Competitors in space travel and leisure sector lowering price tag

Space tourism is months from reality after a successful milestone test of Virgin Galactic’s suborbital spacecraft on Oct. 11. Virgin Galactic won’t hold a monopoly on space travel and leisure. Competitors will come from Space Adventures, a business marketing seats on a new capsule being developed by Boeing. Technological advances and the prospect of competition in the marketplace are driving down space tourism prices even before the very first flight has been launched.

Visiting space more than once

The concept of space tourism originated from Virgin Galactic really. The first manned commercial spacecraft, the VSS Enter-prise, had its first successful flight. CNN reports that Virgin Galactic has a head start in becoming the world’s first commercial spaceflight line. 370 consumer deposits in the amount of $200,000 came in to the business. That means it has fifty million dollars for spending. Even-tually Virgin could have competition from Space Adventures, which is advertising suborbital outer space tour-ism for about half that price: $102,000. Currently, a space tourism package aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that including a couple of days at the international space station is going for $40 million.

More competitors for space tourism

The Boeing Company has been involved in spaceflight for several decades. Outer space Adventures and Boeing are working together for making space tourism possible. The plans are to use the Boeing Crew Space Transportation-100, or CST-100, for the flights. Boeing initially de-signed the CST-100 to ferry astronauts to the international space sta-tion. Space Adventures will broker seats within the capsule for private in-dividuals. There is room for seven individuals on the CST-100. It can be put on numerous rockets too. Boeing expects the spacecraft to be operational by 2015.

Eat all you need without gaining a pound

The first hotel in space might be up by 2016 if the Russian businessman gets what he wants. The Associated Press accounts that Sergei Kostenko, CEO of Orbital Technologies, announced his intentions to build a private space hotel accommodating up to seven individuals. Orbital Technologies claims that the first hotel built in outer space could be “designed specifically for tourists.”. It is visiting be better than the international space station. It won’t be crowded with equipment for science. Celebrity chefs could possibly be enlisted to create dishes on Earth prepared especially for a weightless fine dining experience in zero gravity.

Citations

CNN

cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/10/15/space.tourism/index.html?npt=NP1

Seattle PI

blog.seattlepi.com/airlinereporter/archives/221874.asp

Associated Press

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