Russia plans to offer vacations in space, according to a senior official who portrayed the prospective tourism sector as yet another sector for competition with the United States.
“We are in no mood of ceding this market,” Glavkosmos chief executive Dmitry Loskutov told Russian state television. “It goes without saying that we are competitive by such parameters as safety, reliability, and costs.”
The idea of space tourism is catching on among the ultra-wealthy. Billionaires such as SpaceX owner Elon Musk and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos develop their own private spaceflight capabilities, and with them, an opportunity for tourists to go where no tourists have gone before.
“Bezos’s Blue Origin plans to start flying customers to the edge of space this summer, and the first passenger will be chosen through a live, open auction, like a thirsty eBay bidding war,” the Atlantic’s Marina Koren wrote this week.
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“In the American consciousness, astronauts are seen as almost superhuman, with ‘the right stuff,’ a secret-sauce set of qualities that distinguishes them from everyone else,” Koren added. “But if astronauts become synonymous with billionaires, our lofty view of them is bound to come back down to Earth.”
Dennis Tito, the first-ever space tourist, was carried by a Russian rocket to the International Space Station in 2001 for a $20 million fee.
“In the late ’90s, the Russians were really hurting for funding of this space program, and the bottom line was, I figured out, ‘Huh, maybe I could get involved with the Russians,’” Tito recalled in April on the 20th anniversary of his week at the space station. “It was eight days of euphoria.”
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If American space innovators expand that industry, Loskutov insisted that the original space tour guides will stay in the game.
“As far as safety is concerned, our emergency rescue system has already proved its effectiveness more than once,” he said. “Also, we are quite competitive when it comes to costs.”
