“The road to space will allow solving all the problems of mankind”: expert – on space tourism
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak announced the creation of a space company, the goal of which is to make space safe and accessible to all of humanity. Other commercial companies are working on solving similar problems. When space flights become familiar, safe and affordable, MIR 24 TV channel was told by a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics. Tsiolkovsky Andrey Ionin.
– Billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson have already flown to the borders of space as tourists. Elon Musk also spoke about the plans. Now Steve Wozniak wants to make outer space accessible and safe. Does this mean that technically humanity has come close to implementing projects of mass space tourism?
Andrey Ionin: Of course. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are people of a completely different order than the respected Steve Wozniak, because Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are the two richest people in the world at the moment. These are people behind whose backs huge successes in various directions: behind Bezos – the creation of the most expensive company in the world, Elon Musk is generally a serial visionary practitioner, he not only expresses some visionary ideas, but also realizes them in practice in several industries.
These are unique people. Jeff Bezos completely abandoned the leadership of the Amazon company he created and switched to space, Musk is still working on Tesla and Space X at the same time, but in the near future, I think he will focus on Space X – there is the main news from him. Humanity is lucky that two such people, who are visionaries, practitioners, and the richest people in the world, are engaged not only in space, but are engaged in it as a new path for the development of humanity, the path that humanity began to follow in the 60s, but then, for a number of reasons, it stopped. Now, on the way of humanity into space, two new leaders have appeared who, in competition with each other, in discussions with each other, complement each other, trying to make humanity take their eyes off their smartphones and move into space.
“The road to space will allow solving all the problems of mankind”: expert – on space tourism
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In my opinion, this is correct, because the road to space will solve all the problems of mankind. Both Musk and Bezos understand this because they talk about it. This is a huge long-term strategy for decades.
After the flight of Bezos, the road map of his company, which he now runs, which deals with space, got into the press. The road map has been calculated for a hundred years and covers a huge number of different segments and technologies. Bezos published a book about space cities, his dream is not like Musk's – to build a human settlement on the moon, but to build space cities in the size of kilometers, to create artificial gravity there.
– Why is it commercial companies that promote space tourism?
Andrey Ionin: Space tourism is such a small part of what Jeff Bezos does, Musk practically does not do this, although he does not mind making money on his ships, he said that he sells tourist tickets for a flight into space on Crew Dragon, and even with one of the Japanese billionaires, 300 or 400 million dollars, agreed to take him and two more friends around the moon.
I believe that space for both Bezos and Musk is not the main thing in life – making money on it, because these are the two richest people in the world, and they have such a fortune, what else to add is not so important. In my opinion, they are engaged in space because they are interested. And this is the most important thing.
People who use space to make money are doomed to defeat right away. One can go into space only with pure intentions, with an open heart, in order to advance humanity on this path. And money – if anything, it will be a reward for work, for bright dreams, but this definitely cannot be the goal, this will be one of the consequences.
I consider space tourism as “there is such a thing too”. This is tertiary for people like Bezos and Musk. Space tourism has existed for almost 20 years. Tourists were taken to the ISS in Russian Soyuz. True, the ticket is quite expensive, the prices were never publicly announced, but, according to information in the press, at the first stage it was about $ 10 million, for subsequent flights it was $ 30 million. It is known for sure that Roskosmos sold, in fact, delivery within the framework of the ISS project for 90 million to our American partners as friends. This is tens of millions of dollars.
In this situation, the market will not be very large. Those people who have that kind of money, or are already actively engaged in business, which means that they do not have several months to prepare for the flight (it took the previous space tourists about six months), or they are people who have graduated from the main business path, conditionally rentiers. They are most likely not young, so this may be closed for them for health reasons. The idea of suborbital tourism was related to the fact that it would make the ticket cheaper, more affordable for different strata. The price, which was discussed at the initial stage, was 200-300 thousand dollars per ticket, that is, it is ten times less than a flight to the ISS.
– In what year will mass space tourism become common?
Andrey Ionin: In my opinion, Musk and Bezos have the greatest chances of realizing this idea as a side one, because Musk already has a ship and a rocket, and Bezos is making both a rocket and a ship. This is possible only for them, but their goals are still different, but they actively joined the American lunar program. Unfortunately, the current American administration does not see any interests for itself in space, unlike the previous one, but I think that this will not last forever, and the next American administration, which, I hope, will be republican, will nevertheless direct America and all mankind into space, but then this process will be led not by NASA, but by Musk and Bezos.
Therefore, all forces will now be thrown here, but, as a by-product, space tourism may appear, but for this they need to create, in addition to means of transport, the space hotel itself. They can do it, technologies are available, understandable, they can do it if they have time for it. I don't see any big difficulties, so as soon as Musk and Bezos have time, they will do it. If the next American administration does not take care of the Moon, then such a space hotel near the Earth will appear somewhere on the horizon 2027 – 2028, because Musk and Bezos will have nothing to do. If the Americans go to the moon, then Musk and Bezos will throw all their forces there, then this will most likely occur after 2030.
