Better start saving for that dream vacation in space because it’ll cost you. A joint report by NASA and private industry has put the price tag on civilian celestial travel on board a hypothetical 50-seat Space Shuttle at roughly US$10 million per ticket, the Associated Press reports.
These findings are part of a study examining just what it would take to make civilian space travel feasible. The report calls upon the government to fund studies to reduce the instances of space illness associated with changes in the gravitational forces acting upon the body as well as to improve the safety, reliability, and comfort of the craft used. But more than anything, cost needs to come way down – to the level of about $100,000 per ticket if commercial space travel is to take off, the report said.
In discussing the report, NASA officials distanced themselves from the commercial space industry. Agency officials took issue with the study’s recommendations that federal officials offer themselves as guinea pigs to show how commercial space travel works and that NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet be used to demonstrate and help sell early flights. NASA said it has no plans to sell seats on the shuttles, nor does it plan to cram civilians onboard.
The study outlined how private companies would develop commercial space travel independently of the space agency, but it also said that government investment would be needed initially to jump-start the industry.
But there’s a matter of whether commercial space flight needs help. Some enterprising space entrepreneurs have already struck out on their own, including Seattle-based Zegrahm Space Voyages which is taking reservations for upper-atmosphere flights (100 kilometers above the Earth's surface) that will begin on December 1, 2001. A seat on this flight will cost $98,000 with a mandatory $5,000 deposit.
