The next hot tourist spot: space. Does that sound far-fetched? Maybe not. A recent announcement from Russia said that country -- the only one that can deliver people in orbit -- planned to open a space hotel by 2016. The facility would accommodate up to seven guests. “Flying to space may have seemed like a utopian idea of Jules Verne and his likes, however, the last few decades have proved all skeptics wrong,” says Tourism-Review.com. For the planned Russian hotel, food will be delivered from the earth, and warmed up in microwave ovens. It won’t be fast food, however, and nothing will be cheap about this enterprise. Developers say hotel guests will be paying around US$170,000 for a five-day stay, plus another $800,000 to ride the space shuttle transfer to the hotel. Price has long been an issue when it comes to space travel but it also cropped up in the early days of regularly scheduled airlines, which of course have considerably reduced prices (while adding numerous fees) in recent years. Right here on earth, a harbinger of the future is being built in New Mexico. While the passengers need to wait for a couple of more years (first flights expected in two years), those interested in the topic now have a unique opportunity to explore Spaceport America being built there by space fan and Virgin founder Richard Branson. It recently launched tours for the curious and would-be buyers. Tickets for the suborbital space rides aboard SpaceShipTwo cost $200,000. The 150-minute flights will give space tourists around five minutes of weightlessness. Virgin Galactic has said that it already has more than $50 million in reservations for the flights. “If you think of Earth's orbit and the moon as a big unclaimed territory, ripe for adventure, then you're in for a treat,” says Postmedia News. ”The space excursions now being planned promise nothing less than a new perspective of life on Earth and an expansion of what it means to be human.” Recent news stories have raised various possibilities:
More than 500 people by now have gone to space -- mainly astronauts and cosmonauts. But then there are the seven tourists who have already been to the International Space Station aboard Russian Soyuz rockets. But they paid millions of dollars each for their trips, $35 million in the case of the last tourist, the Canadian founder of the Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte. ``Space is no longer an insurmountable boundary,'' said Harold Line, a Calgary businessman who has paid the $20,000 deposit on a $200,000 US ticket aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. Virgin Galactic's website provides a preview of what passengers should feel during the separation from the other aircraft at 50,000 feet and the immediate jolt thereafter. ``You are instantly pinned back into your seat, overwhelmed but enthralled by the howl of the rocket motor and the eye-watering acceleration which, as you watch the readout, has you travelling in a matter of seconds at almost 2,500 mph, over three times the speed of sound. As you hurtle through the edges of the atmosphere, the large windows show the cobalt blue sky turning to mauve and indigo and finally to black. You're on a high; this is really happening, you're loving it and you're coping well.'' SpaceShipTwo will float in weightlessness in an area of space considered sub- orbital because it is not high enough for spacecraft to complete a full orbit of the planet. The spacecraft will linger for a bit before at first falling, then gliding, back to Earth and to a landing strip at Virgin's New Mexico Spaceport. Stephanie Anevich is a Toronto travel agent whose company, Vision 2000 Travel Group, has booked 10 of the 21 Canadians who are among the 440 people who've paid their deposits on their Virgin Galactic tickets. ``They won't fly it until they are very sure it's safe,'' she says, noting that Richard Branson will fly with his family on the inaugural flight. What else might happen in space? Perhaps more announced space hotels, says John Spencer, an architect specializing in the design of spacecraft interiors and space-related theme parks. He also foresees space yachts where the super-rich will invite their friends to come up for a week. Oceangoing yachts can cost $400 million, he said, so why not have space yachts? In lieu of the long-gone space race between the US and Russia, there’s already a “space race” by private enterprise ventures, says Tom Shelley. His Virginia-based Space Adventures is offering sub-orbital flights for $110,000 a seat, $90,000 cheaper than Virgin Galactic. Space Adventures was behind the first eight visits by tourists to the space station (one man went twice). And it still has one $150 million ticket left to sell on Space Adventure's planned 2015 lunar mission on a Soyuz rocket that will fly two passengers around the moon and back. The vehicle will not land but it will be the first human visit to the moon since 1972. This could make it the history’s most expensive trips. But Shelley says the view of earth from the moon should not be missed. By David Wilkening |
(Source: Travelmole.com)
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