Broken promises
If we recall what they wrote 10 years ago, on the half-century anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight, it might seem that space is about to become available to many, literally to the mass consumer. Gagarin opened the way for such test heroes as himself, the subsequent industrialization of space and the technological competition of superpowers made it possible for dozens of professionals to fly. To date, the number of astronauts has come close to 600. Following this, it was logical to expect the opening of a window of opportunity for thousands of people dreaming of going into space.
The theme of the upcoming era of space tourism was already well warmed up 10 years ago – a number of bright projects were being implemented, and they gave rise to a premonition that space would soon become available not only to professionals. The apprehension was based on official statements, such as Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic. He promised that flights would begin in 2010. And in 2004 he started selling tickets, one costs $ 250,000. More than 600 people paid, and many of them are still waiting in line. One of them was a former businessman, and now just a rich man, Oleg Yankov. After waiting for several years, he made a rebuke on the radio. “Richard Branson is an ordinary PR man. I paid $ 200,000 in 2011, I was presented with some kind of plastic airplane and a certificate that I am an astronaut, ” Yankov said on the air of BFM. – I got a good loan [Брэнсон] from 600-700, sorry, idiots who suddenly wanted to fly there <...> Something is sent, come to hotel such and such – the astronauts gather there. Please send me from your Nevada to the 101st kilometer. Everything!”
Perhaps Yankov expressed the opinion of a fairly large group of people.
Some closed, others don’t give up
Similar problems are faced by other projects aimed at mass space tourism – all of them cannot start working in any way. Some record losses and leave the market, such as XCOR Aerospace or Kosmokurs. And those who are not experiencing difficulties with resources, such as Blue Origin Jeffrey Bezos or Virgin Galactic, continue to improve the materiel and report on the next tests. The release of Virgin Galactic last December did not inspire optimism: the VSS Unity spaceplane, which had separated from the carrier aircraft, did not fly independently into space as planned. The on-board computer turned off, the engine was turned off, and the ship immediately went to land (the shape of the wings allows it to land safely with the engine off). Virgin Galactic did not announce the next postponement of the start of flights with passengers based on the results of the tests, they just did not start in the period announced by the company – the first quarter of 2021. And when it will begin, it is not yet clear – the next test flight was announced for May of this year. Projects designed to send large numbers of people into space have different ideologies and different destinies. But the conclusion based on the results of their activities can be generalized: the manned astronautics has not yet been launched into circulation. The conversion model, according to which, first, people with money, and then ordinary workers reached the advanced achievements of technological thought, supersonic aircraft, for example, does not work in this case. The materiel used by professional cosmonauts is too complicated and expensive to operate, it cannot be adapted to the needs and capabilities of the mass consumer. And the fundamentally cheaper technology has not yet been made as reliable as the one that ensures the safety of astronauts.
Moon Tickets Now On Sale
Even professionals today have at their disposal the only spacecraft in the whole world that has significant operating statistics and which can be called truly reliable – the Russian Soyuz. The last fatal accident happened in the history of this ship 50 years ago.
The rest of the means of delivery of people into orbit are either relatively new, like the Chinese “Shenzhou” (six manned missions), or completely new, like Dragon Crew (two manned missions).
Dragon Crew is already available for tourist flights – at least the seats are on sale. Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, promised to send two tourists on a tour around the moon on Dragon Crew in 2018, but did not. Musk’s reputation nevertheless looks indestructible, and his credibility is inexhaustible. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa bought all the seats on the spacecraft, which Musk promises to launch to the Moon (but without landing) in 2023. Maezawa focused on training last year, leaving the business for a while.
If we recall that Musk was going to start exploring Mars in 2018 (then the date for the landing of people on the Red Planet was set for 2024), then the picture seems to be the following: in manned astronautics as a whole, there is a somewhat refracted system of evaluating statements about planned actions and dates. At first, the plans are declared, then they do not come true, after which everything happens anew. This unwritten rule is obviously the same for all countries and jurisdictions, because the Russian lunar expedition exists in the same paradigm.
No one seeks to make claims for the fact that promises to do something and fly somewhere did not come true, even with a very large tolerance. Everyone demonstrates an understanding that space is a complex business and anything is possible here. Investors are also showing rare resilience. Virgin Galactic was listed at $ 11.75 on October 28, 2019, after being listed on the NYSE. And by March 15, 2021, its cost reached a historical peak of $ 34.93, which analysts explained by the high assessment of the potential of the space tourism market and confidence in the figure of Branson.
Of course, Branson was not going to mislead people by announcing deliberately unrealistic dates for the start of flights – it was just that the project turned out to be more difficult to implement. Or the idea itself turned out to be more difficult to implement, bearing in mind the experience of a number of similar projects.
Deferred demand
In 2019, UBS Bank predicted that by 2030 the capacity of the space tourism market will amount to $ 3 billion. The impressive demand for space tourism cannot yet give rise to any supply at all, except for Space Adventures, which sends billionaires every three years to visit for 10 days. ISS.
The vacant niche is occupied by projects of various kinds. For example, Mars One is a crowdfunding startup that aims to colonize Mars. It went bankrupt in 2019, but before that had attracted about 200,000 supporters and conducted several global rounds of selection for the marsonauts squad. The selected Russians were interviewed by central TV channels.
The Mars One project is no longer a story about organizing a flight to Mars, it is the cultivation of the very idea of such a flight. The “Space Kingdom of Asgardia”, a project of the Russian businessman Igor Ashurbeyli, is doing about the same. The ideology of Asgardia is the resettlement of man into space, the immediate goal is the birth of a child in space flight.
More than a million people have enrolled in the Asgardians, among whom the Russians are not the main part. Asgardia has a government, parliament, court, mayors of cities (the country even adopted its own original calendar). To take up one of the positions, the applicant must pay a resident fee of 100 euros per year. Expanding the resident base is the main task of the leaders of Asgardia: it is planned to form the state budget at the expense of these contributions. So far, the space kingdom has few residents – 1800. Therefore, Asgardia does not implement any scientific and space projects, but is engaged in state construction (that is, it develops and adopts laws, forms government bodies) and cultivates the idea of human resettlement into space using traditional media and social networks.
The relatively narrow topic of childbirth in space is being developed not only by Asgardia. There is a well-known company Spaceborn United from the Netherlands, its head and founder Egbert Edelbrok is a frequenter of scientific forums, after which he gives interesting interviews. According to Edelbrock’s plan, the first child in space should be born in 2030. Volunteers are already looking for research in this area.
There are a great many projects aimed at space exploration (sometimes conditional), and now there will be even more of them – interest in the topic is fueled by Musk and his plans to colonize Mars, more and more interesting and media successful interplanetary missions and a close flight to the Moon within the framework of Artemis programs. The only thing that is alarming is the “lack of specifics”, in football terms – so far no one is flying anywhere.
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