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Asked by giraffeee2 to Charlie on 20 Mar 2011.
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Charlie Ryan answered on 20 Mar 2011:
hi girafee2 great question and very topical!
Well we are reasonably close – although it might cost a lot more than your average holiday!
If you fancy only going into space for a brief trip then i’d suggest you consider a suborbital flight! This a flight that shoots you up into space, but doesn’t give you enough oomph to stay up there and go into orbit so you immediately fall back down. There are lots of companies developing this, but the one nearest to being ready seems to be virgin galactic, which hopes to start suborbital services in a few years. The cost though is about £250000 – astronomical!!
If you want to go into space – i.e. into orbit – this is already available through a company called space adventures. They offer you the trip of a lifetime (!) to the international space station. Three week stay, all meals included! The cost though is about £25 million!!! space adventures also offer a round trip to the moon, on a russian rocket, at about £200 million!!! (apparently a russian billionaire has bought a ticket!!)
I think the cost of suborbital flights will drop relatively fast (no pun intended!) as there seems to be a lot of competition. Maybe in ten years it will cost only £10000 – still not cheap though!
The cost of going into orbit doesn’t look like it will drop for a long time though. There just isn’t a cheap way of getting up there.
Would you consider a holiday in space???
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Comments
giraffeee2 commented on :
yeaah in definitely would if i had the money 🙂 would you???
Charlie commented on :
yeah i’d love to! I’m also would love to have a go on a parabolic flight in an aeroplane – a flight that can simulate floating in space for a while. Sadly the other name for this is the Vomit Comet, because its infamous for making everyone very queezy!