SpaceX and Space Adventures offer tourist trips to orbit


SpaceX and Space Adventures have partnered to offer space tourists a trip to orbit on the SpaceX Crew Dragon space capsule. They expect the first flight to launch in late 2021 or early 2022. Around $50 million will get you a seat. From Spaceflight Now:

The mission would not dock with the space station, but would instead fly into an orbit above the station's altitude of about 260 miles (420 kilometers) above Earth, according to Space Adventures, the Virginia-based company that arranged flights of seven wealthy space tourists on Russian Soyuz capsules between 2001 and 2009…


Responding to a question on Twitter about a possible price tag of $52 million per seat, (Space Adventures chairman Eric) Anderson tweeted: "Per seat price for a full group of four not quite that much (not dramatically less, but significant enough to note). Definitive pricing confidential, and dependent on client specific requests, etc."


Anderson tweeted that the training regimen for the Crew Dragon flight will be "significantly less than the few months required for previous missions or ISS missions."


"Dragon in this profile allows up to 5 days," Anderson tweeted. "3 days is probably ideal, 40-50 orbits or so."





image: SpaceX Crew Dragon (NASA, public domain)