up to eight passengers and one pilot will be slowly lifted by a hydrogen-filled balloon the size of a football field when fully inflated to 19 miles (30 kilometers) in the sky, about three times the altitude of commercial planes. The passenger cabin features a bar, a bathroom and huge windows specially designed for sightseeing.

The balloon will hover at its peak altitude for about two hours before slowly descending to a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, where passengers and will be picked up by a recovery ship.

Because the space balloon moves at only 12 miles per hour during ascent and descent, no special training is required before the ride. Space Perspective completed a test flight in June. The company expects to begin flying paying customers before the end of 2024.

Virgin Galactic: Suborbital Joy Ride

Ticket Price: $450,000 Flight altitude:  50 km What you’ll get: A 90-minute ride to 50 kilometers above sea level in a SpaceShipTwo spaceplane. A few minutes of zero-gravity experience during descent. Date available:  Now Value for money: ★★ (2/5 stars)

If you like a more thrilling space experience provided by a company with a little bit of a track record, Virgin Galactic (SPCE) ’s 90-minute suborbital flight might be your choice.

In July, the company’s founder, Richard Branson , became its first passenger and flew to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere in a VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo spaceplane along with two pilots and three Virgin Galactic employees.

A pioneer in the nascent space tourism industry, Virgin Galactic began selling seats in 2013 at $250,000 apiece. By the time it halted sales in 2014 (after a test flight failure), the company had collected deposits from more than 600 aspiring customers. Ticket sales resumed in August this year at a higher price of $450,000. Virgin Galactic said it has since received 100 reservations.

Each VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo can carry up to four passengers. Virgin Galactic expects to fly paying passengers three times a month in 2023. At its current reservation volume, it will take the company a number of years to clear its wait list. So, patience is your friend here.

Blue Origin: Quick Rocket Trip to the Kármán line

Ticket Price: Reportedly $28 million Flight altitude: 100 km What you’ll get: A 12-minute ride to the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space. Date available:  Now Value for money: ★ (1/5 stars)

Blue Origin offers a similar suborbital flight package to Virgin Galactic’s. The main difference is that Virgin flies passengers in a plane while Blue Origin launches amateur astronauts in a real rocket.

On July 20, a few days after Branson’s spaceflight, Jeff Bezos became the first customer of his own space company as well, blasting off to 107 kilometers in the sky in a New Shepard booster-capsule combo. The same spacecraft launched another crew of four passengers, including Star Trek actor William Shatner , on October 13.

Blue Origin began taking reservations in May. The exact ticket price is still a mystery. Bezos has said Blue Origin will price New Shepard flights similarly to its competitors, which led us to speculate that it would likely fall in the range of what Virgin Galactic charges. But, according to Tom Hanks , the ride would cost $28 million, which he said was the reason he turned down Bezos’ invitation to fly on the October mission. Hanks may have been joking, but $28 million was how much an auction winner paid to fly alongside Bezos in July. Of that total, $19 million was donated to various space organizations, Blue Origin said. If the remaining amount went to the company itself, it was still a hefty $9 million.

Blue Origin said it has raked in $100 million from private clients, but refused to disclose how many tickets have been sold.

SpaceX: Multi-Day Orbital Voyage

Ticket Price: Estimated $55 million Flight altitude: 574 km Date available:  Now What you’ll get: Three-day stay inside SpaceX’s Dragon capsule circling around Earth with three crew mates. Value for money: ★★★ (3/5 stars)

SpaceX has more experience launching humans into space than any other company in this roundup. Its civilian package, rightfully the most expensive of the bunch, provides the closest experience to true space exploration.

In September, four amateur astronauts blasted off into space in a modified SpaceX Dragon capsule, equipped with a 360-degree glass dome, and spent three days flying in Earth’s orbit. The crewed spacecraft shot up to an altitude of 357 miles, about 100 miles higher than the average orbital altitude of the International Space Station.

The trip was paid for by tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, who was also one of the passengers. SpaceX didn’t disclose the exact amount he paid. It was estimated in the $200 million ballpark, given that NASA pays about $55 million for each seat on SpaceX’s regular crewed missions to the ISS.

Axiom Space/SpaceX: Vacation on International Space Station 

Ticket Price: $55 million Flight altitude: 408 km Date available: 2022 What you’ll get: A 10-day trip to the International Space Station, including a weeklong stay in the orbital lab. Value for money: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)

Next year, another four-person, all-civilian mission is expected to launch with a SpaceX Dragon capsule, this time to actually dock at the International Space Station and let the crew live in the orbital lab for a week. (The Inspiration4 mission stayed in orbit only.)

The trip is marketed by Houston-based Axiom Space , a company led by former NASA official Michael Suffredini. Dubbed Ax-1, the mission will be piloted by former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría. Three passengers—Larry Connor, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe—have reportedly paid $55 million each for the remaining seats.

Axiom has three more flights planned in 2022 and 2023. Under NASA’s low Earth orbit commercialization policy, two ISS civilian missions no longer than 30 days are allowed per year. Axiom actually aims to eventually build a stand-alone space station to replace the aging ISS. The first major module is expected to launch in 2024.

Roscosmos: Customized Trip to International Space Station

Ticket Price: $50 million to $60 million Flight altitude: 408 km Date available: Now What you’ll get: A 12-day trip to the International Space Station. Value for money: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)

If you don’t feel like buying your first space trip from an inexperienced private company, Russia’s national space agency Roscosmos has a ISS getaway package very similar to what Axiom and SpaceX have to offer.

In October, Roscosmos sent an actress and a director to the ISS for a 12-day trip to shoot scenes for what will be the first movie filmed in space. On December 8, another civilian, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, known for having booked a SpaceX Starship flight around the moon in 2023, will travel to the ISS in a Russian Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft, set to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Maezawa will fly with his assistant, Yozo Hirano, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin. According to Space Adventures , a Virginia-based company currently working with Roscosmos on future commercial flights, a seat on an ISS-bound Soyuz spacecraft will cost in the range of $50 million to $60 million.

• SEE ALSO : What Melinda French Gates’s Philanthropy Could Look Like Post-Gates Foundation

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Why We Should Be Spending More on Space Travel

L et’s stipulate one thing: there’s absolutely no reason for us to go to space. It does nothing to feed us, to clothe us, to protect us, to heal us. It’s dangerous and hideously expensive too, a budget-busting luxury that policy makers and administrators have spent decades trying to defend—always unsuccessfully because the fact is, there’s no practical defense for it. So stand down the rockets, take down the space centers, pocket the money and let’s move on. Still want the adventure of going to space? That’s what they make movies for.

Now that we’ve established that, let’s stipulate the opposite: Space is precisely where the human species ought to be going. We accept that we’re a warring species. We accept that we’re a loving species. We accept that we’re an artistic and inventive and idiosyncratic species. Then we surely must accept that we’re a questing species. Questing species don’t much care for being stuck on one side of an ocean and so they climb aboard boats—indeed they invent boats—to cross it. They don’t much care for having their path blocked by a mountain and so they climb it for no reason other than finding out what’s on the other side. Accept that, and you can’t not accept that we have to embrace space.

April 12 marks the 60th anniversary of the day Yuri Gagarin became the first human being in space , taking off in his Vostok 1 spacecraft, spending 88 minutes making a single orbit of the Earth, and returning home to a species that seemed forever been changed by his efforts. The date will mark, too, the 60th anniversary of the by-now familiar argument that journeys like Gagarin’s and all of the ones that followed achieve nothing that can be touched and pointed to as a practical dividend of the effort made and the resources expended.

I found myself turning the old debate this way and that over the last week, when I was reading a column in the Guardian with the provocative headline, “Revive the U.S. space program? How about not,” by essayist Nicholas Russell. It opens with a mention of Gil Scott-Heron’s 1970 spoken word poem, “Whitey on the Moon,” which compellingly lamented the hard social truth that the U.S. was spending $24 billion in 1960s money on the Apollo program at the same time 10% of Americans were living in poverty, with Blacks suffering at three times the rate of whites.

“Was all that money I made last year (for Whitey on the moon?)” Scott-Heron wrote. “How come there ain’t no money here? (Hm! Whitey’s on the moon.)”

Russell goes on to cite the estimated cost of the new Artemis lunar program , which some analysts have placed at $30 billion; the role—a troubling one as he sees it—of the military in so many space projects, and the ongoing scourge of racism and inequality on Earth that persists while we still keep looking spaceward. Then he mentions, by way of caution, a University of Arizona proposal to send seed, spore, sperm and egg samples of 6.7 million terrestrial species to the moon as a sort of space ark in case life on Earth should come to an end. “When the vastness of space is cited as a means of escape from disaster, it’s exceedingly difficult not to believe nihilism acts as the prime motivator,” Russell argues. “Rather than sparking inspiration, it speaks of blatant fatalism about what is worth saving, a preference for the lofty and unpopulated … with delusions of innovation and heroism.”

Russell is right about some things—especially about the continuing blight of racism. But expenditures on space and expenditures on social programs have never been a zero-sum proposition, any more than any dollar the U.S. government spends on anything at all—the military, farm subsidies, tax cuts for corporations—is by definition a dollar not spent on something else. And the Artemis price tag is indeed high—but only if you look at it as a standalone figure. In the context of the federal budget? NASA funding currently accounts for just 0.4% of the total the government spends each year—down from 4% in the golden era of Apollo. The military’s role in the space program is inevitable, even if Russell sees it as regrettable. Rockets are rockets, after all, and physics is physics, and if the first machines that blasted humans off the Earth were originally designed as ballistic missiles, well, that was what the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had on the shelf. What’s more, every Soviet R-7 rocket or American Atlas that was used to send an astronaut or cosmonaut to orbit was one fewer that could be used in a theater of war.

And as for that space ark? Well yes, it does suggest a certain fatalism. But the fact is, we are eminently capable of screwing the global pooch, to paraphrase the old Mercury astronauts. Unless you’re confident that no autocrat or hermit king with nuclear weapons and a button in reach won’t do something impulsive, storing the Earth’s genetic essence for safekeeping does not seem like a completely insane idea.

That doesn’t mean space exploration is inherently nihilistic, however. Look at the old footage of the global reaction to the Apollo 11 moon landing . Watch the worldwide relief when the Apollo 13 crew —three people the vast majority of the planet had never met—made it home safely. Consider the reaction today when a rover lands on Mars or a spacecraft whizzes past Pluto or a pair of women aboard the space station perform the first all-female spacewalk.

Yes, we can live without traveling to space. Indeed, we did perfectly well over all of the millennia that preceded April 12, 1961. We can meet most of our needs when we stay on Earth—we can raise our families and earn our salaries and feed our bellies. But we feed something less literal, more lyrical when we extend ourselves as far as we can. Once that meant crossing an ocean. Now it means more. Space is out there—and we should be too.

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Want to be a space tourist? Here are 6 things to consider first

The industry of space tourism could exist in the future. Image:  Unsplash/NASA

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Stay up to date:.

• In July 2021, entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos went up into space, accompanied by fellow passengers.
• These trips created vast amounts of media coverage and brand recognition for Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Bezos’ Blue Origin.
• This could indicate that a commercial space tourism industry is on the horizon.
• Before space trips become commercially available, important factors such as environmental and safety laws need to be considered.

It’s been a momentous month for space-faring billionaires. On July 11, British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson’s Unity “rocket-plane” flew him and five fellow passengers about 85 kilometres above Earth. And this week, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard capsule reached an altitude of 106km , carrying Bezos, his brother, and the oldest and youngest people ever to reach such a height. Passengers on both flights experienced several minutes of weightlessness and took in breathtaking views of our beautiful and fragile Earth.

Both flights created an avalanche of media coverage and brand recognition for Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Bezos’s Blue Origin. There is renewed anticipation of a lucrative commercial space tourism industry that could eventually see thousands of paying passengers journey into space (or not quite into space, depending on your preferred level of pedantry).

This year marks 60 years since Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Since then, almost 600 trained astronauts have gone into outer space, but very few people have become space tourists.

The first, US engineer Dennis Tito, paid a reported US$20 million to spend six days orbiting Earth in the Russian section of the International Space Station in April 2001, after three months’ training at Russia’s Star City complex. He was followed by a handful of other very wealthy “orbital tourists”, most recently Cirque de Soleil founder Guy Laliberté in 2009, whose ticket reportedly cost US$35 million.

Unlike their predecessors, Branson’s and Bezos’ flights were suborbital – they didn’t reach the velocity needed to orbit Earth. Bezos’s entire flight lasted just over 10 minutes. Suborbital flights are much less technically complex, and in theory cheaper (although one seat on the New Shepard flight was auctioned for US$28 million ).

While they might quibble over billionaire bragging rights, there’s no denying that suborbital “space” flights have the potential to be less eye-wateringly expensive than going into orbital outer space and beyond.

But before you sign up – assuming you’re lucky enough to afford it – here are a few things to consider.

Where does space start, anyway?

Have you read, how many space launches does it take to have a serious climate impact, from space squid to saliva: what's inside nasa's cargo missions and why, the big space clean-up - and why it matters.

Despite assertions to the contrary , there is no legal definition of “outer space”, and thus no official boundary where airspace ends and outer space begins. In the past, the International Aeronautical Federation has looked to the von Karman line , but this does not coincide with the boundary of any of the atmosphere’s scientifically defined layers, and the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space , which deals with such issues, has not yet resolved the question.

Conveniently for Branson, 80km has been proposed by some experts as an appropriate boundary.

Outer space is undeniably influenced by Earthly geopolitics. Essentially, the larger space-faring countries see no need to legally define a boundary that would clearly demarcate the upper limits of their sovereignty.

Will you be an ‘astronaut’?

The 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty designates astronauts as “envoys of (hu)mankind in outer space”. Certainly, that seemed to be the case as the world watched the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing and prayed for a safe return of the stricken Apollo 13 capsule. However, the 1968 UN Rescue Agreement refers to “personnel of a spacecraft”, which may imply not everyone on board should be considered a fully fledged astronaut.

Of course, these legal niceties won’t deter space tourism companies from awarding “astronaut wings” to their passengers.

What laws apply when things go wrong?

The 1986 Challenger and 2003 Columbia shuttle disasters are stark reminders of the dangers of space travel. Human space travel has always involved determining acceptable levels of risk for trained astronauts. But commercial space tourism is different to state-sponsored space programs, and will need the highest possible safety standards.

Commercial space travel will also require a system of responsibility and liability, for cases in which a space tourist suffers injury, loss or damage.

Space tourists (or their families) can’t claim for compensation under the 1972 UN Liability Convention which, in terms of space, applies only to collisions between space objects such as satellites and space debris. While there may be scope to take legal action under national laws, it is likely space tourists will be asked to sign carefully worded waivers of liability.

The same is probably true of international air law , which applies to “aircraft” — a designation space tourism operators will understandably be keen to avoid.

Ultimately, we may need to develop a system of “aerospace law” to govern these suborbital flights as well as “transorbital” transport such as the keenly envisaged flights that might one day take passengers from Sydney to London in just a few hours.

What activities should be allowed in space?

The advent of space tourism will give rise to some interesting ethical questions. Should there be advertising billboards in space? What about casinos, or brothels? On what legal basis should these things be restricted?

How does tourism fit with the underlying philosophy of space law: that the exploration and use of outer space “shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries”?

Will space tourism harm the environment?

Space tourism will inevitably put pressure on Earth’s environment – there are claims that space vehicles may one day become the world’s biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions. We will need to manage space traffic carefully to avoid disastrous collisions and steer clear of space debris .

If tourists go to the Moon, they may cause pollution or damage the heritage of earlier exploration, such as Neil Armstrong’s footprints .

Will tourism workers have to live in space?

If space tourism does become truly widespread, it will need infrastructure and perhaps even staff. People may end up living permanently in space settlements, perhaps having children who will be born as “space citizens”. What legal rights would someone have if they were born at a Moon base? Would they be subject to terrestrial laws, or some version of current international legal rules for outer space?

The World Economic Forum was the first to draw the world’s attention to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the current period of unprecedented change driven by rapid technological advances. Policies, norms and regulations have not been able to keep up with the pace of innovation, creating a growing need to fill this gap.

The Forum established the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network in 2017 to ensure that new and emerging technologies will help—not harm—humanity in the future. Headquartered in San Francisco, the network launched centres in China, India and Japan in 2018 and is rapidly establishing locally-run Affiliate Centres in many countries around the world.

The global network is working closely with partners from government, business, academia and civil society to co-design and pilot agile frameworks for governing new and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) , autonomous vehicles , blockchain , data policy , digital trade , drones , internet of things (IoT) , precision medicine and environmental innovations .

Learn more about the groundbreaking work that the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network is doing to prepare us for the future.

Want to help us shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution? Contact us to find out how you can become a member or partner.

These are obviously questions for the future. But given the excitement generated by the brief journeys of a couple of wealthy entrepreneurs, we should start contemplating them now. Outer space is the new frontier, but it is not — and must not — be a lawless one.

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Pros and Cons of Space Tourism

People put space tourism in the same bracket as flying cars as little as twenty years ago. The starting point of space tourism can be traced back to 2001 and the first space tourist, Dennis Tito. However, this term didn’t become a buzzword until 2021, when two billionaires, Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, set off to space in separate spacecraft in the same week. These two events marked the beginning of the new-generation space race.

Space tourism became available in February 2022, when Virgin Galactic started selling tickets for the next trip to space. While many people jumped on the space tourism bandwagon, others are beginning to wonder whether traveling to space as a tourist is a good idea.

This article will discuss the basics of commercial space travel, outlining its most essential advantages and disadvantages.

What Is Space Tourism?

A completely new level of sightseeing, it will become more widely available, you don’t need to be an astronaut to travel to space, new opportunities for space exploration, it will inspire more people to become astronauts, passengers will be able to experience weightlessness, it can boost scientific research, a new perspective of our planet, the possibility of finding additional resources, the possible discovery of extraterrestrial life, we may find other planets to colonize, more opportunities for employment, it could identify potential dangers to our planet, major technological advancements, endless opportunities, it contributes to global warming, few people can afford it right now, limited space, it’s not available for everyone, space tourism costs a lot of money, it’s not 100% safe, you pay a lot of money for a short trip, the issue with space junk, wasting natural resources, exposure to radiation, not going above the kármán line, out-of-date information, space sickness, all those resources could be invested elsewhere, it could put our planet at risk, space tourism – should we do it.

Before we go into the details regarding the pros and cons of space tourism, let’s talk about what this newest form of travel means.

Space tourism and space travel are not the same. What sets them apart is their purpose. Astronauts are sent to space to conduct various types of scientific research and experiments, and they go through rigorous training and preparation before they’re allowed to leave Earth. As a result, becoming an astronaut is incredibly challenging. Every year, NASA chooses a handful of people among tens of thousands of applicants.

Space tourism, or commercial space travel, refers to traveling to space for recreational reasons. People who want to become space tourists must satisfy three requirements: They must be 18 or older, physically fit, and rich. For example, one ticket for a 90-minute trip with Virgin Galactic costs $450,000, but we’ll get to that later.

There are three types of space tourism: orbital, suborbital, and lunar space tourism. The main difference between orbital and suborbital spacecraft is speed. Orbital space travel reaches an altitude of 1.3 million feet (400 kilometers), for which a spacecraft would need to travel at 17,400 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour).

Suborbital rocket ships can only fly to a certain altitude (330,000 feet or 100 kilometers) because they don’t have enough power to orbit around the planet. As a result, these spacecraft must fly at a minimal speed of 3,700 miles per hour (6,000 kilometers per hour).

Most people assume that space tourism is pioneered by NASA and other government agencies. However, privately owned aerospace companies are now leading the global space tourism market. The three most important are Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The first two companies offer suborbital space travel, both licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for passenger space travel.

On the other hand, SpaceX plans to introduce orbital space tourism to the public. SpaceX rockets can reach 120 miles above the Earth, while Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic can’t achieve half that distance. Aside from SpaceX, Space Adventures, an American space tourism company is another enterprise that plans to introduce tourism flights to Earth’s orbit.

The final form of space tourism is lunar space travel, which includes orbiting around the moon or even landing on it. Space Adventures wants to introduce circumlunar flyby tours, but one ticket will be estimated at $150 million. SpaceX will also organize a space trip around the moon, which will be reached via the Starship.

Space tourism isn’t only in the hands of privately owned aerospace companies. NASA announced that space tourists, formally called private astronauts, will be allowed on board the International Space Station. They’ll be able to get there with the SpaceX Crew Dragon and the Boeing Starliner, which is currently being developed. Space tourists will be required to pay $35,000 for this trip to space.

Pros of Space Tourism

Many people are looking forward to the development of space tourism. In fact, the PEW Research Center surveyed the public’s opinion on space tourism in 2018. The survey revealed that 42% of participants stated they were definitely or probably interested.

It won’t only benefit people who want to be a part of this new era of space exploration but also space scientists. The advantages aren’t just limited to scientific and technological advancements. The dream will come true for many people who have always wanted to go to space.

Here are some of the most essential advantages of space tourism.

People have always been drawn to brand-new, unique experiences, and what could be better than viewing the Earth from a spaceship? Whether you’re a fan of science fiction or deeply fascinated by the endless wonders of our galaxy, traveling to outer space sounds like an unattainable fantasy. However, it’s closer than you might think.

People who said they were interested in space tourism in the 2018 PEW survey named three main reasons. Most participants (45%) said they wanted to experience something unique, while 29% of those surveyed wished to view the Earth from space. The others said they wanted to travel to space to learn more about our world.

Space tourists will be able to see the Earth, the Moon, the International Space Station, the Kármán Line, and many other parts of our solar system. Traveling to space will undoubtedly be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for many.

Since the beginning of space travel, only about 600 people have been to space. However, the development of space tourism will make traveling to space available for many people. According to a study by Northern Sky Research, there will be almost 60,000 space tourists by 2031.

There are currently long waiting lists for Virgin Galactic flights due to take place by the end of 2022. Although it’s nearly impossible to get a seat on this cutting-edge space vehicle right now, Virgin Galactic hopes to conduct 400 flights a year.

Even though prices for space tourism are currently going through the roof, it’s believed they will be significantly reduced when commercial space exploration becomes mainstream. One day, it may even become affordable for ordinary people.

You don’t need to be a trained astronaut to become a space tourist. Previously, the opportunity to fly to outer space was only available to astronauts. However, it will be possible for everyone who can afford it in the future.

Astronauts undergo years of preparation for a single flight, whereas space tourists receive the proper training a few days or even hours before the trip. If you want to fly with Blue Origin, you’ll only need one training day. On the other hand, Virgin Galactic’s training takes five days to complete.

The requirements for becoming a space tourist vary depending on the company. For example, if you want to fly with Virgin Galactic, you must be 18. Another important factor in traveling to space is physical fitness. You need to be relatively healthy for this adventure. People with heart problems or those who are overweight or underweight won’t be able to go.

Exploring outer space has been the goal of many government agencies and privately owned space companies ever since the 1950s. One of the most notable events of space exploration was the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. This 20-year battle gave rise to many technological advancements and scientific achievements. It was also when the two nations sent the world’s first-ever satellites, rockets, and astronauts into space.

Space tourism and space exploration are inherently connected, where one directly influences the other. Therefore, increasing interest in space tourism will renew the global interest in space exploration, leading to more opportunities.

Many children want to be astronauts when they grow up. Kids usually start with sci-fi movies and space camps before pursuing educational opportunities in engineering, science, or technology. The chance to go to space when they grow up can inspire many young minds. Many people who have visited space as tourists have stated that the experience was life-changing.

Going to space will inspire many more people to become astronauts or contribute to the space industry in another way.

Other than being able to view our planet from outer space, passengers will also get a chance to experience weightlessness. Of course, zero-gravity simulators have already been developed on Earth, like the Zero G Experience , where people can experience weightlessness without going to space.

Space tourism allows people to sample the real thing. Once the spacecraft is launched, passengers will go through a similar experience to roller coaster rides. Space tourists who booked a flight with Blue Origin will be in zero-gravity for three minutes before the space vehicle descends to Earth.

Space tourism can help collect valuable research data. Such information will be essential in the development of space travel and space exploration. This kind of data wouldn’t be provided by space tourists but by people who organize the trip to space. Scientific research could encourage various innovations and solutions to problems.

Seeing our planet from space is a unique experience that will make us realize how small we are. We tend to think that we are the center of the universe and that the problems we face in life are insurmountable. However, going into space, even for a few minutes, puts things like conflicts and other issues that can be easily solved into perspective.

Another advantage of space tourism is the possibility of finding resources that are being depleted from our planet. If spacecraft take frequent trips to the moon or other locations in outer space, there is a greater chance of finding valuable resources that can be used for various applications.

For example, resources such as water, metals, minerals, atmospheric gases, and volatile elements can be found on various celestial bodies surrounding the Earth. For example, water was already found on the moon, Mars, and in some asteroids. Oxygen is another valuable resource that’s necessary for rocket propellants.

Not only can we use the raw materials to make life easier on Earth, but those resources can be put into improving aerospace technology. In other words, space tourism might pay off in the long run.

Space tourism brings us closer to finding extraterrestrial life. The subject of aliens has always been controversial, sparking many arguments about their existence. However, even though there is no solid proof of extraterrestrial life, many scientists agree that the odds of life on other planets are high.

The more money and resources that are invested into the commercial space travel industry, the further we will be able to explore. One of the goals of space exploration is discovering life outside of Earth, and space tourism can make this happen.

Space tourism may even bring us closer to finding new planets to colonize. But unfortunately, there haven’t been any discoveries of planets that are habitable and safe for human life yet. The planet closest to Earth in terms of habitability is Kepler-452b, which seems to be the most promising candidate.

The Mars colonization project is already on the way. Elon Musk plans to take SpaceX to Mars in five to ten years. So even though moving to a new planet seems like a plot from a movie right now, who knows what the future might bring? One thing is sure – space tourism will open new doors for us and allow us to explore more of the universe.

Hundreds of thousands of people are employed in the space industry, government agencies, and private companies. The growth of space tourism will open new doors for many individuals. As a result, the sector will likely see an increase in employment in the next couple of years.

Traveling to space lets us view the Earth from a different perspective. This will help us identify dangers to our planet and prepare for potential hazards. For example, if an asteroid or a comet is heading toward Earth, we would have more time to prepare. By exploring space, we could locate some of those hazards before they even come close and prevent a potential disaster.

As interest keeps growing in space tourism, more and more private companies will want to be a part of the new-generation space race. This will lead to significant technological advancements in the aerospace sector, facilitating space tourism even more. As a result, we can expect to see bigger, faster, and better rockets in the future, which will be made for suborbital space tourism and orbital space travel.

The future of space exploration through space tourism presents countless opportunities. The Northern Sky Research space tourism study suggests that the global space tourism market will be worth $20 billion in revenue.

Space tourism may replace long-air flights. Instead of traveling 16 to 17 hours from one continent to another, space travel will enable passengers to reach their destinations in under an hour.

One day, there might even be hotels in space, allowing space tourists to enjoy the wonders of space for a longer time. This is the goal of the Orbital Assembly Corporation. Their space hotels, the Voyager Station and the Pioneer Station, will orbit the Earth. Blue Origin and Orion Span are also working on building hotels in space called the Aurora Station and the Orbital Reef.

Cons of Space Tourism

Now that we’ve gone through all the advantages of space tourism let’s look at some downsides. Space tourism is extremely expensive and inaccessible, but it can also be dangerous in several ways.

Launching a rocket creates a significant carbon footprint. Spacecraft generate soot, a harmful substance of large amounts of carbon. Once it’s released into the atmosphere, the soot from a spacecraft is absorbed by sunlight, which increases the warmth in the atmosphere.

A spacecraft must burn excessive fuel to reach space and overcome Earth’s gravity. We’re talking hundreds of tons, which can leak through the rocket and spill into the atmosphere. The harmful chemicals, along with rocket fumes, harm the ozone layer.

It’s already possible to purchase tickets for space. However, it’s costly. One ticket for a ride with Virgin Galactic costs $450,000, and that’s only for a 90-minute trip. Now, becoming a space tourist is only possible if you’re a multi-millionaire. The only people who have become space tourists are billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Sir Richard Branson. That’s why space tourism has been dubbed “the billionaire space race.”

Right now, both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have enough room for a maximum of six passengers. However, if we were to include the two pilots, they could only accommodate four more people. For that reason, those who wish to participate in the space exploration experience must book tickets several years in advance. More than 600 reservations have already been made for Virgin Galactic space tours.

In other words, if you were thinking about buying a ticket for a space trip that will take place this year, you can forget about it. That being said, SpaceX announced they were working on a spacecraft with enough room for up to 100 passengers.

As mentioned before, not everyone will be able to become a space tourist. Even if you have the money and you’re old enough, your health and physical condition could prevent you from participating in space tourism.

Those allowed to travel to space need to be in pretty good shape. Aerospace companies have different rules and requirements. For example, Blue Origin only lets you buy tickets if you can climb seven flights of stairs in under 90 seconds. People who fail to meet their requirements are automatically eliminated.

There are also different height and weight requirements. For example, you can’t weigh less than 110 pounds or more than 223 pounds to become a space tourist.

Space tourism isn’t only expensive for the passengers but for the private space company as well. For example, a return trip to the International Space Station with the Boeing Starliner or the SpaceX Crew Dragon will cost around $50 million.

The trips to the International Space Station carried out by Space Adventures from 2001 to 2009 cost $20 to $30 million for eight- to 14-day trips. The more recent trip to the International Space Station cost $55 million when Axiom Space sent the Crew Dragon Endeavor spacecraft in June 2022. The space tourists were there for 17 days.

Space tourism is still a generally new concept. In fact, Blue Origin has only carried out three space tourism launches so far, while Virgin Galactic went just once. Space travel continues to be dangerous due to many factors, such as inadequate safety protocols and lack of proper regulation. Traveling to space isn’t safe, so we must consider the worst-case scenario. If the spacecraft crashes, there won’t be a way to save any passengers.

Space tourists will be required to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a short time in space. For example, if you choose to travel with Blue Origin, you will only spend a few minutes in zero gravity, for which you would have to pay $200,000.

Other aerospace companies offer longer trips. For example, Virgin Galactic will send their spacecraft into space for three hours. Similarly, the New Shepard will be in space for approximately 11 minutes, while the Virgin VSS Unity flight takes two and a half hours.

Space junk refers to man-made debris and satellites that are no longer active and always orbit around our planet. While testing new rockets, launching them into space, and even on space missions, these rockets create a large amount of waste. In the 60 years of human space travel, we have generated over half a million items of space junk.

Space junk is another form of pollution that directly affects the Earth. Not to mention that space junk can also damage active satellites and spacecraft that might be close by. Space junk is dangerous because all those micro shards accumulate into larger piles of debris.

If the space mission is successful, all the investments and resources put into the project will pay off one way or another. However, if the experimentation fails, the resources will have been spent for nothing. The same applies to space tourism. If we were to look at a trip to space from that perspective, we would have to ask ourselves, is it worth spending so much money and resources just to send six people to space for three minutes?

One of the dangers of being an astronaut is constant exposure to harmful radiation from the sun, which leads to a greater risk of cancer and other health problems. Of course, space tourists who only spend a few minutes or hours in space shouldn’t have anything to worry about. But those who spend days or weeks in space might want to consider this factor.

The Kármán Line is a widely accepted border between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space. It’s roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) above sea level, located in the Earth’s thermosphere. Although no globally accepted law defines where space begins or ends, most regulatory agencies agree that the Kármán line is the closest we have to a border.

Suborbital spacecraft belonging to Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic won’t be able to cross the Kármán Line, which is considered “real” space. However, this may change in the future.

No matter how fast space technology might be developing, space scientists still use outdated information for some matters. Unfortunately, outdated information is useless and can also be dangerous and cause serious issues.

The problem with space research is that most of the celestial bodies that aren’t in our solar system are light-years away. Unfortunately, measuring time and distance in space is difficult, so we often receive inaccurate information.

Even for three minutes, exposure to zero gravity can affect the human body. To be more specific, passengers won’t have any side effects while they’re in space. The issues start when they return to Earth when space tourists experience space adaptation syndrome (SAS).

This is more commonly known as space sickness, like the space version of motion sickness. Space sickness manifests itself through loss of muscle power, bone resorption, loss of consciousness, and other short- and long-term effects. However, such symptoms are more likely to affect astronauts who spend months in space.

Space tourists may experience mild symptoms, like headaches, nausea, puffiness, temporary anemia, loss of appetite, and similar. They can even feel sick a few days after their journey to space. That’s why space tourism will only be available for passengers who are in good health.

Space tourism is a multibillion-dollar industry, and its revenue is only expected to grow. Since so much money is being invested, it raises many controversies. The Earth is in a lot of trouble, financially, politically, and environmentally. As a result, many politicians, humanitarians, and public figures have tried to highlight other matters that require our immediate attention. This includes poverty, global warming, world hunger, and many more issues that could benefit from these resources.

Last but not least, space tourism can be dangerous because it puts our planet at risk. This is another scenario that could be taken from a sci-fi movie. But in the future, traveling to space might have grave consequences.

Space tourism is a controversial topic. On the one hand, it can be a wonderful experience that allows us to view our planet and other celestial bodies from space. In addition, it opens up new doors for space exploration, inspires technological advancements, and boosts scientific research. But on the other hand, space tourism is extremely expensive; it accelerates global warming, is only available for a limited number of people, and can be very dangerous.

Whatever your opinion on space tourism, there’s no stopping its advancement. People will always be drawn to new things no one has experienced before, which is just one of the reasons the commercial space travel industry will grow. One day, we might even have hotels on the moon or other planets. There’s no telling what the future might bring.

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First Space Tourist: How a U.S. Millionaire Bought a Ticket to Orbit

This story is part of a SPACE.com series to mark a decade of space tourism. Coming tomorrow: The future of space tourism and its impact on space science.

If the era of commercial spaceflight has a birthday, it's April 28, 2001.

On that date, American businessman Dennis Tito became history's first space tourist , paying his own way to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Forty years to the month after Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, Tito showed that there was money to be made in human spaceflight -- potentially lots of money, as he plunked down a reported $20 million for his flight.

Now, 10 years later, the industry looks set to heat up, with multiple firms jockeying for position in a commercial space race that is arguably already under way.

"The private spaceflight industry did start with Dennis' flight," said Tom Shelley, president of Space Adventures, the Virginia-based company that brokered Tito's eight-day mission with Russia's Federal Space Agency and has sent a total of seven people on eight orbital flights since 2001. "That was the first real milestone and demonstrated to a lot of people that there was a market for private citizens to go to space." [ Photos: The World's First Space Tourists ]

A lifelong dream, nearly deferred

Tito made his millions in the world of finance. But he was once an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and has been a space enthusiast since he was a teenager.

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"My dream was to fly in space before I die," Tito said. "And I basically came up with that lifelong goal around the time of Yuri Gagarin's flight ."

In early 2000, Tito started working toward making his dream a reality. He would turn 60 later that year, and he felt like his chances of getting into space were rapidly running out. The oldest rookie spaceflyer at the time, after all, was NASA astronaut Deke Slayton, who first made it to orbit in 1975 at the age of 51.

"So I was gettting over the hill, I thought," Tito told SPACE.com. "So I said, 'It's now or never.'"

In June 2000, Tito signed a deal with a company called MirCorp to ride a Soyuz to Russia's Mir space station. However, those plans fell through in December of that year, when Russia announced that it planned to deorbit the aging station. (Mir burned up in Earth's atmosphere in March 2001.)

Undeterred, Tito soon made other arrangements. He signed on with Space Adventures, which brokered an April 2001 flight to the International Space Station , again on a Soyuz. The station was a relatively new project at the time, having just begun assembly operations in November 1998.

NASA makes it tough

The Russians agreed to take Tito's money and offer him a seat on a Soyuz. But the other station partners -- notably NASA and space agencies from Canada, Europe and Japan -- were not so thrilled. They informed Russia that they "recommended against" Tito's mission.

NASA officials said at the time that they didn't object in principle to the presence of a paying customer aboard the orbiting lab. They just didn't think Tito's training would be sufficient by April, which they said was a time of complex and crucial station operations.

"During this period, the presence of a nonprofessional crewmember who is untrained on all critical station systems, is unable to respond and assist in any contingency situation which may arise, and who would require constant supervision, would add a significant burden to the Expedition and detract from the overall safety of the International Space Station," reads a NASA press release from March 19, 2001.

Tito thinks his age may also have been a factor.

"If you're older, heart attacks happen, strokes happen, whatever," he said. "And what are they going to do, transport a corpse back to Earth? That would be very embarrassing for them, and traumatic."

So NASA did what it could to keep Tito from getting off the ground in April, according to Tito and Space Adventures officials.

"They put up everything that they could throw in the way to make it not happen," Shelley told SPACE.com.

Eight months at Star City

Meanwhile, Tito carried on. He continued his training at the Star City complex outside Moscow, where cosmonauts have prepped for flight since Gagarin's day. Tito spent the better part of a year there, toiling in a sort of limbo.

"It wasn't easy," Tito said. "I had to hang out in Russia for eight months without really knowing whether I was going to fly or not."

Eventually, Tito's perseverance paid off. Over NASA's objections, he launched on April 28, 2001, becoming the 415th person ever to reach space. But Tito said all the drama and difficulties are water under the bridge, especially since the agency has been so supportive of the six other space tourists who have since flown to the orbiting lab -- and so supportive of private spaceflight in general over the past decade. [ 10 Years of Space Tourism ]

"Their support is stronger than I would've ever dreamed or hoped for," Tito said. "So my bottom line is, I have nothing but good things to say about NASA."

Fulfilling the dream

Tito made it to orbit, spent about six days aboard the space station, and then landed in Kazakhstan on May 6, 2001.

His mission has had a lasting impact, inspiring a range of private spaceflight investment and activity, according to Shelley.

"I think [Virgin Galactic's] Richard Branson and [Blue Origin's] Jeff Bezos, and even Elon [Musk of SpaceX] -- they really wouldn't be in this industry if it wasn't for what Dennis originally did," Shelley said. Tito's flight, he added, demonstrated "that this was a feasible activity for private citizens to step up and pay the money."

For his part, Tito said he is happy to have been a part of the birth of this industry, though he shifts praise onto spaceflight entrepreneurs and the orbital tourists who came after him. And for him, of course, the trip will always resonate on a much more personal level.

"To me, it was a 40-year dream," Tito said. "The thing I have taken away from it is a sense of completeness for my life -- that everything else I would do in my life would be a bonus."

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall . Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook .

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with  Space.com  and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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Billionaire Cancels Moon Tourism Trip After SpaceX Misses Deadline

"i apologize to those who were excited for this project to happen.".

Billionaire fashion entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa has canceled his much-buzzed-about space tourism flight, citing readiness problems with SpaceX's Starship rocket.

First announced in 2018 , the tourism voyage, dubbed "dearMoon," planned to carry Maezawa and ten other space tourists — a group that notably included DJ Steve Aoki — around the Moon and back to Earth. Should the trip have come to pass, it would have been the first private circumlunar trip in history.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said of the mission in a 2021 promotional clip that "we expect people will go further than any human has ever gone from planet Earth."

But pass it did not. Over the weekend, the official dearMoon account on X-formerly-Twitter released a statement announcing the " unfortunate " decision to cancel the trip. Meanwhile, from his personal account on the same platform, Maezawa placed the blame squarely on SpaceX and Musk's shoulders.

"I signed the contract in 2018 based on the assumption that dearMoon would launch by the end of 2023," wrote the Japanese billionaire. "It's a developmental project so it is what it is, but it is still uncertain as to when Starship can launch."

"I feel terrible making the crew members wait longer, hence the difficult decision to cancel at this point in time," he continued in the thread, and "I apologize to those who were excited for this project to happen."

Par for the Course

This wouldn't be the first time Muskian project timelines didn't pan out. For years now, SpaceX's many attempted Starship launches have ended in a series of delays , pushbacks , bridge crashes , and explosions ; other SpaceX projects, including its first crewed Dragon mission , have been known to experience similar slowdowns.

And it isn't just a SpaceX problem. Tesla, another Musk-helmed venture, is notorious for unfulfilled promises and extensive timeline delays . A particularly salient example can be seen in Musk's recently re-upped — though still very vague — promise that the long-awaited Tesla Robotaxi would finally be revealed in August of this year. Previously, in 2019, Musk claimed that there would be "one million" Robotaxis on the road by "2020." So!

This all in mind: as Payload  points out , other ventures banking on the success of Starship might view the dearMoon cancellation as a tentative canary in the coal mine.

Perhaps most pressingly, NASA's upcoming Artemis III mission — humanity's return to the surface of the Moon for the first time in over 50 years — currently hinges on Starship being up and running by 2026. For a rocket that's yet to launch without exploding , that's a tall order.

Anyway. Condolences are with Maezawa and his fellow space enthusiasts, as it's unclear whether there was a refund policy.

More on billionaires and space: NASA Experts Concerned Billionaire Space Tourist Will Accidentally Break Hubble Space Telescope While Trying to Fix It

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Japanese billionaire's flight to the moon on SpaceX craft is CANCELLED

• Mission would have taken billionaire and eight artists around the moon  
• Among those on the trip was a London-based anti-fracker and fossil fuel critic

It was supposed to be one of the biggest space flights of the decade and help usher a new era of space tourism. 

But the 'dearMoon' mission – which was set to transport nine civilians around the moon on SpaceX 's Starship – has been cancelled after too many delays. 

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa – who conceived and financed the mission – said he made the 'difficult decision' as it is still 'uncertain as to when Starship can launch'.

Mr Maezawa reportedly paid SpaceX $80 million (£60 million) for the trip back in 2018, but it's unclear how much he will get refunded. 

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hopes Starship will eventually land humans on the moon and Mars later this decade, although it's still stuck in the testing phase . 

What was dearMoon? 

The dearMoon project was a lunar tourism mission conceived and financed by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. 

Aboard SpaceX's Starship rocket, the civilian crew would have orbited the moon for about seven days (without landing on it) before returning to Earth.

The passengers would have been Maezawa, eight other civilians who are all artists or creatives, and one or two crew members. 

The trip was expected to happen in 2023 before being ''delayed indefinitely' in November of that year and finally cancelled in June 2024. 

Mr Maezawa took to X ( Twitter ) to share the news that the project had been ditched, having already been 'delayed indefinitely' back in November. 

'I signed the contract in 2018 based on the assumption that dearMoon would launch by the end of 2023,' said the billionaire, an entrepreneur and art collector. 

'It’s a developmental project so it is what it is, but it is still uncertain as to when Starship can launch. 

'I can’t plan my future in this situation, and I feel terrible making the crew members wait longer, hence the difficult decision to cancel at this point in time. 

'I apologize to those who were excited for this project to happen.' 

In response to Mr Maezawa, one X user called the decision 'nonsense', adding that 'you can't expect it to happen fast'. 

Someone else replied: 'You are actually cancelling because you expected the most ambitious human spacecraft in history to fly on time?'  

The dearMoon website has also published a statement, calling the project 'unfeasible'.

'Without clear schedule certainty in the near-term, it is with a heavy heart that Maezawa made the unavoidable decision to cancel the project,' it said. 

MailOnline has contacted SpaceX about what amount Mr Maezawa will get refunded. 

The civilian mission was due to orbit the moon aboard SpaceX's Starship rocket for about seven days (without landing on it) before returning to Earth. 

Mr Maezawa was aiming the moon trip for 2023, a target seen by most space observers as overly optimistic given the slow progress of SpaceX's Spaceship mega-rocket project. 

Starship only reached orbit for the first time in March, although it did not achieve a successful splashdown in the ocean as planned (fortunately no-one was aboard). 

Mr Maezawa said he received applications from more than 1 million people from around the world to join him on the 'space tourism' trip.  

Just eight lucky entrants were picked through a 'strict screening and selection process', including a K-pop star, a US Grammy nominated music producer and a London-based photographer and fossil fuel critic . 

Rhiannon Adam, originally from Ireland, would've become the first openly queer woman to go to space. 

When asked about justifying a trip on a rocket launch booster that burns at two million times the rate of an average car, she said the 'positives outweigh the negatives' . 

Also on board would have been Korea's Choi Seung-hyun, who started out as an underground rapper before joining Big Bang, one of the world's top boy bands, in 2006.

The dearMoon project even revealed the specially-created spacesuits to be worn by the crew, designed in-house by SpaceX.

Mr Maezawa – who made a trip to the International Space Station in 2021 – made his fortune in retail fashion, launching Japan's largest online fashion mall, Zozotown. 

In 2019, he resigned as CEO of the e-commerce company Zozo Inc to devote his time to space travel. 

Forbes magazine estimates his wealth at $1.9 billion. 

Who is Yusaku Maezawa? 

Yusaku Maezawa is a Japanese billionaire entrepreneur and art collector. 

Born in Chiba prefecture, Japan in 1975 (age 47), he founded the company, Start Today Ltd. (currently, ZOZO, Inc.) in 1998 and launched the online fashion mall ZOZOTOWN in 2004. 

The company was listed on the TSE Mothers in December 2007 and on the TSE First Section in February 2012, and its market capitalization exceeded 1 trillion yen in August 2017. 

In September 2019, Maezawa stepped down as CEO at the same time as the company released its capital and business alliance with Yahoo Japan Corporation. 

Immediately after, he established Start Today Inc., and in 2021, he started thirteen of his own businesses, including his own company's business. 

In December 2021, he became the first Japanese civilian to visit the ISS, spending about 12 days on board. 

Maezawa launched plans for the civilian lunar voyage aboard SpaceX's Starship in 2018, buying all the seats on the spaceship, but it was cancelled in 2024. 

Accompanying him would have been eight artists from around the world, including South Korean K-Pop star TOP, Indian TV actor Dev Joshi and British photographer Rhiannon Adam.  

Money blog: HSBC announces mortgage rate increases

HSBC has today announced wholesale rate hikes across its residential and buy-to-let mortgage product ranges. Read this and the rest of today's consumer and personal finance news below - and leave your thoughts in the comments box.

Monday 3 June 2024 20:54, UK

• Glitch that delayed 500,000 benefit payments 'fixed', HMRC says
• HSBC announces mortgage rate increases
• London could be set for second biggest listing in its history
• Virgin Atlantic launches new flight from Manchester to Las Vegas

Essential reads

• Your rights when deliveries or returns don't arrive - and why leaving instructions could jeopardise them
• What happens to our brains when we shop?
• Think twice before buying your holiday clothes from Zara
• Where is all the money going? Here's who is really responsible for concert tickets going crazy
• Would tourist tax put you off visiting Scotland?
• Best of the Money blog - an archive

Ask a question or make a comment

Royal Mail's incoming owner has refused to rule out stamp price hikes under his leadership. 

In fact, Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky seemed to suggest there might be more increases to come. 

"I can't make unconditional commitments," he told The Times when questioned on the topic. 

"[If] your circulation is 50% of what it was … you either need to go home, or you need to increase the unit price and hope that people will pay for it. Because if not, you are making losses.

"You can be loss-making for a year or two, but you can't be in a loss for 20 years. It's simple maths. There's no mystery to it." 

First class stamp prices have more than doubled since 2018 from 67p to £1.35. 

The businessman, nicknamed the Czech Sphinx, had his £3.6bn offer accepted by the postal service's parent company, International Distribution Services, last week. 

It said the agreement included a series of "contractual commitments" to protect public service aspects of the Royal Mail - such as its universal service obligation to "one-price-goes-anywhere" first-class post six days a week.

Many were shocked by the deal, with Royal Mail reporting losses of £1m a day in recent years. 

You can read more about the Czech Sphinx below...

A major error that meant 500,000 families did not receive their scheduled child benefit today has been "fixed", HMRC has said.

In a post on X, HMRC said affected families would get the money on Wednesday morning, two days after the payments were due...

Multiple readers have got in touch to say they had been affected by the problem, which meant almost a third of payments scheduled for today were not made.

Reader Susan1984 said: "When should we expect to receive the missing payment? This has left not just me but so many more families with kids completely stuck for food and fuel this morning."

Earlier, HMRC apologised and said it was working urgently to resolve the issue, which would not affected payments scheduled for tomorrow (see post at 14.41).

Child benefit is usually paid every four weeks on a Monday or a Tuesday at a rate of £25.60 for an eldest or only child and £16.95 for each additional child.

The bank has today announced wholesale rate hikes across its residential and buy-to-let mortgage product ranges. 

The new rates, which come into effect tomorrow, will be applied largely across its two, three and five-year fixed rates for purchase and remortgage. 

However, a number of rates available to existing HSBC customers looking to switch will also see increases. 

Brokers say more lenders could increase rates this week. 

This is thanks to an uptick in swap rates due to hopes fading for a cut to the base rate set by the Bank of England in June. 

Here is what some industry insiders told Newspage...

The dreaded 'higher for longer' scenario is no longer a mere notion: it's the harsh reality for many. It looks like these elevated rates are here to stay for the foreseeable future. Ranald Mitchell, director at Charwin Private Clients

We can now expect more awkward conversations with clients who have read that rates are coming down and inflation is under control. HSBC have been fairly competitive recently so the hope is that they just need to turn the tap off a little to catch up and this isn't an upward trend that will continue into the summer period. David Stirling, independent financial advisor at Mint Mortgages and Protection

HSBC is one of several lenders to already have announced changes this week. Even with the higher rates on offer, I would not suggest waiting in the hope of a drop any time soon. My advice to borrowers is take control of the situation and start the process of arranging a new deal as early as possible, secure a rate and, if a better one materialises, change to it. Simon Bridgland, broker/director at Release Freedom

Child benefit payments have not arrived on time for approximately half a million people.

Almost a third of payments scheduled for today were not made - and we've had multiple readers get in touch to say they've been impacted.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has apologised and said it is working urgently to resolve the issue.

"We're sorry that some customers' child benefit payments have not arrived as scheduled and we are working urgently to resolve the issue," said an HMRC spokesperson.

"The issues that caused payment problems today will not impact payments scheduled for tomorrow."

Child benefit is usually paid every four weeks on a Monday or a Tuesday at a rate of £25.60 for an eldest or only child and £16.95 per additional child.

Some people may receive the benefit weekly, for example if they are a single parent or receiving certain other benefits, such as universal credit.

HMRC added on X that there was "no need for customers to call us" and it will provide updates on the social media platform.

As of August 2023, 6.91 million families were in receipt of child benefit payments.

Reader Sam E said: "No warning, complete denial, no update, just endless worry for those who rely on the benefit. The denial in particular is an insult. How long will it be until it's sorted?"

Last week, the Scottish Parliament passed a bill meaning local authorities can set an additional charge for overnight accommodation. 

For tourists heading to Scotland, that means an extra fee for staying hotels, bed and breakfasts and holiday lets.

According to Visitor Levy (Scotland) Bill, the fee will be a percentage of the cost of a hotel or other room.

For instance, a 1% levy on a £200 booking means a visitor would pay £2 in tourist tax.

We asked our followers in LinkedIn if the tourist tax would put them off visiting the country. 

The majority of them (59%) said it wouldn't stop them from taking a trip there - but 41% would think twice.

Any charges or levies are not expected to come into effect until spring 2026, as councils need to consult local businesses before carrying out an 18-month implementation period.

Those receiving disability benefits will not pay any charges, with children and young people also exempt.

Manchester, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole already charge people to stay the night. 

Manchester's £1-a-night City Visitor Charge was introduced last April, and is estimated to have raised around £2.8m in its first year.

European hotspots like Barcelona and Venice also have tourist taxes, with the Spanish city charging visitors €3.25 if they're staying in official accommodation.

Your comments on LinkedIn :

"We love Scotland (I'm a Scot) but live close enough to drive up and do some shopping and stay over for a meal etc and we do so perhaps every six weeks or so. So I'm now classed as a 'tourist' even though I spend about £200 on a room - perhaps another £200 quid on a meal and drinks etc etc - not to mention the money we spend in the shops. And they want to charge us both £2.50 a night?" Paul Mclean

Many countries apply tourist taxes, so why should Scotland be any different?The big questions, for me, are how will the money be spent? Will it be spent directly benefiting the city or just vanish into government coffers? The other is who counts as a tourist. A foreign national visiting from a country outside of the UK would seem a sensible definition, but to charge domestic visitors would probably be shootings themselves in the foot somewhat. Scott Taylor-Barr

From my experience, Edinburgh is already one of the most expensive cities to visit. Greig Cahill

Hopefully the contributions are put towards the development of tourism, and/or will be used in the right ways. From my experience working in France, French nationals are very accepting of the tourist tax and in France, I see the logic in it. Let's hope it works... 🤞🏻 Jennifer Wightman

Virgin Atlantic has launched the first flight of its new service from Manchester to Las Vegas today. 

It makes Manchester Airport the only place outside of London to offer direct flights to America's west coast. 

Virgin Atlantic already has a daily connection to Sin City from London Heathrow, but launched the new route to support strong customer demand in the North West. 

It marks the airline's fourth service from Manchester to the US, building on established services of Orlando, New York and Atlanta. 

"Few places sum up the glitz and glamour of international travel like Las Vegas. Giving passengers in the North the opportunity to fly there directly and experience everything it has to offer is a real game-changer," Chris Woodroofe, managing director at Manchester Airport said. 

The launch has been marked with showgirls joining the flight's cabin crew and welcoming flyers at the check-in desk. 

Flight VS85 on an A350-1000 departed Manchester Airport at 9.50am. 

Rolex has increased the price of some of its watches in the UK after the cost of gold surged. 

The leading luxury watch manufacturer has hiked some prices by as much as 4%. 

One of its most famous pieces, the Daytona chronograph, will now cost you £38,700 - up from £37,200. 

The price of a yellow golf GMT Master II has also increased from £34,000 to £35,400. 

That's according to information on its UK website, which is tracked by Bloomberg. 

Typically, Rolex raises prices for its watches annually in January.

It increased prices in the UK by about 4% for some models at that time but left US prices unchanged.

It comes after the price of gold reached record highs earlier this year, coming in at £1,932.44 per ounce in April. 

Increased prices isn't the only thing that makes buying a Rolex difficult, though. 

Despite high prices, waiting lists for them have been rising, according to Watches of Switzerland. 

Some waiting lists can be years long, which is part of the reason they are so exclusive.

So even if you have a spare £35,000, you might still find it difficult to actually get your hands on one. 

By Sarah Taaffe-Maguire , business reporter

Eyes were fixed on the London Stock Exchange today for detail on a company that isn't even listed. 

Chinese-founded fast fashion giant Shein is set to publicly list in London, according to Sky's Mark Kleinman , a move that would make it the most high-profile public flotation for more than a decade and the second biggest initial public offering (IPO) in the history of the London Stock Exchange.  

A company "floats" when it offers shares on a stock market - comes into public shareholder ownership from being private - with an IPO being the first time shares are publicly available for purchase. 

There was no update posted this morning, but an announcement could come later this week or month. 

Drugs company GSK is the worst performer of the morning with its share price down 9.4% following news it will face jury trials in claims by thousands of people with cancer who say a heartburn drug it developed, Zantac, caused their illness.

Sterling buys €1.1714, down from the 19-month high of last week. Another high could be reached as the European Central Bank will likely cut interest rates on Thursday. One pound equals $1.2732.

A barrel of Brent crude, the benchmark oil price, is $81.43, low by the standards of the past three months. 

GameStop shares have surged after a Reddit account that drove the 2021 meme stock mania shared its position in the video game retailer. 

The chain's shares were 90% higher at $46 each as of 9.11am after Keith Gill, who goes by DeepF------Value on Reddit and Roaring Kitty on YouTube and X, reappeared online on Sunday night. 

He posted a screenshot of what appeared to be his portfolio holding a significant amount of GameStop common shares and call options. 

Reminder: A call option is basically a contract which allows a buyer to purchase stock at a specific price until a certain date. 

The Reddit trading crowd's favourite trader holds five million shares of GameStop worth $115.7m as of Friday's closing price, according to the account screenshot. 

The account also showed a position of 120,000 call options in GameStop with a strike price of $20 that expire on 21 June that were purchased for about $5.68 each.

GameStop shares closed Friday at $23.14.

Mr Gill's first return to social media three weeks ago sparked an eye-popping rally in GameStop with shares more than doubling in May alone.

At the time, he simply posted a picture of a man in a chair leaning forward, but that was enough to trigger a buying frenzy among amateur traders.

The investor was a former marketer for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance.

In 2021, through YouTube videos and Reddit posts, he encouraged a band of retail traders to squeeze out short selling hedge funds in GameStop.

The action got so wild at one point that brokers had to restrict trading in the stock as it blew up their clearing house margin.

By Katie Williams , Money team

We've all learned how to be more conservative with our money amid an increase in the cost of living - but it's still important to treat ourselves now and again.

And there's some science behind that happy feeling you get when you make a new purchase, as  consumer psychologist Dr Cathrine Jansson-Boyd  explains in the first of four features on the psychology of shopping running this week.

What happens to our brains?

When we buy something, our brain releases endorphins and dopamine. Such a release can give us a sense of pleasure, albeit momentarily, Dr Jansson-Boyd says.

You might be more likely to continue buying things if you think that temporary feeling of pleasure is important, she adds, though she notes for some even just the experience of shopping can trigger the dopamine, without anything being bought.

Buying sale items increases dopamine

Dr Jansson-Boyd says purchasing items at a reduced price can increase your dopamine level.

When shoppers see a product they like with a price they perceive as "fair", they experience a level of satisfaction in the part of the brain associated with the anticipation of pleasure, she explains.

However, if the price is perceived as "unfair", the insula - a part of the brain that registers pain - is typically activated.

The negative impact of dopamine

It's also important to note dopamine can have negative influence on spending behaviours, Dr Jansson-Boyd says. 

For example, when buying chocolates, the release of dopamine generates what can be thought of as a reward-seeking loop. 

This means that a person experiences repeated craving of a dopamine rush and repeatedly buys chocolates to experience the dopamine rush. This can lead to unwanted spending. 

"As you can imagine, such 'craving' can also lead to fairly serious consequences if the spending is done on gambling or drugs," she adds.

So are there 'healthier' alternatives to get that release? 

As Dr Jansson-Boyd mentioned previously, window shopping can trigger a surge of dopamine without you needing to buy anything.

Other non-shopping activities such as eating healthily and listening to your favourite music can also trigger a similar release, she says.

Can you get out of chasing the dopamine rush? 

Being aware is a good start, says Dr Jansson-Boyd, as it may "put the brakes on the shopping".

But she notes that if the chasing of dopamine becomes an obsession, then seeking professional help is best as the consequences can be "serious".

"However, if it is not of a serious nature then training yourself to think pragmatically about the shopping helps. 

"For example, if you find that you are keen on 'special offers', then make sure you are equipped with information about whether you are getting a genuine bargain," she says.

She also recommends taking a step back, going for a cup of tea or visiting another shop every time you see something you want to buy.

Dr Jansson-Boyd says: "If you still want to go back to the item, perhaps you really do want it. However, in many cases you will find that you forget about it entirely or that you are not that fussed."

Coming up in this series:

• Tuesday: The five different types of shopping addiction
• Wednesday: 'I was an addict - I ended up in £40,000 of debt'
• Thursday: The techniques big brands use to get us buying more, more, more

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Donald Trump was convicted on felony charges. Will he go to prison?

A New York jury's historic conviction of Donald Trump on felony charges means his fate is now in the hands of the judge he has repeatedly ripped as "corrupt" and "incompetent."

Two experts told NBC News that it's unlikely Trump will be imprisoned based on his age, lack of a criminal record and other factors — and an analysis of thousands of cases found that very few people charged with the same crime receive jail time. But a third expert told NBC News he believes it is "substantially" likely Trump could end up behind bars.

Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records , a class E felony that is punishable by a fine, probation or up to four years in prison per count. During the trial, Judge Juan Merchan threatened to put Trump behind bars for violating his gag order, but it’s unclear whether the former president will face similar consequences now. It's expected that any sentence would be imposed concurrently, instead of consecutively.

Former federal prosecutor Chuck Rosenberg, an NBC News analyst, said it's unlikely that Merchan would sentence Trump, 77, to any jail time, given his age and his status as a first-time, nonviolent offender. "I’d be very surprised if there's any sentence of incarceration at all," Rosenberg said. “Of course, he did spend a good bit of time insulting the judge who has the authority to incarcerate him.”

The next step for Trump at this point is his sentencing, which is set for July 11. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg would not comment Thursday on what type of sentence he’d seek, saying his office would do its speaking in court papers in the weeks ahead.

Arthur Aidala, a former prosecutor in the Brooklyn district attorney's office who's now a defense lawyer, said the judge will most likely use some of the time before sentencing to research similar cases to determine what the median sentence is.

"He wants to know before he sentences someone what the typical sentence is," Aidala said, and would consider other factors, like Trump's age and lack of a criminal record, while also taking into account the lack of injury caused by the crime. Aidala said he believes whatever punishment Merchan comes up with would be "a non-jail disposition."

An analysis conducted by Norm Eisen, who worked for House Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment, found that roughly 1 in 10 people who have been convicted of falsifying business records are imprisoned and that those cases typically involved other crimes.

Ron Kuby, a veteran New York criminal defense lawyer, took a different view.

“Judge Merchan is known for being a harsh sentencer when it comes to white-collar crimes committed by people who have wealth and privilege and power,” he said.

Kuby added he believes "it is substantially likely Judge Merchan will sentence Trump to jail or prison time," despite the logistical and practical complications that locking up a person with Secret Service protection would entail.

Kuby said that's because the criminal scheme went on for over a year and included a number of bad acts on Trump's part.

“It’s an entire course of conduct he was involved with — not just one bad decision,” he said.

Trump, however, most likely doesn't have to worry about missing the Republican National Convention, where he's expected to accept the party's nomination, even though it's taking place just days after his sentencing. Kuby said he'd most likely be able to remain free while he appeals the conviction.

Trump's behavior during the trial, including his flouting Merchan's gag order by making comments about witnesses and the jury, isn't likely to be a factor in the sentencing decision, Kuby said. It's also highly unlikely that comments that appeared to be aimed at sidestepping the gag order by Republican officials who attended the trial as Trump's guests will figure into Merchan's reasoning, Kuby added.

"If the judge is smart, he'd stay away from that," Kuby said. "The best way for judges not to get reversed in a sentencing is to stick to the facts and circumstances of the crimes and conviction."

Rosenberg said that despite Trump’s frequent criticisms of Merchan, which he likened to “a batter who’s been yelling at the umpire from before the first pitch,” Merchan appeared to run “a clean and fair trial.”

Rosenberg and Kuby agreed that Trump would appeal the verdict. Kuby said that could delay Trump's serving whatever punishment Merchan doles out for years, even if the appeal is ultimately unsuccessful.

His first appeal will be to the state Appellate Division, a midlevel appeals court, and it will almost certainly not decide the appeal until after the November election, Kuby said. If he loses there, he could then appeal to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals. A loss there would be followed by a request to the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

If all that fails, Kuby said, he could then try turning to federal court in another attempt to eventually get the case before the Supreme Court.

The appeals process typically takes a long time — Kuby said he had one client who staved off prison time for six years — but there's another potential complicating factor in this case.

"If he becomes president of the United States, he cannot be incarcerated in a state prison" while he's in office, Kuby said, because it could prevent him from fulfilling his constitutional duties. If he lost his appeals, "by the time he leaves office — if he leaves office — he'd be ready to be incarcerated," he said.

Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.

Adam Reiss is a reporter and producer for NBC and MSNBC.