For years, when John Spencer talked about tourists taking forays into space, he often was met with giggles or a blank stare.
"The laugh factor on this was really intense," says Spencer, founder of the Space Tourism Society, an advocacy group based in West Los Angeles. But with corporate visionaries pouring millions of dollars into the building blocks of such an industry, Spencer says, few people are laughing now.
"It's happening," he says. "There's a market. There's a waiting line. Our ultimate goal is: Tens of thousands of space tourists actually leave Earth, go to orbital cruise ships, lunar ships, lunar resorts, and have a great time."
The notion of an ordinary person taking a trip beyond Earth's atmosphere is no longer the stuff of science fiction. Several already have gone, and hundreds more have paid for trips that could begin as soon as next year. Even as NASA's shuttle program draws to a close, private companies are soliciting passengers for commercial trips to space.
Ten years ago, businessman Dennis Tito became the first private person to pay to fly in space on April 28, 2001, doling out $20 million to travel on the Soyuz, a Russian rocket, to the International Space Station. Now, space travel is beginning to mirror the airline industry, with its own travel agents, carriers and hubs.
Companies such as Virgin Galactic, founded by billionaire and aviation enthusiast Richard Branson, and XCOR Aerospace in Mojave, Calif., are building spacecraft and selling tickets for suborbital flights that will allow passengers to see the Earth's curvature and experience weightlessness.
Commercial spaceports are sprouting from Upham, N.M., to Kodiak, Alaska. And Space Adventures, the Virginia-based company that since 2001 has arranged eight private trips to the space station, has booked one passenger for an excursion around the far side of the moon and has a passenger seat to fill on the first private lunar mission, which could happen as soon as 2014.
The moon-bound passengers also would fly on the Soyuz. Other space aviation companies, some solely with private dollars and others with the help of some government funding, are spending tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to create vehicles that could ferry tourists into space.
A ticket to ride doesn't come cheap -- it costs at least $95,000 -- but space entrepreneurs believe they can facilitate travel to near space more affordably than NASA and fulfill the desire by some non-astronauts to go beyond Earth.
Stephen Attenborough, Virgin Galactic's commercial director, sees similarities between the growing space travel industry and notions of commercial aviation a century ago, when few people would have believed that plane rides would be commonplace.
"My sense is we're on a very similar path here," he says. "At the moment, most people would assume they'd never go to space. I think they're going to be wrong. My view of the future is that maybe in 30 to 40 years, most people who want to go to space will have the opportunity to do it, and it will be affordable."
Childhood dreams coming true?
Branson has made his mark on flight, from starting the Virgin Atlantic airline to being the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a hot-air balloon. But he has long set his sights higher.
"I've dreamed of going into space ever since the moon landing when I was a teenager," Branson says. "I assumed that once man had gone to the moon that ordinary people like myself would have that opportunity years ago."
When that didn't happen, Branson took matters into his own hands and registered the name Virgin Galactic in 1991.
The company eventually connected with engineer Burt Rutan, creator of the first privately developed manned space vehicle, called SpaceShipOne. SpaceShipTwo, which is being created for Virgin Galactic, will be able to carry six passengers 68 miles into the air. Now conducting test flights in Mojave, the company is considered by some the leading contender for becoming the first commercial spaceline in the world. Commercial flights could start by the end of next year.
George Whitesides, Virgin Galactic's CEO, is quick to say, however, that this isn't a new space race. "I'm more focused on building a vehicle that is as safe as possible than I am in flying first," he says.
For the fledgling space tourism industry, perfecting the technology has been only one piece of the puzzle. Pioneers in the field also have had to make sure there's a pool of passengers willing, and financially able, to fly.
A trip to the International Space Station on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, for example, costs roughly $50 million, according to Space Adventures. A seat on the Lynx Mark II, a suborbital vehicle being developed by XCOR, is a relative bargain in comparison at $95,000. Spots on Virgin Galactic's craft go for $200,000 each.
"This is not just about starting a business. It's about hopefully starting a whole new industry, and in order to do that, as the leader in the field, we need to do it well, and we need to make money," Attenborough says. When the business started, "there was a lot we didn't know at that point, and one (question) was whether anybody would really want to take a trip at the sort of prices that we knew we'd need to start the business with."
Plenty did: 425 people have signed up for the journey, putting down roughly $60 million in deposits. "It's the democratization of space, and to put poets in space and artists as well as scientists and movie stars and business people, the results of that I think will be huge and shouldn't be underestimated."
'The ultimate roller-coaster ride'
XCOR expects by the end of next year to begin test-flying the Lynx Mark I, a two-seat craft, to be followed by the more advanced Mark II, which could start commercial flights in 2013, says spokesman Mike Massee. More space vehicles could follow, he says, "depending on the demand."
Massee wouldn't give a specific figure but says the number of passengers who have paid for the roughly 35-minute trip is in the double digits. It will take a little more than four minutes to travel about 60 miles up in the air, to the edge of space. Then the vehicle begins to re-enter the atmosphere, gliding back home. "What you see at those altitudes is the sky turns dark in daytime," he says. "You can see stars and easily the curvature of Earth. And aside from the visual experience it's also the ultimate roller-coaster ride."
Boeing, one of the biggest aircraft manufacturers in the world, has a keen eye on space as well. "Part of (our) vision is to become the Boeing commercial airplane of space travel," says John Elbon, vice president and program manager of Boeing's commercial crew program, which is developing a seven-seat commercial space capsule. "We hope to either operate those vehicles or provide them to other operators to enable commercial access to space."
Looking beyond Earth orbit
Private space ventures are looking to take more than tourists into space. Their goal is to carry scientists and cargo beyond Earth as well.
As the shuttle program comes to an end, private companies are looking to fill a new niche. Fifty years after the first human went into space, private companies would take over the task of building and providing transportation for NASA astronauts and others into low Earth orbit, freeing the government to focus its resources on the deeper reaches of space.
"At this time we believe we can hand over more of that to a commercial entity with some good oversight and insight from the NASA community," says Ed Mango, program manager for NASA's commercial crew program. "And NASA can focus on even harder stuff, which is going beyond low Earth orbit."
But spaceports are springing up around the country. The Federal Aviation Administration has approved eight, and Spaceport America in New Mexico, where Virgin Galactic is the anchor tenant, dedicated its runway in October.
Still under construction, but with its first phase nearly complete, Spaceport America will resemble its airport peers, with newsstands, gift shops and restaurants, but it will also have innovative installations, such as, say, a booth where visitors can experience weightlessness.
"A lot of (the installations) will be aimed at motivating and inspiring students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics," says Chris Anderson, executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority. "Like back in the days when President Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon and inspired a generation of scientists and engineers. I'm hoping this will excite people again."
Branson sees his spacecraft as only the beginning.
"I think in the very first year Virgin Galactic will create more astronauts than have been created in the last 70 years," he says. "And then I think from small beginnings, from suborbital flights, (the industry) will grow into orbital flights. From orbital flights, that will grow into intercontinental flights at a fraction of the (time). We'll be able to put satellites into space at a much more affordable price than they have in the past. And so I think commercial spaceship companies will bring the cost down of every aspect of access to space."
Tom Shelley, president of Space Adventures, says his company started in 1998 with the intention of arranging trips on suborbital flights. But until that option became a reality, the business focused on simulated space experiences instead, such as a visit to the cosmonaut training facility in Russia, where you could experience the feeling of a moon walk through buoyancy.
But now the sky's the limit, for the public and for the businesses plowing the new frontier. "It's just exciting," Shelley says. "Somebody may be first, but all these companies are going to win in the long run."
