Virgin Galactic Teams Up With Nasa On Space Tourism

Virgin Galactic, the space travel venture that is the latest passion project of renowned British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, is teaming up with the U.S. space agency Nasa to offer commercial trips to the International Space Station (ISS). The two organisations plan to attract and train paying passengers who are will to pay for the privilege of a trip to and stay on the Station as ‘citizen astronauts’.

The ISS orbits the Earth at a height that averages 250 miles above the surface of our planet. Until now it has been used to host international missions of scientific discovery, mainly funded by governments and inter-governmental bodies. But Virgin Galactic’s role would be to also encourage commercial use of the facility by acting as a booking agent for would-be space tourists, as well as training private passengers ahead of their mission to ISS.

The company said in an announcement that its responsibilities as one half of a partnership with Nasa:

“Will include identifying candidates interested in purchasing private astronaut missions to the ISS, the procurement of transportation to the ISS, on-orbit resources and ground resources. Building on our commercial space flight experience, we can provide an unparalleled, personalised customer experience for orbital space travel.”

Nasa first announced last year that it was planning to extend the commercial usage of the ISS in order to reduce the financial burden of the space station’s upkeep. Private space travel, while still hugely expensive, is expected to drop significantly in cost over coming years as a result of the involvement of private companies such as Virgin Galactic, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Boeing.

These companies are all developing vehicles and techniques to cut the cost of launching rockets and space shuttles. Examples include launching rockets and shuttles from jets already flying high in the near atmosphere.

Because such launches don’t involve the expense of setting up a ground operation, and also save on fuel, they are far cheaper than traditional launches. Private companies such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin have also developed reusable rockets for further cost-efficiencies.

Nasa has said a night’s stay at the ISS will cost around $35,000 and Virgin Galactic has been pre-selling space flight tickets at $250,000. Which means a long weekend at the International Space Station could come in at somewhere around $400,000, plus training. While still far out of the reach of most tourists, the price tag is still a lot less than it could have been imagined even a few years ago and Virgin Galactic has reported strong interest and numerous reservations.

Space tourists are expected to range from those sponsored by private companies or governments to take part in scientific missions to wealthy adventurers keen to tick off an exotic bucket list item. Virgin Galactic doesn’t yet have rocket ships able to fly passengers into orbit.

For now, passengers will have to make do with sub-orbital rocket ships, which is still enough for some breath-taking views back to Earth, the experience of floating in zero gravity and travelling at G force. Citizen astronauts who do plan to take the trip to ISS when possible, will use sub-orbital rocket ships during training programmes that will take place in New Mexico.