This video is closed captioned in English and Spanish subtitles
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This is Anthony, also known as the Travel Droner.
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In today's video, we're going to talk about space tourism
and traveling to other planets as a tourist.
When I used to study science, studying space was always a
very interesting and fascinating thing to do in school.
So I imagine how amazing it would be to travel to space one
day when I grow up to watch the limitless Galaxy with my
own eyes and most importantly, to watch Planet Earth from
space. This is a dream I and many people have and they would
pay anything for a trip to space if money was not an issue.
So in this video we'll be discussing space tourism, what
is happening right now, what could happen soon, how far we
can go with it, and what the possibilities are for a regular
human to become a space tourist.
So without further Ado, Let's start the video.
So first of all, Let's talk about the history of space tourism.
Space travel has always been about discoveries and research.
It has never been anything about tourism and commercialization,
at least not for NASA.
Nasa always has strongly opposed space tourism.
The man who had the first steps on the moon, Neil Armstrong,
was also known for discouraging space tourism.
Still, some companies started to see a future market in this
niche, and these companies and their approaches towards space
tourism date back to the late 1990's.
Mircorp was a private company that I was in charge of a space
station back then.
And to cover their huge maintenance costs, they decided to
visit the space station with some high paying passengers.
Denise Tito, an American businessman and former JPL scientists,
were the first travelers tito was able to move his flight to
the International Space Station ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz
spacecraft. When Mir was deorbited.
Thanks to a deal between Mircorp and Us based Space Adventures,
Lieutenant Dennis Tito became the world's first fee paying
space tourist when he spent seven days on the International
Space Station in April through May of 2,001, Tito reportedly
paid 20,000,000 dollars for his trip in April 2002.
A South African Mark Shuttleworth was the second to tour space.
Gregory Olson was the third space tourist.
In October of 2,005, the space shuttle Columbia exploded
on reentry into Earth's atmosphere in February 2003 killing
all seven astronauts on board.
Following this catastrophe, space tourism on the Russian
Soyuz project was briefly halted as Soyuz vehicles became
the only means of access to the International Space Station.
Space tourism resumed once the shuttle returned operation
in July 2005.
Anusha Ansari, an Iranian American business woman, became
the fourth space tourist in September 2006.
Charles Simone, an American businessman, join the space tourism
bandwagon in April 2007.
In March 2009, Simone became the first repeat space tourist
paying to fly on soyuz's TMA 14 for the second time.
Richard Garriott, a British American, became the next space
tourist in October 2008 onboard the Soyuz TMA 13 spacecraft.
Guy Laliberté, a Canadian billionaire, was the most recent
visitor to visit the ISS flying in September 2,019 on Soyuz
TMA 16.
The British singer Sarah Brightman was supposed to be the
third member of board Soyuz TMA 18 M as a space tourist, but
she announced her withdrawal from training on May 13 2015.
The space shuttle shutdown operation in 2011.
Only a total of 244 people between astronauts and tourists
have visited the ISS until April 2021.
Now Let's say you want to be the next space tourist as which
companies are offering space tourism services now?
Well, if you want to go to space, you need to go to Space X
This is a company that Elon Musk started.
He was one of a few people who have been working working
on space tourism for many years, and he has a feeling that
space tourism will get regularized, just like normal air travel.
Everyone considered his thoughts, approaches, missions,
visions and objectives baseless and filled with fantasy.
His plans with SpaceX was even criticized by Neil Armstrong,
who was completely against commercial space flights in space
tourism. This broke Musk as
Armstrong was an idol for him, and he was one of the persons
he looked up to while working on SpaceX.
Anyway, SpaceX is so huge that even NASA is collaborating
with it now.
And if you want to go into space and orbit the Earth, SpaceX
has two tourist launches planned.
The first private space tour is expected to happen in September
2021. The second one can happen in early 2022, most probably
if things go well.
Billionaire Jared Isaacman has sponsored the first launch,
and the second launch will be organized by Axiom Space.
But you have to be a multimillionaire or even a billionaire
to consider this trip.
This trip is so expensive, more expensive than world tour
packages you can get here on Earth.
A trip to outer space and a stay at the International Space
Station would cost you a whopping 55,000,000 dollars.
The new pricing policy charges 5,2 Million dollars per person
for ISS crew time to support a private astronaut mission
and 4,8 Million dollars per mission for integration and basic
services such as mission planning.
The policy now charges between 88,100 and 164,000 per person
per day for pre staging, food and other cargo on the station
for those missions on NASA cargo vehicles and disposing cargo
on those spacecraft.
It also charges between 40 dollars and 1500 dollars per
person per day for cruise supplies and 2,000 dollars per
person per day for food.
This high cost has made many space enthusiasts take a step
back from space tourism.
This creates a massive divide between rich and poor.
Other companies are planning to promote space tourism, and
their space tourism packages are a lot cheaper than SpaceX.
Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are offering suborbital trips,
and both are priced between 200,000 dollars to 250,000 dollars,
which is tiny compared to the mammoth 55,000,000 dollar fair
for a SpaceX space tour.
Now, these prices are very high, but still, because an unnamed
individual offered the highest bid of 28,000,000 dollars
for a ticket to Space and a seat on the new Shepherd Blue
Origin suborbital launch rocket alongside the private spaceflight
companies, founder Jeff Bezos.
Blue Origins online live auction for the ticket to Space
followed a two week long competition for the seat.
The lucky winner will join Bezos and his brother Mark, plus
another yet to be named passenger and a trip beyond Earth's
atmosphere scheduled for launch on July 20.
The prices that Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are asking
for are less than NASA charges.
Plus, viewing the Earth from Space is a priceless experience,
but do remember that in the current phase of space tourism,
the flights will have to be reserved at least a year before
the actual launch.
Well, Space Adventures and SpaceX have team together to take
four customers into orbit around the Earth next year.
Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire, has booked a flight
aboard SpaceX Starship for 2023 and has invited eight other
people to join him.
So as you can see, even for a legit space tour organized
by SpaceX, the billionaire had to book his spot two years
prior. In that time frame, the passengers will have their
health checked regularly, receive rigorous space training,
and be told about the dos and don'ts while traveling to space.
The dream for space tourism is quite far fetched, as even
the owner of SpaceX, Elon Musk, hasn't been to Space yet.
But it is being said that soon Musk and the owner of ecommerce
giant Amazon will be going to have a trip to Space.
But people who do not like Bezos are signing a petition to
leave Bezos in space as Earth doesn't need him.
They say this is a story that we will cover in another video
soon. So now that we know that a space trip in which the
passengers will orbit planet Earth and visit and stay in
the International Space Station is very much possible and
this will be normalized in the next five to 10 years.
But what about Mars?
Is a trip to Mars soon possible?
Well, no.
Right now there are only Rovers going around on Mars and
they are just sending pictures and videos of the Mars surface
to give the people at NASA an idea about how the conditions
are and it will be safe to land on Mars.
The first crew based Mars mission is expected to happen in
2025, but this will just be the first step to Mars.
Doesn't mean that after humans will finally land on Mars
for the very first time, it'll be possible for normal, rich
tours to tour Mars for fun and, well exploration.
We can expect tourism to Mars to happen at least 15 to 25 years
from now.
But you want to orbit the Earth and stay on the space station.
This is a million dollar adventure that you can do.
If you have that kind of money.
Me?
I don't even have enough money to have a tour to Subway.
So if you see an ad, please don't skip it as it makes us
go on a tour to Subway twice a month.
The discovery of more distant world requires moon missions.
After a long break, NASA is returning to the Moon with a
bold ambition to put a space station in lunar orbit within
the next decade.
However, the agency's Artemis program, which is a descendant
of the Apollo missions of the 1960s
and 70s
aims to land the first woman on the Moon by 2024.
Extended stays on the Moon provide the knowledge and experience
required for long duration space flights to other planets.
In addition, the Moon might be used as a Forward base of future
missions from which people can learn how to renew key supplies
like rocket fuel and oxygen using local materials.
Nasa is also inviting the support of the corporate sector
to get to the Moon.
It's given three contracts to private firms researching on
human rated lunar Rovers, such as Blue Origin and SpaceX.
The core of the Artemis mission, However, is Orion, a new
cutting edge spaceship.
Anyways, real life is quite different from Hollywood, even
though Hollywood has taken us to Mars multiple times and
made it look easy to go even near the black hole, none of
these things are easy to do, especially commercial space
flights. Operations to Mars is a thing that we might see
in the next 15 or even 25 years.
So no need to keep your hopes high for a potential trip to
Mars. That's all for today.
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