NASA to open International Space Station to tourists from 2020
Quote:
Originally Posted by AFP
NASA said Friday it will open up the International Space Station to business ventures including space tourism as it seeks to financially disengage from the orbiting research lab.
Price tag? Tens of millions of dollars for a round trip ticket and $35,000 a night.
"NASA is opening the International Space Station to commercial opportunities and marketing these opportunities as we've never done before," NASA chief financial officer Jeff DeWit said in an announcement made at the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York.
There will be up to two short private astronaut missions per year, said Robyn Gatens, deputy director of the ISS.
The missions will be for stays of up to 30 days. As many as a dozen private astronauts could visit the ISS per year, NASA said.
These travelers would be ferried to the orbiter exclusively by the two US companies currently developing transport vehicles for NASA: SpaceX, with its Crew Dragon capsule, and Boeing, which is building one called Starliner.
These companies would choose the clients—who will not have to be US citizens—and bill for the trip to the ISS, which will be the most expensive part of the adventure: around $58 million for a roundtrip ticket.
That is the average rate the companies will bill NASA for taking the space adventurers up to the ISS.
Perhaps those who determine who may go could organise something along the following lines...call for a respected member of the flat earth organization or group to be taken up to observe the flat earth and report back to the unwashed upon all he saw...arm him with a video link to the subscribers to the flat earth notion so whole auditoriums of flat earth folk could enjoy seeing real time evidence that the world is flat.
Alex
As for me, ISS is a serious science center where tourism is not a good idea. Astronauts are taking experiments there and no one would cheer you up. I heard that a space hotel is planned to be launched by 2022 and that is the perfect place for space tourism. Guests are invited to participate in research experiments. Virtual reality headsets and smart Wi-Fi will be a nice bonus.
Would they have a Pensioner concession rate, might get a few more takers.
