The 135th and very last space shuttle flight before NASA retires the 30-year program launched today, July 8. Today's flight will be Atlantis' 33rd and final mission before it is retired, along with the rest of the agency's orbiter fleet, Endeavour and Discovery. The shuttle's retirement will make way for a new space exploration program aimed at sending astronauts on deep space missions with the hopes of reaching Mars.
But while the engineers, scientists and technicians are sequestered on the ground away from space, who will fill the void?
Enter "space tourism."
Space travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes has been around for more than a decade, but new technological discoveries and increased funding have made this once idyllic fantasy a (somewhat) plausible reality.
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The public first became obsessed with booking a ride on a rocket in the frenzy of the space race, but once Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, the race was won and over. This led to a decreased emphasis on space exploration by both governments and the general public.
Interest didn't pique again until April 28, 2001, when American Businessman Dennis Tito became the first "fee-paying" space tourist. He visited the International Space Station (ISS) for seven days at a pricetag of $20 million. Since his pioneer voyage, only six other civilians have made the journey into space.
The most recent space tourist took off in September 2009.
All seven flights were conducted through Space Adventures Ltd. Participants flew with Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station and to this day, Space Adventures remains the only company to have successfully launched tourists into outer space. They plan to resume the high-society spaceflights in 2013 (after a five-year lull) by offering three seats on Soyuz.
For the next few years, Soyuz remains the only viable way of reaching earth's orbit. From the beginning of the International Space Station expeditions, NASA has said it wasn't interested in space guests. So even if, and when, NASA resumes space travel, it's safe to say they won't be bringing any stowaways.
SpaceX is another private space company which is developing their own rocket family called Falcon and a capsule named Dragon, capable of sending up to 7 people to any space station. Falcon 1 undertook test flights and successfully completed its first commercial flight on July 14, 2009.
While the mega-rich can now head directly for the ISS, what about the everyday space tourists? Sub-orbital jaunts are in production stages, with some companies set to launch by 2012.
No suborbital space tourism has occurred as of yet, but since it's projected to be more affordable, it's viewed as a money-making proposition by several companies, including RocketShip Tours, Space Adventures, Virgin Galactic, Starchaser, Blue Origin, Armadillo Aerospace, XCOR Aerospace and others. These companies aim to bring space travel to "ordinary" people as well as scientists and those looking to preform non-invasive experiments.
A sub-orbital space flight is when the spacecraft reaches space, but does not complete one orbital revolution. Passengers would experience three to six minutes of weightlessness, see the curvature of the Earth, and stare into the blackness of space. Flights can last a few hours, but this all needs to be weighed against the $200,000 average cost, with a required down-payment of $20,000.
