SpaceX
SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, revolutionizes space technology with its reusable rockets and spacecraft. Its importance lies in reducing space travel costs and facilitating missions to Mars, marking significant strides in commercial spaceflight and interplanetary exploration.
Key Takeaways
- Space transportation and tourism: SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, specializes in space transportation and tourism.
- Space tourism pioneer: It aims to pioneer space tourism with lunar orbit missions and eventual Mars colonization.
- Achievements: SpaceX’s achievements include the first private spacecraft recovery and launching a Tesla Roadster into orbit.
- Mars trips: The company has not announced official prices for lunar or Mars trips, focusing on long-term goals.
- Aiming at leader position: SpaceX’s advancements in space technology position it as a leader in the space tourism sector.
- What is Space Tourism?
- What is SpaceX?
- What Does a SpaceX Flight Cost?
- 4 Other Promising Space Tourism Companies
- Space Flight: How to Book With SpaceX and Other Companies
- Add to Your SpaceX Flight With a Space Hotel
- SpaceX in the Context of the Space Industry
- The First Space Tourist: Commercial Space Travel Before SpaceX
Introduction
Founded by Elon Musk, SpaceX is a space transportation, space tourism, and spacecraft manufacturing company based in the United States. It is one of the best-known companies proposing commercial space travel in the near future, and one of the few private enterprises to have achieved successful space flight. In this article, you will learn more about SpaceX, the company’s proposals, and space tourism in general.
What is Space Tourism?
The phrase ‘space tourism’ refers to space travel that occurs for recreational or leisure purposes. Also known as personal space flight, the idea involves putting paying customers into space. This could mean sub-orbital travel, orbital travel, or even exploration outside Earth’s orbit, such as trips to Mars or the moon.
So far, only the Russian Space Agency has managed to provide a form of space tourism, but it stopped pursuing these activities in 2010. However, some private businesses, including SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, plan to provide commercial space travel in the not-too-distant future.
For more information about Space Tourism, read the article “Space Tourism: 5 Space Companies That Will Make You An Astronaut”.
What is SpaceX?
SpaceX is one of the best-known aerospace companies in the world. Based out of Hawthorne, California, in the United States, the business is owned by the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, Inc.
As a company, SpaceX is already experienced in delivering successful space flight missions, having become the first private company ever to launch and recover a spacecraft successfully. Its other achievements have included: launching a Tesla Roadster into orbit around the sun and developing a fully reusable launch system.
Regarding the business’s space tourism aspirations, SpaceX announced in 2017 that it intends to send two paying customers on a lunar orbit mission in the near future. In the longer term, the company has extremely ambitious plans to put human beings on Mars and establish permanent human colonies on the planet.
This makes SpaceX the most high-profile space tourism company proposing commercial space flight that will go beyond Earth orbit. However, the extent of these ambitions means SpaceX has not yet announced an official pricing strategy for either lunar or Mars trips, and the company does not have an active waiting list.
Video:Â SpaceX Live View Test Launches Boca Chica
Video: SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System
What Does a SpaceX Flight Cost?
Unlike one of its main rivals – Virgin Galactic – SpaceX has not yet started selling tickets for its space tourism offerings, and no pricing strategy or waiting list has been announced for its planned trips to the moon.
Nevertheless, when discussing future travel to Mars, Elon Musk has clarified that he is confident the price will eventually be around $500,000 and potentially even as low as $100,000. One of SpaceX’s goals is to make travel to Mars affordable enough for people to sell their homes on Earth and move there permanently.
4 Other Promising Space Tourism Companies
1. Virgin Galactic
Part of the Virgin Group owned by Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic is widely regarded as the leading space tourism company in the world, having already put a space plane into outer space in 2018, with its two pilots earning commercial astronaut status. It aims to provide regular sub-orbital space trips for customers in the near future. You can read more detailed information about Virgin Galactic in the article “Virgin Galactic: Information About Virgin Space Flights”.
2. Blue Origin
Like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin is also prioritizing sub-orbital space travel. However, unlike its main rival, it plans to use a more traditional vertical take-off rocket. The company was founded by Amazon president Jeff Bezos and anticipated an offering where six passengers are taken on each space flight. More detailed information about Blue Origin, you can read in the article “Blue Origin: Information About Blue Origin Space Flights”.
3. Orion Span
Orion Span is a space tourism company, which is intent on providing a different type of space tourism experience entirely. It plans to place a space station – the Aurora Space Station – into orbit and then turn it into a space hotel. The ambitious offering will pay customers $9.5 million to stay in the space hotel for 12 days. You can read more detailed information about Origin Span in the article “Orion Span: Information About Orion Span Space Hotel”.
4. Boeing
Finally, Boeing has flown under the radar in the race to provide reliable space tourism. Yet, the company signed an agreement with NASA, primarily intended to commit Boeing to develop the Boeing CST-100 Starliner crew capsule. Interestingly, part of the agreement will entitle Boeing to sell seats on the capsule to paying customers.
Space Flight: How to Book With SpaceX and Other Companies
SpaceX is one of the aerospace companies leading the charge toward a time when space tourism is seen as the norm. However, while we wait for regularly scheduled commercial space flight to become a reality, some are already buying tickets or registering their interest for a journey beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.
Read “Space Flight: How to Book a Ticket into Space” to learn more about the various space tourism offerings, including SpaceX’s own, along with information on how to book a space flight ticket yourself.
Add to Your SpaceX Flight With a Space Hotel
The innovation, extensive experience, and sheer financial power that SpaceX can boast all combine to make the company a leading light in the space tourism industry. In the future, one of the ways SpaceX may be able to assist tourists is by providing transport services to and from their chosen space hotel.
Check out “Space Hotel: How to Book a Hotel in Space” to read more about the concept of space accommodation, learn about some of the existing ideas that are out there, and find out how to book your own space hotel stay.
SpaceX in the Context of the Space Industry
SpaceX has made enormous strides forward, and its numerous achievements have helped to increase the role of private enterprises within the space industry. However, having additional context about the industry can be useful by understanding its history and the other companies operating within it.
To learn more about the space industry, how it is defined, some of the most successful aerospace companies, and more, check out “Space Industry: The No. 1 Guide into Space!”
The First Space Tourist: Commercial Space Travel Before SpaceX
SpaceX is looking to change the very nature of tourism by providing regular space travel for paying customers. With that being said, American millionaire Dennis Tito became the first ever space tourist back in 2001, visiting the International Space Station after paying millions of dollars to the Russian Space Agency.
You can learn about the history of space tourism and Dennis Tito’s experience of traveling into space by reading the “Space Tourist: Who Was the First Tourist in Space?” article.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is one of several companies promising to take paying customers into space for the purposes of space tourism, but it is also one of the best-placed, given its achievements in the field. Moreover, one of the most exciting things about SpaceX is the company’s desire to pursue space tourism that extends beyond Earth orbit.
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