Riding high: How space tourism sector is warming up

The day 11 July in 2021 will be marked as a turning point for the space tourism industry when billionaire Richard Branson travelled to the outer space in a Virgin Galactic spacecraft surpassing his near rival Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, who is supposed to take up his maiden voyage in his Blue Origin ship later this month.

The flamboyant entrepreneur founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways didn’t have any plans to fly until later this summer. But he took to an early flight after Bezos announced his plans to ride his own rocket into space from Texas on July 20, marking the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Branson has previously tried many adventures such as kite surfing the English Channel and attempting to circle the world in a hot air balloon. Though this time, he has denied that he was trying to compete with the former Amazon CEO.      

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With the Sunday’s flight to the space, Branson expects to kickstart commercial flights to suborbital space by 2022. Till date, the firm has reportedly sold an estimated 600 tickets at a price of roughly $250,000 each. Some of the celebrity passengers on board include Tom Hanks and Lady Gaga.

The race to space

The space tourism sector, which is at the nascent stage right now, saw record breaking growth in 2020 as investors put in almost US $9 billion into the private companies, which are either engaged in providing parts and services to government agencies such as NASA or are engaged in space tourism with their own crew and rockets. The main aim of space tourism is to make travel to outer world available to people who are willing to pay a hefty fee and go for adventures.

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Over the past 20 years, the space tourism sector brought about major changes, thanks to the innovative technology and capital investment. Space Adventures, a US-based private company, started the trend and transported seven space tourists to international space station between 2001 and 2009 and charged around US $20 million.

In the future, private space companies will find more opportunities for growth as companies are adopting to latest technology and cost barriers are also coming down. Some countries are also supporting private companies by creating more permissive and encouraging policies. According to a Mckinsey report, in 2021, NASA also announced that it was offering US $45 million in support to around 350 small companies and research institute to develop innovative technologies.

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NASA also partnered with around 20 companies to help them in developing space technologies and some other commercial companies have won contracts to carry NASA payloads to the moon.

Some leading and most ambitious space companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic may go even further than lunar expeditions and satellite launches.  SpaceX is engaged in developing Starship, a powerful launch vehicle, with an ambition of landing on Mars. Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, wants to have crewed flights there by 2026. Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, is aiming to explore the concept of space cities while simultaneously acknowledging the substantial obstacles that stand in their way.

Many special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are aiming to acquire space companies, depending on their projected future revenue, and allowing them to go public.

Three recent unscrewed missions to Mars, including the landing of NASA’s Perseverance rover, indicate that the future will offer lots of opportunities for space sector.

Currently, the space sector has only three private companies at developing stage, which include Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic. These three companies are creating the entire ecosystem of private space travel by building rockets and announcing manned sub-orbital journeys. A glance at their operations:

1. Virgin Galactic

Recently, Richard Branson’s spaceship company Virgin Galactic said that it has received approval from the US aviation safety regulators to fly people to space.

The company said that it already has more than 600 reservations, priced between $250,000 per ticket and is willing to begin commercial space trips by 2022. It hopes to cut down the ticket expenses to $40,000.

It is the main competitor of Blue Origin in terms of sub-orbital space tourism. It originally aimed to start space flight by 2009 but due to technical hurdles it got delayed. In 2018, it launched its first successful human space flight. Currently, it is ahead of other companies planning to offer suborbital flights to space enthusiasts. But its plans got stalled after a rocket motor did not ignite during a 2020 test fight, forcing it to delay its first launch until 2022.

2. SPACEX

Tesla-backed SpaceX was founded by second richest person and its current CEO Elon Musk. The company already has experience when it comes to launching space-bound flights. The company has already sent astronauts and payloads and now plans are afoot to launch an all-civilian in space in September 2021.

The company also has plans to fly Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and seven other passengers around the moon on SpaceX’s Big Falcon Rocket in 2023.

The company is also planning to launch Inspiration4, the first all-commercial mission to orbit, in late 2021. Further, it is also in a partnership with Axiom Space and NASA for the first all-commercial astronaut mission to the International Space Station in later this year.

3. Blue Origin

Amazon-backed Blue Origin was founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The company is now reserving civilian seats for 11-minute suborbital fights on New Shepherd, a reusable launch vehicle, and the company is likely to charge at least $200,000 for the trip. However, it hasn’t revealed its long-term pricing structure. Further, it plans to auction off one seat on a flight planned for July 20, 2021.

The company has received around $28 billion from an anonymous bidder and it is believed that the mystery bidder will join Bezos, his brother Mark and Wally Funk.

Also read: Rocket Lab All Set To Test Space Vehicle’s Reusability

Eyes on Future

The space industry is expected to grow at a great pace and is expected to reach at least US $3billion by 2030. The space companies are testing reusable rocket technology to make spaceflight more affordable and accessible for humans and investing in suborbital space tourism to take earthling into the very edge of space and back. But currently, only wealthy passengers have access to space tourism. 

Many industry experts believe that commercial suborbital trips to the space will eventually be affordable for enthusiasts. Like, SpaceX aims to use its Starship rocket to fly 100 people in just a few minutes. According to a UBS report, if only 5% of the average 150 million passengers who are willing travel for 10 hours or longer pay US$2,500 per trip, the companies can earn up to US $20 billion per year.

Orbit vacations are set to become popular trend with leading companies considering in-space tourism and with technological development. The orbital and lunar-based hotels are going to become a trend as space infrastructure companies already accumulated in US$3.6 billion so far. 

The Aurora Station, a planned luxury hotel, is planning to serve six guests for a 12-day stay in low earth orbit for US$9.5 million. But the prices are expected to fall once the trips get started.

Bigelow space also came up with the B330, which is a space habitat, and aims to operate as a hotel or living area for humans in space.   

The private space companies are ambitiously investing across space tourism. In future, the barriers to enter the space are expected to ease and eventually increase competition by normalising the costs and ultimately democratise space travel for all.

The space tourism will be a small subsector of space sector but will be the mainstay for the lucrative space sector. The sector is expected to boot jobs, space education, and encourage a new solar-based energy infrastructure.