The following is an up-dated version of a piece I wrote on another of my blogs two years ago. With Bezos rumored to be setting a prince for seats on New Shepard, I figured it was time to re-do this.
Private and
commercial spaceflight will soon open the frontier of space to everyone… except
you.
More than a
decade ago we watched breathlessly as SpaceShipOne rocketed into space and won
the X-Prize. Anyone paying attention celebrated because at last the day was
here; “commercial” or “private” spaceflight was about to make space accessible
to us all. No longer would the far reaches of space only be accessible to
astronauts, and cosmonauts working for assorted governments. In the years
leading up to the flights of SpaceShipOne, Bert Rutan himself had boisterously
spoken of the fact that NASA had a lock on space travel. Speaking to crowds of
aviation enthusiasts he often said, “… NASA is screwing you!” He looked ahead to the time when commercial, private spaceflight capabilities such as the vehicle he was designing, would open spaceflight to everyone in the crowd of his listeners. Now the flight of
SpaceShipOne would surely change lock on spaceflight... right? And with the aid and sponsorship
of billionaire Sir Richard Branson Bert began the development of SpaceShipTwo
which would carry paying passengers beyond the boundary and into space. Of
course, if you think that you are going to be one of those passengers, think
again.
Ticket
prices for a trip on Rutan and Branson’s magic carpet to open space to
“everyone” are currently set at a quarter of a million dollars per seat. So,
only the extremely rich and highly famous among us can possibly afford to make
that little flight. The reality is now it’s not just NASA that is screwing you,
but it is now also Bert Rutan- because what he has designed is not a vehicle to allow regular folks to visit space. Instead what he has developed is space yacht exclusively for the rich and famous to make space their private playground. Of course "anyone" can go... you just have to go out and scrape up a quarter of a million bucks... how hard can that be? I mean, Sir Richard probably spends that on a weekend getaway.
Yet, many of
us look at other options toward spaceflight such as billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue
Origin project. This private/commercial venture utilizes a returnable booster
and a suborbital capsule designed to take private individuals into space and
return them to the earth by way of the capsule. The system has now been tested a growing number of times with amazing success. The company’s own animation depicting the
future shows space tourists in flight suits aboard the capsule enjoying a
once-in-a-lifetime experience of weightlessness in space with an exciting yet
pleasant return to earth. Indeed every one of us would love to go on that trip. CNBC reports that, although the company has not yet set a firm figure, an insider at Blue Origin has leaked the word that a price for such an adventure will be… seats starting at…
$200,000.
Thus the odds are good that
unless you’re in the economic category of individual who will arrive at the
launch site by way of your own private jet, you are unlikely to be able to ever
afford that experience.
And then
there is SpaceX and their vision of private spaceflight to fantastic
destinations such as Mars. Elon Musk and his fellow visionaries at SpaceX are
currently drumming up enthusiasm for us earthlings to travel with them and
colonize Mars for the permanent habitation of mankind. What true space
enthusiast would not want to take that adventure and make it their personal
trip of a lifetime. Perhaps you have dreamed about this and perhaps you’ve
looked at SpaceX’s plans for Mars and said to yourself THAT is how I would like
to end my life. That’s right... it is a one way trip to your grave and will
only cost you about a quarter of a million bucks (kind of makes Branson and Bezos' options look a bit more inviting eh?) It’ll be pretty hard to get a
personal bank loan to finance that one way Mars adventure… because you won’t be around to make the
payments- yer’ going there to DIE.
(This is my morph of the movie logo... to keep me from getting sued)
Now, I hate
to be the one to break it to you, but the odds of anyone reading this actually
making that trip are not only dependent on SpaceX turning that hyperbole into
reality plus you raising a quarter of a million bucks, but also it depends on you becoming the absolutely physically perfect specimen to go
on that trip. Frankly unless you have won the genetic lottery and are the type
of specimen that could meet the approval of Hugo Drax himself your chances are better attempting to win the lottery and fly with either Branson or Bezos.
The bottom
line is that the development of private/commercial human spaceflight will
likely never evolve the way the transportation of airline passengers developed.
In the early years only the rich and famous could afford the fly aboard airliners,
yet as time went on and the amount of seats available as well as routes
available grew dramatically and the price began to become affordable. Do not
expect that to happen with spaceflight in your lifetime. Certainly, the rich
and the famous will soon have their chance to experience spaceflight and Leonardo
DiCaprio and Taylor Swift will buy their astronaut wings just for kicks and cocktail party bragging rights.
Thus
it will be said that now space is open to everyone… except you and me, of
course.