Is space travel just for the trained scientists? Or should it be available to everyone?
Nearly 600 people have been to space since humans gained the capability in 1961.
An overwhelming majority of astronauts have been employed by governments around the world, but there is a growing trend of private citizens reaching for the stars themselves. Billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson have made headlines lately with their short pops into space (though Branson didn’t breach the Karman line—what many determine to be altitude that denotes the beginning of space), but the history of private citizens going into space is not a new one.
The first private citizen to go to space was Dennis Tito in 2001. Unlike the suborbital flights of the two aforementioned billionaires, Tito rode aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket that docked with the International Space Station, where he lived for nearly eight days. This trip was organized by a company, Space Adventures, that has since seen six additional clients go to space.
However, these trips were always at the digression of the Russian Federal Space Agency, and the seven individual astronauts took off over a period of nearly a decade (the last trip was in 2009). Though this was technically commercial space travel, new private space companies offering their space travel in-house has changed the game.
Inspiration4, a mission that launched on September 15 of this year, brought four civilians into orbit for three days. Its orbital altitude brought the crew higher than we have gone since Apollo in a symbolic gesture to show we are once again pushing the boundary of what's possible. Though Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have both taken crews to space, the capabilities that the Inspiration4 mission, and SpaceX, its launch provider, have had many talking about the possibility of real space tourism taking off.
I was invited to view the Inspiration4 launch and brought my dad along with me. Being an astronomy major with a huge passion for following the space industry, he’s heard me talking passionately about missions and launches for most of my life but has never been to one himself, despite growing up in the Apollo era and having family near the space coast during the Shuttle era.
Both of us were blown away with the launch, itself, but more so with the people we met and the overall feeling of hope and renewed enthusiasm towards the future of spaceflight that the launch inspired, especially as it pertained to being able to go up to space themselves. This was something I never truly considered or felt myself until this launch.
These three private launches are only the beginning of what seems to be a new era of space flight. In the next few years, Axium is looking to launch its own modules to the ISS as well as multiple crewed missions. Yusaku Maezawa chartered a flight around the moon for himself and a dozen artists, and many are now lined up for suborbital hops through Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin. The privatization of space has begun, and we are just now witnessing the opening of the floodgates for what’s to come.
This poses the question though: Is this something that should even be happening? Should space be available to anyone, or just those trained to go up through space agencies like NASA?
To those who say that you need to be highly trained to go to space at all, I’d point you to the private missions that have been flown already. Though the Inspiration4 crew went through intense training for six months, by SpaceX’s own admission almost the entirety of the mission was automated and the training was mostly in case something went wrong. Comparatively, a trip through Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic requires only basic training days before the mission. The advancement of technology has allowed for missions to space to no longer require master pilots.
Another complaint often lobbed at private space flights are that they are just another mode for billionaires to flaunt their wealth. Though it’s undeniable that the first few of these space flights have all included billionaires, I only see this as a temporary necessity. Thinking back to any technology that is commonplace now—mobile phones, televisions, commercial air travel, cars, etc.—, each was adopted first by the ultra-wealthy. It was only after incremental technological improvements and cost saving measures from mass-production that allowed for costs to be driven down to a point where the ordinary person could hope to afford taking part. The same will be true for space flight, in time.
After each company had its maiden manned private spaceflight, interest in all three skyrocketed. This will inevitably lead to increased production in rockets and an increased flight cadence, both of which will help bring down costs. Additionally, with the development of rockets like SpaceX’s Starship that can carry as many as 100 people onboard, within the next decade I see it possible that any person can buy a ticket to space like how they can buy a ticket to Europe. This may still be an expensive endeavor, in honesty likely more costly than a trip to Europe, but it would still be obtainable to non-billionaires and millionaires.
The last major argument one may cling to is whether any of this does any good. So, what if people can go without training and it be affordable, why should non-scientists go at all? Aside from it just being fun (I’d argue we do many things at great expense and against practicality just because it’s fun), it has a trickle-down effect for the rest of the professional space industry. Not only do driving down costs help keep luxury experiences affordable, but those same refined technologies and learned experiences will make their way to the professionals, making their job easier and cheaper to do. Additionally, those with the most exposure to space always seem to be the most supportive of it. This was incredibly evident during my time in Cape Canaveral for the Inspiration4 launch, as well as my visit during the Demo-2 launch in 2020.
NASA’s budget as a percentage of the total federal budget has been on a steady decline since the late ‘60s. Even with the announcement with Artemis—NASA’s mission to send people back to the moon by 2024—there hasn’t been a considerable raise in the agency’s budget. In fact, the only time in history NASA’s budget was very high was when the public had heavy involvement during the Apollo missions.
Publicly accessible space travel would get many excited once again about our prospects in space and might allow for increased funding towards further exploration, such as manned missions to Mars and beyond. It might also expose many to the overview effect, a phenomenon where seeing the Earth from space gives one a profound new appreciation for the planet we live on. In the face of constant fighting between nations and the growing threat of climate change, having more people experience this effect would be another force steering us in the right direction.
Throughout our time on Earth, humans have always had a propensity to push boundaries and explore farther. We made the leap into space more than 60 years ago, but for almost the entirety of the Earth’s population this has not been something that could be experienced but behind a screen. Though space is still inaccessible to all but the rich, this is becoming less of a barrier every day. An increase in the public being able to go to space will bring a renewed interest in supporting space agencies, and in doing science in space. It’s the next inevitable evolution in our species’ experience with reaching for the stars.
Now that this door is officially open, there’s no going back, and there’s no reason not to fully embrace those like you and me from going into space next. Breaking down barriers can only be a good thing, in life and in space. We’ve shown private space flight is possible. Now it’s up to us to widen its reach so we can all take part, together.
Ian Sager is a senior physics and astronomy major graduating in December 2021.