Is no one interested to tour space anymore?
It hasn’t been long since SpaceX launched four amateur astronauts on the Inspiration4 mission where they got to enjoy a three-day trip around the Earth’s orbit. But it seems like now all the future trips to space might be put on halt as the most recent one was canceled due to Space Adventures not being able to find any viable or wealthy passengers for the space journey.
“The mission was marketed to a large number of our prospective customers, but ultimately the mix of price, timing and experience wasn’t right at that particular time and our contract with SpaceX expired,” company spokesperson Stacey Tearne told SpaceNews. “We hope to revisit the offering in the future.”
Space travel isn’t for everyone in the first place. From bathroom troubles to onboard sickness, not to mention the heavy price tag of about $200 million for a single trip around space, it’s not wrong to say that the audience for this venture is limited to a few wealthy and adventurous people only.
Space Adventures is not a new company and has existed since the early 2000s but its significant to note that it hasn’t been successful in sending off tourists to space since 2009 due to a number of factors. But that doesn’t mean there are no space tours scheduled from Earth to space. Axiom Space which is another company plans to launch a crew of four to the International Space Station in 2022. This crew will consist of a former NASA astronaut and a wealthy entrepreneur (no surprise there).
Space Adventures also has one big launch lineup in which it plans to send Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to the ISS in December through a Russian Soyuz capsule instead of a SpaceX vehicle. Who knows, maybe in a year or two space travel would gain more popularity and space tourism would be a thing but for now the hype isn’t real.