Speaker 1: Welcome to brainstuff from house storks dot com where smart happens. Hi,
Speaker 1: am arest brain with today's question, will space tourism ever
Speaker 1: become a reality? And if so, when might that happen?
Speaker 1: For decades, space travel has been the province of nations.
Speaker 1: A nation like the United States would select a handful
Speaker 1: of people, train them extensively, anoint them as astronauts, and
Speaker 1: send them into space at very great cost. That model
Speaker 1: changed slightly in two thousand one, a businessman named Dennis
Speaker 1: Tito paid twenty million dollars or so to become the
Speaker 1: first person to pay for a ride into space. Mr.
Speaker 1: Tito can therefore be called the first space tourist. His
Speaker 1: flight took him to the International Space Station, where he
Speaker 1: stayed for seven days. Mark Shuttleworth was the second space
Speaker 1: or is to travel to the International Space Station in
Speaker 1: two thousand two. So far, seven people have flown to
Speaker 1: the International Space Station in this way, and they are
Speaker 1: the only members of the elite group of space tourists
Speaker 1: on planet Earth. But that exclusive club is about to
Speaker 1: gain many more members. In two thousand and twelve, if
Speaker 1: all goes as planned, the first regularly scheduled flights into
Speaker 1: space should begin on Virgin Galactic, and several other competitors
Speaker 1: should follow shortly thereafter. Let's take a look at how
Speaker 1: the space tourism industry may unfold in the years to come.
Speaker 1: Some people might not consider the Virgin Galactic flights to
Speaker 1: be truly worthy of the title space flight. The first
Speaker 1: Virgin Galactic missions will not orbit the Earth. Space tourists
Speaker 1: on these flights will instead travel about a hundred kilometers
Speaker 1: or sixty two miles high, and then return to Earth
Speaker 1: just after a few minutes of weightlessness. A flight on
Speaker 1: Virgin Galactic will initially cost about two hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: These flights also will look nothing like the traditional space
Speaker 1: mission that people have become familiar with by watching NASA
Speaker 1: flights on TV. There will be no huge, monolithic rockets
Speaker 1: sitting on a launchpad, for example. Instead, passengers will board
Speaker 1: a small airplane like space vehicle that holds six people.
Speaker 1: This vehicle will be strapped underneath a much larger airplane.
Speaker 1: That larger airplane will take off from a traditional runway
Speaker 1: and fly to an altitude of fifty thousand feet. The
Speaker 1: space vehicle will then detach and fire its rocket engine
Speaker 1: to go from fifty thousand feet to three hundred and
Speaker 1: forty thousand feet or so, which is a hundred kilometers up.
Speaker 1: Once the rocket engine burns out, passengers will experience weightlessness
Speaker 1: and we'll be able to see the blackness of space
Speaker 1: with the Earth curving off down below. The whole experience
Speaker 1: will require two days of training and the actual flight
Speaker 1: will last approximately to an a half hours. Why won't
Speaker 1: these Virgin galactic flights go orbital? Why do they go
Speaker 1: up and then immediately come back down. It has to
Speaker 1: do with the size and complexity of the spacecraft and
Speaker 1: therefore the cost of the flight. On Virgin's first generation spaceship,
Speaker 1: the maximum speed is MOCK three, or roughly two thousand
Speaker 1: miles per hour. To go into orbit, the ship would
Speaker 1: need to reach seventeen thousand miles per hour. This requires
Speaker 1: much more fuel for the launch, and orbital speeds also
Speaker 1: require a heat shield for re entry. Orbital flights could
Speaker 1: be available in the not too distant future, at least theoretically.
Speaker 1: In December two thousand and ten, a company called SpaceX
Speaker 1: demonstrated one possible scenario, launching its dragging capsule atop a
Speaker 1: Falcon nine rocket and safely bringing it back to Earth
Speaker 1: after several orbits of the planet. SpaceX has received a
Speaker 1: NASA contract to ferry cargo to the International Space Station
Speaker 1: and could conceivably earn into space tourism as well. Once
Speaker 1: space tourists are in orbit, they'll need a place to go.
Speaker 1: Bigelow Aerospace may provide the first destination with its orbiting
Speaker 1: commercial space station. Bigelow has already launched two prototypes called
Speaker 1: Genesis one in Genesis two. These are inflatable modules with
Speaker 1: thick skins that provide shielding, insulation, and structure. If everything
Speaker 1: goes as planned, the inflatable space station itself will launch
Speaker 1: in several pieces starting in or So. Perspective clients include
Speaker 1: nations and corporations interested in microgravity research, as well as
Speaker 1: individuals looking for space tourism opportunities. Assume that this all
Speaker 1: goes as planned. As early as or So, we may
Speaker 1: see normal people. I'll be at rich ones in orbit
Speaker 1: and staying in space hotels on a regular basis. The
Speaker 1: tickets will be expensive, true, but they will still be
Speaker 1: in reach of many people from there. The hope is
Speaker 1: that prices can fall and demand can increase to the
Speaker 1: point where space tourism becomes routine. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
Speaker 1: how Staff Work Staff as we explore the most promising
Speaker 1: and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The hou stef Works iPhone
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