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To the average Earthling, the promenade may still be the stuff of science fiction, but in the year 2000, Popular Science published a story Contributing writer Dan Cray predicted such luxury vacations could be possible as soon as 2007. Many things had to go right to bring space tourism to life, especially in such a short time frame. Nearly a quarter of a century later, we have made some progress, but 2007 was overly optimistic even for the ultra-rich.

Excitement and excitement began about ten years ago, in 1990, when a Japanese journalist Toyohiro Akiyama He became the first civilian to go to space. The eight-day mission, called Mir Kosmoreporter, carried Akiyama to the Mir space station aboard a Soviet Soyuz rocket. Akiyama’s ticket was financed by the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), which paid the Soviets an undisclosed amount but likely more than $12 million. Akiyama’s nightly broadcasts during his stay were less than glowing reviews in terms of space tourism, but TBS did experience an initial boost in viewership and ratings. In December 1990, New York Times He has been called the anti-hero of Akiyama space: “Mr. Akiyama spent a lot of time (during nightly broadcasts) describing the ugly details of space sickness. As a habitual smoker, he longed to smoke again and again. He complained that his brain felt as if it were ‘floating around in my head’. “He couldn’t bring enough underwear because he was told to pack light.”

In 2001, a few months after Cray’s death Popular Science article, US venture capitalist Dennis TitoThe man, who worked at NASA earlier in his career, would be the second civilian to escape Earth’s pull and first American space tourist. Price tag: $20 million.

If Akiyama’s week-long cosmonaut performance sparked space tourism by showing that civilians could travel to space, it was the anticipation of Tito’s journey that gave it oxygen a decade later. “Space enthusiasts say the resulting publicity promises to attract the interest of investment capitalists,” Cray wrote, referring to Tito’s upcoming space adventure. At the time, more than a half-dozen space tourism companies and organizations that emerged in the 1990s were already predicting the positive trajectory of their business over the next decade, even though they had no track record of sending anything or anyone into space.

Some space tourism enthusiasts, such as the famous American astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who followed Neil Armstrong onto the Moon’s surface in July 1969, have focused their efforts on developing affordable vehicles for going into space. Aldrin founded ShareSpace in 1998 to promote space tourism as something for everyone, not just the ultra-rich. He also founded Starcraft Boosters in 1996 to design reusable booster rockets and develop basic hardware for NASA.

Jeffrey Manber—an entrepreneur still working on the front lines of space missions, now as an executive Voyager Space— Served as CEO of MirCorp. MirCorp was a private joint venture established in the 1990s between the United States and Russia to commercialize access to Russia’s Mir space station before it was deorbited in 2001.

Other enthusiasts focused on hospitality. Robert Bigelow, founder of the terrestrial Budget Suites hotel chain, has set his sights and deep pockets on developing inflatable space habitats. Bigelow Aviation It was founded in 1999 by the Space Island Group. Gene Meyers In the mid-1990s, he drew up plans to convert used US space shuttle fuel tanks into living quarters. Space Island Group’s designers have proposed leaving 747-sized shuttle fuel tanks empty in orbit and renovating them into residences.

Because vacationing in space presents unique logistical challenges, Virginia-based Space AdventuresThe company, founded in 1998, recognized that wealthy private citizens would need help coordinating their travel, negotiating with space agencies and preparing for their zero-gravity escapes. In 1996, Space Tourism Society He sought to create a community of like-minded enthusiasts to share resources, attend conferences, and attract sponsors.

With a few exceptions, such as Space Adventures and the Space Tourism Society, most of the companies and organizations established in the 1990s to pursue space tourism are either dysfunctional or have changed their missions to something less ambitious. ShareSpace now offers educational resources for schoolchildren and Bigelow Aerospace has been out of business since 2019. However, in their wake, a new set of companies filled the space tourism gap. Founded mostly by billionaires and international aerospace companies, the new generation has much deeper pockets and resources than its predecessors, making space tourism — at least for space yachting billionaires — seem much more likely.

Over the past two decades, rocket launch companies have emerged around the world, and the number of orbital launches has tripled since 2000, mostly for the purpose of building satellites. SpaceX It even made news recently by returning a large booster to the launch pad. Reusable rockets were a prerequisite for the affordability of space tourism, voiced by 1990s experts such as Aldrin.

Earthlings also witnessed it in 2024 first commercial spacewalk by an ordinary citizen, billionaire Jared Isaacman. However, his sensational debut did not exactly herald the development of the space tourism industry. According to some estimates, Isaacman paid an astronomical $200 million for the privilege of walking in space— there is barely a price tag to stimulate demand, even for the ultra-rich.

Today, space tourism companies fall into either the orbital or suborbital variety. On suborbital journeys such as those offered by Virgin GalacticFounded in 2004 by Sir Richard Branson and Blue OriginThe spacecraft from Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company is headed to where space begins and Earth’s atmosphere ends, about 60 miles above sea level. Trips are short, as the spacecraft never enters a geostationary orbit, which would require traveling another 40 miles to enter Low Earth Orbit; a few hours round trip. Still, passengers can see the Earth clearly and experience a few minutes of weightlessness.

As the name suggests, orbital space tourism involves taking passengers into orbit. As of September 2024, SpaceX had launched five commercial flightsIt delivers private citizens for short stays on the International Space Station or in Low Earth Orbit. It was SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission that enabled Isaacman to become the first private citizen to walk in space. One of the few space tourism companies still operating in the 1990s, Space Adventures facilitated many private citizen flights by connecting customers to orbital missions, primarily to Roscosmos, Russia’s space flight program.

Space tourism today is as full of grand visions and ideas as it was a quarter of a century ago. For example, Blue Origin prepared plans for a project. Orbital ReefIt’s a commercial, mixed-use destination for “commerce, research, tourism and more,” according to its website. Space Adventures is already promoting missions around the Moon: “We’ll take you within a few hundred kilometers of the Moon’s surface.” they advertise. “You will see the illuminated far side of the Moon and then witness the spectacular sight of the Earth rising above the Moon’s surface.” Capture? There are no missions yet planned to orbit the Moon. NASA’s crewed Artemis II mission In 2025.

The space tourism industry may still be as driven by supernova-sized hype as it was twenty-five years ago, but today there are many more companies with greater resources and a growing track record of successful commercial flights.

If there’s one upside to the extreme hype, it’s that Americans have no expectation that they’ll be going to space resorts or taking luxury tours of the Moon any time soon. Besides Space Adventures, travel companies are not too keen on getting into the space tourism business. And for a while 2023 Pew Research Center survey It was revealed that 55 percent of Americans expect space tourism to become routine and do not expect it to be offered to the masses for another half century. Unless you have $100 million or so to spare, extraterrestrial vacations still seem a long way off.