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Space shuttle columbia disaster youtube12/20/2023 Space Adventures has also made a comeback: In 2021, it organized a flight to the ISS for Yusaku Maezawa. The following year, SpaceX provided the launch vehicle for the Axiom mission 1, the world’s first all-civilian mission to the ISS, during which four crew members spent eight days orbiting the planet. In 2021, entrepreneur Jared Isaacman organized the Inspiration4 mission, the world’s first all-civilian mission, during which he and three crew members orbited the earth in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. However, this could cost tens of millions of dollars per seat. It is contracted by NASA to launch astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) but is also planning to accommodate private charters. The price range for all of these options vary from $50,000 to $450,000 per seat.Įlon Musk‘s SpaceX is planning a return for orbital tourism. Space Perspective and World View, who are both planning to launch space journeys soon, offer a unique experience where they lift passengers to high altitudes using a high-powered version of a hot air balloon. Blue Origin launches vertically like a rocket whereas Virgin Galactic flies a rocket-powered spacecraft that is launched from the belly of an aircraft. In comparison, the nine space passengers who went as part of the Space Adventures program orbited the earth for days. The mission was carried out with the help of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.Īll the current plans for space travel involve suborbital travel where companies plan to fly tourists to the edge of space and back to earth in quick hops that can last anywhere between a few minutes and a few hours. He spent 8 days in orbit as part of the ISS EP-1 crew that visited the International Space Station. The wait continued till 2001, when American businessman Dennis Tito became the first civilian to fund his own trip to space. The program was briefly considered for a revival but that also was scraped after the fatal Columbia disaster in 2003. The space organization also introduced the Teachers in Space and Journalists in Space program that opened spaceflights to civilians.īut the programs were cancelled after the 1986 Challenger disaster which led to the death of the first Teachers in Space participant Christa McAuliffe along with six crew members. NASA finally opened their space flights to civilians, but this was limited to payload specialists with the ability to carry out specific in-flight projects assigned to companies other than NASA. Other companies also explored the possibility but none of them came to life. In the 1970s, manufacturing company Rockwell International, a contractor for NASA’s Space Shuttle Program, started exploring the possibility of a passenger module that could fit into the payload of the space shuttle. Unfortunately for Pistor and Co., that trip to the moon never came to life… The Birth of Space Tourism With 36 years to go, the space program started gathering pace and 93,000 people joined the waiting list for Pan Am’s First Moon Flights Club. Bush announced that the eye-wateringly expensive program would be retired.įor years after the last shuttle flight in 2011, NASA found itself dependent on Russia for transport to the International Space Station (ISS) until Elon Musk's Space X began flying passengers there in 2020.Īs well as the Moon, Washington is now preparing for a manned mission to Mars, scheduled tentatively for the late 2030s or early 2040s.Ĭolumbia broke up at 203,000 feet (61,900 meters) over eastern Texas just as the mission controller in Houston was talking to Columbia commander Rick Husband.A First Moon Flights Club membership card ( Image Credit: Wikipedia) The shuttle fleet was grounded for two and a half years and it sparked a major shift in American space flights. It was the second shuttle disaster after the Challenger explosion of 1986 which also killed the crew and led to sharp criticism of the safety culture at NASA. Its space program suffered a catastrophic setback when all seven astronauts were killed when the shuttle broke up on re-entering the Earth's atmosphere 20 years ago on February 1, 2003.
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