Boeing Starliner

Human flight debut coming soon

Space Adventures’ partner Boeing are set to overcome a series of mishaps and delays by completing the human flight debut for their Starliner spacecraft with a 60 day launch window opening in April. Starliner completed a successful mission to the ISS last year without people, and this time will carry two NASA astronauts for a 10 day stay. If successful, Starliner will enter regular service to the ISS next year.

Boeing Starliner docking with the ISS in May 2022.  Image credit: NASA

High altitude balloons

An experience worth keeping an eye on.

A new addition to the human space experience options, and I think worthy of a mention for the first time is high-altitude balloon flights.  These flights are designed to carry a group of 6-8 passengers to 30 km above Earth’s surface for a multi-hour cruise, all for a 5 or 6 figures price tag. There are three companies WorldView, Space Perspective and Halo Space making steady progress. While we don’t expect any of them to carry people this year, they are getting close, and it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Credit: Halo Space

Space Adventures

The year ended in what I consider to be the highlight. MZ and Yozo Hirano flew on a Space Adventures arranged flight to the International Space Station. They stayed on board for 11 days, completing the majority of a list of “100 things to do in space” suggested by members of the public, recording videos of their experiences and sharing them on YouTube.

MZ onboard the International Space Station. Credit: Yusaku Maezawa

Mixing Spaceflight And Philanthropy

There is no escaping the fact that a flight to space (at least to low-Earth orbit), with prices in the tens of millions of dollars, is for the ultra-wealthy.

There is an increasing trend of wealthy individuals mixing their spaceflight dreams with philanthropy. While some of these examples may extend beyond what is traditionally thought of as philanthropy, the basic premise of broadening the value created through a personal spaceflight for the greater good is true for each.

1. Anousheh Ansari – XPrize

Anousheh Ansari flew to the International Space Station with Space Adventures in 2006. The key focus of her mission was to support and raise awareness for the great work of the XPrize Foundation. Anousheh and her family had previously sponsored the Ansari XPrize – a competition to fly a reusable spacecraft to suborbital space which was won by Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, the precursor to Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.  Anousheh was the first to blog from space, with her posts receiving millions of views, and significantly raising the profile of the XPrize.

2. Guy Laliberté – One Drop

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté flew to the International Space Station as a customer of Space Adventures in 2009. He focused the majority of his time on the station promoting his newly launched One Drop Foundation, and his efforts culminated in hosting a 90 minute performance event live from space. The awareness raised for this new charity was enormous with a post-flight valuation showing the equivalent cost of media coverage received to be over $500 million.

One Drop has gone on to raise millions of dollars from poker tournaments (another of Guy’s passions) and other events, with the organization using the proceeds to increase access to safe drinking water by improving infrastructure. They majority of its activities are focused in South America and the Caribbean.

3. Jared Isaacman – Inspiration4

In 2020, U.S. online payments billionaire and avid pilot Jared Isaacman announced his Inspiration4 mission was set to launch in September 2021. Jared purchased all four seats on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that will fly to low-Earth orbit for a few days. Rather than taking family & friends, Jared chose to use this first of its kind spaceflight as a fundraising activity to benefit St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

He first gave a seat to a very deserving member of the St. Jude’s medical team – Hayley Arceneau – who had also been a patient at the hospital where she was treated for pediatric cancer.  He then raffled off a seat with the proceeds of ticket purchases directly benefiting St. Jude’s.  And used the last seat in a promotion for his company Shift4 by selecting an entrepreneur who utilized the company’s website development and payment tools.

We’ll have to wait and see just how much money will be raised in total for St. Jude’s (so far $18 million have been donated from sources outside Mr. Isaacman himself), but this a very laudable project in ways beyond the financial success.

4. Yusaku Maezawa – dearMoon

The biggest and boldest vision of all is that of Japanese e-commerce billionaire and Space Adventures’ client Yusaku Maezawa, who announced his dearMoon project in 2018 after purchasing a flight around the far-side of the Moon on the (still in development) SpaceX Starship. He plans on taking eight members of the public to share in this truly altruistic adventure. Fulfilling his own dream, and those of others.

5. Jeff Bezos – Club for the Future

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin spent nearly two decades developing the New Shepard rocket and spacecraft for suborbital flight. It finally made its inaugural flight on July 21, 2021. Blue Origin auctioned off one of the seats on this first flight, to fly alongside Jeff and his brother, with the proceeds ($28 million) going to Blue Origin’s own Club for the Future – “a foundation whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and to help invent the future of life in space”.

Blue Origin later announced that $19 million had already been donated with $1 million each directed to a list of 19 space related non-profits.

A Look Back

Let’s start by saying that nothing worthwhile comes easy. We’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of Dennis Tito’s spaceflight. He made history by becoming the first fare-paying private citizen to launch to space. But the road that he traveled to get there was full of challenges.

Cast your mind back 20 years ago to April 2001. Some of you reading this may not have been born. The September 11th attacks on the United States had not yet happened. The iPod was months away from launch, but Wikipedia had just gone live. Barry Bonds was just warming up for his steroid-fueled home run tear. George W. Bush was only in his 3rd month of his presidency and Vladimir Putin just assumed office.

Soyuz launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome

Challenges at Every Step

Even with the support of the Russian space agency, including his crew members, the road to launching Dennis Tito to space would prove to be very difficult. Luckily, Dennis is a very determined individual. With every challenge that Eric and Dennis faced together, they did not waver.

Support from Dennis Tito’s crew was immense

This mission was to be groundbreaking – the first time that a self-funded civilian was to launch to space. Dennis was to visit the International Space Station that was brand new and still under construction. When Eric first approached the Russians with the idea of flying a non-professional to space they said that no one would pay the price to fly. Eric told them that he already had a client. The officials at Roscosmos were astonished.

Now, you have to remember, no one had an idea of the value of spaceflight. No market studies had ever been published. SpaceShipOne was years away from flight and SpaceX wasn’t even founded yet. Commercial spaceflight, let alone space tourism, was just in the ether. But this was a window of opportunity — a chance to make something otherwise impossible real. And Eric just set US$20 million dollars as the price of a ticket to launch to orbital space. This mission would create an entirely new marketplace if Dennis and Eric could jump through enough hoops to get to the launch pad.

The Russians developed the medical and training guidelines that Dennis would have to follow to be certified to launch on a Soyuz. A month before Dennis’ planned launch, he and his Russian crew traveled to the NASA Johnson Space Center to be trained on the U.S. segment of the space station.

Dennis Tito training for his orbital spaceflight during a parabolic flight

Safety Threat or Politics?

But NASA refused to train Dennis. At that time, NASA believed that civilians would pose a safety threat in orbit. And that Dennis was not properly trained for the flight, not to mention the liability associated with him being on station. Even though non-professional astronauts had launched to space on the U.S. Space Shuttle (e.g. former Senator Bill Nelson), NASA balked at the idea of the Russians taking a tourist to space simply because he was wealthy enough to pay for it.

The simple fact was that the Russian space agency was open for business, their mindset was open to train someone older, someone who was not a career astronaut. They were willing to draft medical and training protocols for a non-professional. NASA knew that age wasn’t a factor in spaceflight as they had flown John Glenn at age 77, three years before.

Dennis Tito continuing his training for his spaceflight

NASA continued to apply pressure for Dennis not to fly as the station was no place for a non-professional. But three days before launch, NASA and the ISS partners relented and provided an exemption for Dennis to visit the space station.

He flew, had an amazing experience, and entered the history books as the first fare-paying private citizen in space! And since Dennis’ historic flight, six additional private citizens have flown to the space station. All of them paying their own way. All of them dedicated to understanding their role and responsibilities. They helped demonstrate that you don’t have to have the ‘right stuff’ to live in space. Dennis led the way. We thank him for his patience, determination, and the dream that he never let die no matter what pressure he and Eric were put under.

Dennis Tito being recovered at the landing site after safely returning to Earth after his eight day spaceflight

We’re still waiting on suborbital spaceflight, but the future looks bright for orbital spaceflight opportunities. And it all began with Dennis Tito. He never faltered and neither did we.

To learn more on how Eric seized a Window of Opportunity with Tito’s spaceflight, check out this.

Commercial Spaceflight in 2021

In early 2019 I wrote what is still one of the most popular blogs on Space Adventures’ website – Commercial Spaceflight in 2019. I thought it would be interesting to re-visit this topic and look at the status of commercial spaceflight at the start of 2021.

As is often the case in the space industry (and I am sure many others) things have not progressed as rapidly as I anticipated. Of the four new spacecraft I profiled in the 2019 blog post, only one has taken humans to space. The others are still working towards that goal, and could debut in 2021, or even slip to 2022.

Orbital spaceflight

Definition: An orbital spaceflight is where a spacecraft is placed on a trajectory and at a speed fast enough where it can remain in space.

The Soyuz spacecraft attached to the International Space Station.

Since I wrote the 2019 blog, the reliable Soyuz has launched and returned four crews to the International Space Station, with a fifth now in space. In the same way it has since 1967, the Soyuz is an ever present and highly reliable workhorse of crewed spaceflight, seeing human spaceflight through the Apollo era, the Space Shuttle era, and now continuing to fly, in a highly upgraded version in the new SpaceX Dragon era. Two Space Adventures’ clients will fly on Soyuz to the International Space Station later this year.

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft

Being developed by Boeing as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, the Starliner’s un-crewed test flight in December 2019 fulfilled many objectives, but a software and timing issue meant it did not meet all of the test objectives. Boeing took 2020 to complete the fixes needed and a little more, and will take a second attempt at the test flight in the next few months, with a view to flying with crew in the summer of 2021.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft attached to the ISS.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon was certainly the star of the last couple years. In midst of the pandemic in June 2020 SpaceX successfully launched the first crew – NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station. And later in the year delivered a full complement of four astronauts for a full six-month tour of duty on the International Space Station.

In addition to further missions for NASA, SpaceX have missions planned in 2021 and 2022 taking private citizens to the International Space Station and on a free-flight to low-Earth orbit.

Suborbital Spaceflight

Definition: a flight to 100km above the Earth.

A phenomenal experience and beautiful view, but since you are only in space for a few minutes it’s a markedly different from living in space.

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo

Now a public company, trading as SPCE, the last couple years have been pretty eventful for Virgin Galactic. But the start date of commercial service continues to be a bit of a mystery, and was just recently pushed back to 2022.

Blue Origin’s New Shepard

While Blue Origin’s New Shepard will one day launch with people, they seem content to be launching a few times a year carrying scientific payloads to the edge of space. Given the solid track record of 13 successful un-crewed flights, I have to think they are not far away from adding the first test crews, but Blue is not one for publishing schedules.

Starship (the new kid on the block)

The SpaceX Starship during a test flight

Designed with Mars colonization in mind, SpaceX’s Starship is huge. First contemplated by SpaceX back in 2012, the Starship name was announced in 2018 at the same time as the first mission, to fly around the far-side of the Moon, was purchased by Japanese e-commerce billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. That mission is forecast to take place in 2023. Quite an ambitious schedule for such a complex system, but SpaceX seems to be dedicating huge resources towards the effort, and testing is well underway.

The combination of the Starship and its booster rocket will be 122m tall and 9m diameter. Starship can transport huge payloads into space. This massive sizes means that people on-board would have much more space to move around in, than the capsule systems detailed above.

We are keeping a close eye on the Starship development. It’s a very exciting program.

In Summary

So as with 2019, I have to conclude that this year promises to be another exciting one in the world of human spaceflight.  I am certain that one, if not two of the vehicles I have profiled above will start to fly with humans onboard in 2021.  And for any of you reading this who have your own spaceflight ambitions, that is a very welcome prospect.

I think many of us will be glad to see the end of 2020 and will welcome 2021 with open arms.  But before we do, I thought it was worth looking back at some of 2020’s significant achievements in the field of space exploration – completed despite the global pandemic – as well as some of our favorite photographs of Earth taken by astronauts onboard the International Space Station.

Thunder clouds clearly visible over Grand Bahama, and the top of the photo should be open ocean, but it is obscured by Saharan dust plume that had travelled over 7,000 km. Taken in June 2020.  Read more.

A NASA astronaut took this time lapse sequence of the comet Neowise as it passed close to Earth in the summer 2020.

This is not a photograph taken by an astronaut on the ISS, but was taken by my favorite new Twitter follow @AJamesMcCarthy, an astro-photographer based in the western United States.  He takes these stunning photos of space from his backyard.  Definitely worth a follow!

This image shows the International Space Station (at the top) passing in front of the Sun.

The Space Adventures’ team wishes you the best for 2021!  We have an exciting year ahead as we prepare for two clients to fly on the Soyuz to the International Space Station in December, and we’ll be sure to keep you posted of their progress.  

And please remember we are here to help you realize your own dreams of flying to space, so never hesitate to reach out – it’s never too early to start the conversation!

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A Day in the Life of a Private Astronaut (Part 1)

A small group of lucky (and very successful) people have launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on flights arranged by Space Adventures. In the coming years Space Adventures has opportunities to fly to the ISS on both the Russian Soyuz and the Boeing Starliner. We are often asked what there is to do on the ISS – while the view is phenomenal (and the pictures don’t lie!) surely visitors don’t just spend all day looking out of the window.  So in this two-part blog post we aim to provide some insight into everyday life in space.

Morning routine

Time on the ISS is set to UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) and the day begins around 6:00 a.m. And just like on Earth, everyone starts the day getting cleaned-up and refreshed. Being in a weightless environment there are no such thing as running water from a faucet or a nice warm shower, so you must make do with a lot of wet towels and no-rinse shampoo.

Science Experiments

The ISS is fundamentally a science laboratory with experiments being conducted in fields as diverse as physical & life sciences, remote sensing and technology development. Even the crew are subject to experiments to see how the human body reacts to living in space for extended periods of time. Our clients have taken the time to participate in some of the these ongoing studies. They have also conducted their own science experiments using some of the ISS equipment (after receiving the full and proper training of course!)

Using NASA communications

Communication assets on the ISS are really very good. The ISS is outfitted with Wi-Fi allowing connection to high speed (600 Mbps) internet via the TEDRIS satellite system.  Through special arrangements with NASA, our clients have been able to make use of this system for voice, video, and e-mail communication. There are also direct-to-ground radio and video communication systems, so you’re never out of touch!

Food preparation

Everyone’s gotta eat! And just like on Earth meal times in space are a time to catch-up and socialize. The ISS galley has an array of food from the different countries that make up the ISS partnership so all tastes can be catered for.

However in weightlessness there is no natural convection, meaning food must be heated in a slightly different way, either with hot water or using a forced air convention oven.

Recent experiments have successfully grown mixed greens like lettuce and cabbage in space. While these are not yet available for astronauts to eat, they will be in the future.

That concludes the first part of our Day in the Life of a Private Astronaut blog.  In Part Two, we will look at how private astronauts can take photographs of Earth, use an old school “ham-radio”, and how they sleep in space.