If you want to fly to space, if you have enough money in your pocket, there are several ways to choose. The historic route used by the first space tourists was roscomos of the Russian space agency, which took off on a Soyuz rocket. It is reported that each ticket is about $20 million.
This is how US millionaire Dennis Tito became the first space tourist. It is reported that he went to the international space station in 2001. Several people followed him - including South African millionaire Mark Shuttleworth in 2002 and anousheh Ansari in 2006. The former was famous for working on the Linux based Ubuntu operating system, and the latter became the first woman to fly as a space tourist.
With the rise of private participation in the industry, space tourism kicked off in 2021 in an important way. Blue origin, Virgin Galactic and SpaceX led the trend with cheaper - but still very expensive - rides. These prices are still high. Only Virgin Galactic is open to the price of its space seats and leaves private travel only to the richest people in the world At least for now. Globe Trender reported in August 2021 that Virgin Galactic had raised its price from $250000 to $450000.
The seat prices of blue origin and SpaceX are more mysterious, and unlike Virgin Galactic, Virgin Galactic uses rocket aircraft to send tourists into space, and the two companies take tourists on rockets. Inverse reported that space experts and sources estimated that the ticket price of blue origin was about $1 million, while the ride cost of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft was as high as $55 million.
What is driving up the cost of space flight
BBC science focu gave a short and direct answer to why space tourism is so expensive, saying that chemical based propulsion is the biggest factor behind these rates. Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation states that the amount of rocket fuel required to put something into orbit is 10 to 25 times its mass. This equation is so cruel that NASA calls it "the tyranny of the rocket equation". The more the weight and mass of a spacecraft increase, the more fuel it needs, so the heavier it is, which forms an increasing cycle and increases the cost.
Scientific American explained that rocket fuel can be solid, liquid or gas. SpaceX revealed that it used liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene RP-1 propellant to power the Merlin engine to push Falcon 9 into space. But even these fuel costs have not reached an important part of the cost of making rockets. Reusable rockets do reduce costs, but they are not 100% reusable. In addition, manned space capsule is needed, and the construction of space capsule is also very expensive. Launch, training, labor and mission operations are also the costs that ultimately affect the price of space tickets.
There are other issues that affect the cost of the space industry. On March 23, 2022, CNBC reported that SpaceX had raised the price of all its launches due to the historically high fuel price and inflation. It is understood that the launch cost of Falcon 9 is set at $67 million and the cost of Falcon heavy mission is $97 million. Small satellites launched under the sharing plan also rose, with the price of a payload of 200 kg rising to US $1.1 million and an additional cost of US $5500 per kg. In short, rocket equation, fuel cost, construction and operation cost and inflation are all the reasons why space tourism tickets are so expensive.