Emma Louden is an astrophysicist and science communicator.

The 21st century has seen a remarkable surge in space exploration as private individuals venture beyond the boundaries of our planet's atmosphere. Since the pioneering flight of the first private astronaut to the International Space Station in 2001, space tourism has grown closer to a viable industry. In recent years, companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic have made headlines with their commercial space travel initiatives. Though private citizen space travel may seem novel, these companies have been focused on commercial space travel since the early 2000s, with Virgin Galactic collecting over 600 deposits for their sub-orbital journeys before 2021.

While we are a long way from private citizens regularly jetting back and forth to space on vacation, we are entering an era where you don’t need to be a trained astronaut to visit space. Spaceflight by private citizens will become normalized in the 2030s as the number of participants grows, the number of places to go increases, and the price declines.

Participation

The private space industry is taking new clients into a potentially hazardous environment, guided by a vague set of guidelines. The increasing global interest in private citizen space travel has raised concerns regarding safety regulations, liability, and vehicle certification, as the regulatory framework for this industry is still evolving.

Currently, the FAA operates under an informed consent framework. Federal law requires that spaceflight participants fully know the risks and hazards of human spaceflight launch and reentry operations. However, the FAA does not certify launch or reentry vehicles as safe for carrying humans. Per Congressional moratoriums, the FAA is prohibited from regulating the safety of individuals on board. This lack of clear safety regulations, akin to those for airlines, increases the risk of the sadly almost inevitable first casualty from commercial spaceflight, potentially hampering sustained interest in private space travel.

Despite these dangers and the pauses that the industry will inevitably face, I predict that interest will continue to grow and that the cumulative number of first-time private citizens visiting space will snowball over the following years:

Places

The space travel equivalents to "coach" and "first-class" are sub-orbital and orbital flights. Virgin Galactic's Spaceship Two and Blue Origin's New Shepard send their crews into parabolic flight, allowing them to briefly experience weightlessness without orbiting the Earth. In 2022, Sirisha Bandla, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and William Shatner, to name a few, took such sub-orbital flights, later landing in the New Mexico and Texas deserts. 

First-class flights reach orbit, either in the capsule the crew launches in or inside an orbiting station. The most common destination for crewed orbital flights is currently the International Space Station, which has welcomed 13 of the 17 private citizens who have experienced orbital travel. However, the ISS is set to retire in the next decade. In addition to Chinese and Russian government plans for new stations in orbit, private companies, including Axiom Space and Voyager Space Holdings, expect to build orbital habitats that will be used for space tourism. 

Space tourists have yet to venture outside the capsule, but later this year, SpaceX is set to launch humans into space for the first private citizen space walk. Jared Isaacman, who funded the Space for Humanity flight, is also funding a mission where he and three others will don the new extravehicular suits made by SpaceX for a spacewalk outside the Dragon capsule. 

The next step would take private citizens to the moon. Still, this and further milestones, such as outer planet or interstellar exploration, are unlikely to be reached for decades or centuries.

Prices

Finally, pricing remains a significant barrier to entry for space tourism. sub-orbital flights like those offered by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic typically cost $250,000 to $500,000 per seat. With a deposit of $150,000, you can reserve a ride with Virgin Galactic for the future. A seat for an orbital voyage can cost more than $50 million. This cost is clearly prohibitive for much of the world. Nonetheless, people who may not otherwise have been able to participate at that price point have flown through philanthropic efforts like Space for Humanity and Inspiration4. 

The cost of heavy vehicle launches to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has dropped from $60K per kg in 1980 to $1.5K per kg in 2018. This exponential drop-off demonstrates the radical shift of space (or at least LEO) from a pure government enterprise to a commercialized space where companies compete, rapidly bringing costs down. Combining this trend in launch mass drop-off with the increased interest in private spaceflight by new and existing companies, I predict that the price to go to orbit will remain near 50 million in 2025, drop by a factor of 5 by 2030, and a factor of 10 by 2035.

Conclusion

Private citizen space travel is a rapidly evolving industry poised to change the definition of astronaut in the coming decade. With the involvement of companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic, we are witnessing a new era of space travel, where anyone with the financial means can experience weightlessness and see the Earth from a completely different perspective. As the industry continues to grow and evolve, we expect more participation, lower prices, and new places to travel. However, as private citizen space travel faces unique safety challenges, it will be crucial to establish clear regulations and safety standards to ensure the long-term sustainability of this industry. Although there are obstacles to overcome, the potential of private individual space exploration is high and will contribute to the growth of space travel overall.