Space Tourism

Is Sky the Limit?

Space tourism is the recent phenomenon which might venture out as a very lucrative business as well in the future. On 12th April 1961, Yuri Gagarin (Russian), traveled to space and etched out his name in the annals of history books forever. For the next 40 years the space travel was confined to Astronauts.

“We do not know where this journey will end, yet we know this: human beings are headed into the cosmos”
- George William Bush

US President

In April 2001, American businessman, Dennis Tito became the first civilian traveler to pay $20 Million for a trip to space. Dennis Anthony Tito (born August 8, 1940 in Queens, New York) is a United States multimillionaire who gained celebrity status by becoming the first space tourist to pay for his own ticket, although he himself opposes being called "tourist" and asks to be called an "independent researcher" since he performed several scientific experiments in orbit.

In April 2002, South African entrepreneur, Mark Shuttleworth became the second commercial space tourist. Both Dennis and Mark traveled on the Russian Soyuz. Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African entrepreneur who was the second self-funded space tourist and first African in space. He is now best known for his leadership of the Ubuntu Linux distribution.

The third was Gregory Olsen in October, 2005, who was trained as a scientist and whose company produced specialist high-sensitivity camera went into space with space adventures. Gregory Hammond "Greg" Olsen (b. April 20, 1945) is an American entrepreneur and scientist. Olsen was the co-founder and chairman of Sensors Unlimited Inc., a company developing optoelectronic devices such as sensitive near-infrared (NIR) and shortwave-infrared (SWIR) cameras.

Anousheh Ansari (Persian: born 12 September 1966) is the Iranian-American co-founder and chairman of Prodea Systems, Inc and a spaceflight participant with the Russian space program. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI). The Ansari family is also the title sponsor of the Ansari X PRIZE. On September 18, 2006, a few days after her 40th birthday, she became the first female Muslim and first Iranian in space. Ansari is the fourth overall self-funded space tourist,and the first self-funded woman to fly to the International Space Station.


Charles Simonyi (Hungarian: Simonyi Károly; born September 10, 1948, Budapest) is a computer software executive who, as head of Microsoft's application software group, oversaw the creation of Microsoft's flagship office applications. He now heads his own company, Intentional Software, with the aim of developing and marketing his concept of Intentional programming. In 2007, he became the fifth space tourist and the second Hungarian in space.

A space tourist was the one who went to the space spending his own money and could not be called a professional astronaut, so he was called as “touronaut”. Very recently the charm of Space Tourism has increased day by day, with more companies venturing into this industry.

The Cost of Space tourism:

The Commercial Space Ventures:

- Ansari X Prize
- Virgin Galactic
- Rocketplane Kistler
- Blue Origin
- Bigelow Aerospace
- Hilton-Space Island Group
- Space Adventures
- Starchaser
- Armadillo Aerospace
- XCOR Aerospace




With the same intensity, this sector is going to boom like anything and the human dream of reaching space and crossing the limits will be fulfilled.

Source:

• Marketing- April 2007
• http://www.scaled.com/
• http://www.wikipedia.com/