SpaceX's First Full-Scale Private Space Tourism Attempt... A Long Way to Go

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] The era of full-fledged private space tourism has begun. Space exploration company SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, launched the Crew Dragon carrying four private tourists at 8:02 PM (Eastern Time) on the 15th from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Named 'Inspiration4,' this launch is the first-ever orbital space travel product composed entirely of private citizens. The spacecraft will orbit the Earth at a speed of 27,359 km/h, about 22 times the speed of sound, flying a 550 km Earth orbit for three days before returning. It will circle the Earth once every approximately 90 minutes. The spacecraft is also equipped with a special dome that allows 360-degree observation of space and Earth.

The four seats for this space tourism were purchased for about $200 million by Jared Isaacman, the founder of the American credit card payment processing company Shift4 Payments and a billionaire. Isaacman is a pilot with over 6,000 flight hours and will serve as the commander of this trip. The other three were selected through a public contest. Haley Arsenault, a nurse who overcame bone cancer; Sian Proctor, who attempted NASA astronaut tests three times but was not selected; and Chris Sembroski, a former U.S. Air Force member, each secured their spots through their own stories of fortune. Notably, Sian Proctor earned the title of the first Black female astronaut in history.

Inspiration4 is drawing attention as the first full-fledged orbital space travel composed solely of private citizens. In July, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and British billionaire Richard Branson each succeeded in private space tourism by flying their respective space company’s spacecraft to altitudes of 100 km and 86 km before descending. However, those trips lasted only about 10 minutes at the boundary between Earth and space. Inspiration4 ascends to 575 km, 170 km higher than the orbit of the International Space Station (405 km), and orbits the Earth for three days, marking the first step toward genuine private space travel.

The participants will stay in space for three days, conducting various scientific experiments on human body changes in zero gravity. The research results will later be made publicly accessible in a repository for anyone to access.

Private space travel began in 1989 with a private insurance project called the 'Juno Project.' British chemist Helen Sharman traveled to the Mir space station aboard the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. The first self-funded space traveler was American businessman Dennis Tito in 2001. Tito paid $20 million to participate in the Soviet space program. South Korea’s first astronaut, Yi So-yeon, also used the same program in 2008.

Although private space travel was ushered in by billionaires, the high cost remains a problem. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic tickets cost about $250,000, and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin tickets were auctioned off for as much as $28 million.

SpaceX plans to reduce the cost of a single rocket launch to $20 million by 2040 to promote space tourism. However, NASA and other space companies believe that missions like SpaceX’s Inspiration4 are difficult to generalize. The costs are astronomical, and passengers must undergo months of intense training, making it unsuitable as a 'tourism product.' The space industry media 'SpaceNews' reported, "NASA and other space companies preparing for commercial manned space travel see SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission as a 'pioneer' for the future, but do not necessarily view it as their own model."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.