Space tourism is traveling into space for recreational reasons. The idea of space traveling really caught on when Dennis Tito was the world’s first private space tourist in 2001. Tito paid 20 million to travel to the space station. Since then, few others have also made the same journey. The idea of space tourism attracts many but only a few can afford it which makes it hard for the industry to grow. The cost will never be cheap enough for it to be a common thing among the population. I don't ever see it being a means of transportation but I guess people said that about airplanes 100 years ago. So who knows? I would like to see it go into that direction because that would be mean more jobs for pilots.
In 1984 Ronald Reagan signs a commercial space launch act saying that private aircrafts can go into space. Once space tourism was starting to develop rules and laws were put in mostly are for safety concerns. The current regulations say the passenger must sign saying they are aware of the risks and thats all the regulations are when it comes to passengers(FAA,2007). Virgin Galactic has the passengers go thru a three day training before the flight (Virgin Galactic,2015). The flight crew must go thru training but it is not as extensive as it should be which is why I think as the industry grows the regulations will also change. The pilots for Galactic are very well trained. Most have flown many different kinds of aircrafts and have over 5000 hours. Like I've said as the space industry expands, flying for space tourism might be more accessible for common aviation folks with the right training of course.
References:
Astronaut Training - Virgin Galactic. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2015.
Office of Commercial Space Transportation. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2015.
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/
Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer. (n.d.). First Space Tourist: How a U.S. Millionaire Bought a Ticket to Orbit | Private Spaceflight & Space Tourism | NASA, Russia & International Space Station | Space.com. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
http://www.space.com/11492-space-tourism-pioneer-dennis-tito.html
I think that space tourism at least has a chance at becoming popular, there just isn’t enough attention drawn to it. At the moment space tourism seems as though it’s going nowhere. Look at how far we have come with cell phones, what we have accomplished in the amount of time that we have is amazing. The fact is that space tourism is expensive from every aspect and until costs lower there probably won’t be any advancement in the industry.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you that is going to be too much for the average person to go up into space for more than once, if at all even once. But it would be cool to see this happening soon and I would say with the technology we have now it could happen a lot sooner then we think.
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