Elon Musk’s SpaceX Crew Dragon is preparing for its first commercial space tourism venture, while Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are also ramping up their “space tourism” programs.
The Crew Dragon is in the final stages of being cleared for manned spaceflight, as part of NASA’s effort to certify it as a shuttle to the International Space Station. That effort is expected later this year. In December of 2019, Crew Dragon demonstrated it ability to escape from a, failing, exploding launch rocket and return for a safe splashdown. SpaceX is expected to achieve orbit far higher, beyond that of the Space Station.
Meanwhile, the Virgin Galactic team expects to be ready to fly the first passengers to the edge of space in its plane-like vehicle later this year. Bezos’ is promising a similar experience but in a more traditional space capsule. Reportedly, tickets will cost about $200,000 per seat.
Because of its planned role as a crew shuttle to the space station, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon has been working directly with NASA to certify it for manned flights.
Other private spaceflight companies are vying to establish the space tourism market. are in the running, though both of those companies are promising far briefer experiences. Virgin Galactic says it plans to send its first space tourists up later this year where they will experience a few minutes of weightlessness in the company’s plane-like spaceship. Blue Origin is promising customers a similar amount of time in space, though in a spacecraft that’s more similar to SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. (Both of those tickets cost on the order of $200,000 a seat.)
“Space tourists” will wear astronaut-type pressure suits that are flame retardant but less bulky than traditional astronaut suits.