Space tourism is not a new idea. SpaceX announced plans to send ordinary citizens into space this year, and Virgin Galactic continues to pursue its goal of regular space travel. Just this week, the aerospace company Blue Origin released a video showing its ambitious plans for the future of space tourism. But all these plans do not imply exactly what is considered tourist flights in the first category. Even after paying millions of dollars, a few ultra-wealthy adventure travelers will have to courageously endure their orbital in Spartan conditions on par with well-trained astronauts.
However, in a few years, travel agents working in the field of space truism will be able to offer travel with accommodation in five-star orbital modules, kindly provided by Roscosmos. Tourists will be offered amenities such as a luxurious "luxury module" docked to the International Orbital Station (ISS), with individual sleeping quarters with large windows, private bathrooms, exercise equipment and even Wi-Fi. Space tourists will not only be able to observe our small blue planet from a dizzying height of 400 kilometers, they will have the opportunity to go out into outer space accompanied by an astronaut.
The entire trip, lasting from one to two weeks, will cost $ 40 million per person. If a tourist wants to go into outer space accompanied by an astronaut and extend his stay at the station up to one month, he will have to pay $ 20 million.
This is the essence of Russia's grandiose program to return to space tourism. This month, the state corporation Roscosmos has begun to agree on a business plan for the construction of an additional ISS module with a high level of comfort. According to a detailed project, which the editorial staff of Popular Mechanics magazine had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with, it will be a 20-tonne module, 15.5 meters long, with a pressurized space of 92 cubic meters. It will house four sleeping blocks of about two cubic meters each and two compartments - "sanitary and medical" - the same volume. Each individual box will have portholes with a diameter of 228 millimeters, and a huge "window" with a diameter of 426 millimeters is provided for the recreation area.
Externally, the tourist module is similar to the scientific and energy module NEM-1, which will also be docked to the ISS and is currently under construction in Russia. Initially, the ISS assembly scheme assumed the presence of a second NEM module, but the Russian government financed only one module. It will serve primarily as a scientific laboratory and a power supply station for the ISS.
Now the main Russian contractor of the ISS, Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, has developed a scheme for financing the second module of the NEM from various sources - through private and public investments. To make a profit, NEM-2 will be adapted to receive tourists.
RSC Energia pioneered space tourism in the 1990s by first leasing the Mir space station to a private company and then organizing tourist flights to the ISS for millionaires. However, in recent years, tourist flights have been suspended because Russian partners in the ISS have booked all available seats on the Soyuz spacecraft, which remains the only means of delivery to the station after the reusable space shuttle was decommissioned in 2011. space shuttle ship. Soyuz could be used again in a couple of years, as private contractors from NASA, such as Space-Ex, are looking to build their own orbital taxis.
The cost of the proposed Russian tourist module is expected to be 16.4 to 26.2 billion rubles ($ 279-446 million). In order to recoup these expenses as soon as possible, RSC Energia plans to send two tourists on each Soyuz flight, accompanied by one cosmonaut. Considering that during the year it will be possible to organize four Soyuz flights, it will be possible to send up to six tourists annually on a short tourist trip to the ISS, as for the cosmonauts, their change in orbit will last a year. Thus, RSC Energia expects to recoup the cost of the module in about seven years.
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To minimize upfront costs, RSC Energia wants to recruit at least 12 passengers who would agree to pay approximately $ 4 million in advance so that the company can begin developing an orbital hotel module. The Virgin Galactic company did approximately the same when it started its space tourism project. These clients will then make two payments of $ 12.6 million each in the two years leading up to the flight, and then make a final payment of $ 10.8 million on the date of the flight.
The authors of the project are betting on the growing number of multimillionaires around the world. According to some estimates, by 2021 there will be more than 43 thousand people in the world, whose personal fortune will exceed $ 30 million. This means that if only 36 of them (or 0.33% of their total) decide to visit the space hotel, the module will be profitable.
Despite these sci-fi ambitions, the authors of the project acknowledge several serious problems. The main stumbling block is the technical complexity of creating a new module, even if the engineers can use the existing blueprints and some spare parts from the module, the construction of which was funded by the state. In the past two decades, attempts to resume the assembly of the Russian part of the ISS have been constantly behind schedule.
Currently, the launch of the NEM-1 module is scheduled for 2021. And at the same time, the year 2028 is approaching, when the ISS will be decommissioned.
According to RSC Energia's estimates, the construction of the tourist module will take at least five years, which means that if work began right now, it would be delivered to the station in 2022, or even later. Thus, the authors of the project may not have the seven years that are required to recoup the investment. In addition, according to the study authors, the project will be vulnerable to currency fluctuations and cost overruns.
In the near future, much will depend on whether Roscosmos or private investors will finance the construction of the first luxury hotel in space in the history of mankind.
Anatoly Zak