Russia intends to send tourists to space in 2025

Blue Origin is owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, and it is ready for the first launches of tourists into “near space” this year.

 

There will be no full-fledged flights in orbit around the Earth, they will be suborbital – an altitude of 80 to 100 km. The company intends to use a reusable rocket with a New Shepard descent capsule. The cost of a ticket to orbit for 1 space tourist will be from 200 to 300 thousand dollars.

 

Virgin Galactic is owned by billionaire Richard Branson and is considered a major competitor to Blue Origin. US media reports that in 2019, they also intend to send the first travelers to space at a similar price.

 

Pavel Pushkin, director of Kosmokurs (resident of the Skolkovo Foundation): There is every chance to expect that flights will be interesting and safe. However, there is a big question about the price of such a flight. We believe it will be around $150,000-$300,000 per ticket, which will allow only rich people to fly at the first stage.

 

Plans for Russia’s suborbital space project, CosmoCourse, lag behind the U.S. schedule, largely due to organizational issues. At the end of 2018, experimental products were tested. The company plans to conduct a project of suborbital space tourism, where the client for $ 250 thousand will get to the height of the flight of Yuri Gagarin and last in zero gravity 5.5 minutes, the duration of the trip will be 14 minutes.

 

Previously, we planned launches from Baikonur, but now it has been decided that the spaceport will be located in the central part of the Russian Federation. We are now actively coordinating the place under the cosmodrome with the regional authorities. So far, everything is moving towards the fact that we will be able to launch the first tourists in 2025, says Pavel Pushkin.

 

The cost of domestic suborbital flight should be about the same as that of Americans. For the same money we fly to an altitude almost twice as high (180-200 km), and the tourist we will experience weightlessness almost twice as long. Plus, we have more space in the spacecraft itself, which allows the tourist to unfasten from the chair and fly in zero gravity, rather than just feeling it.”

 

According to information: atorus