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The cost of going to space

02 Nov 2021 00:00:00 | Update: 02 Nov 2021 01:19:36
The cost of going to space

Inspiration 4 will be the first all-civilian, all-private orbital space launch. That is, not just private citizens from outside the NASA astronaut corps, or flown using private, commercial space vehicles, but privately funded too.

Billionaire Jared Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, has essentially purchased the whole mission from SpaceX, who are providing the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Crew Dragon space capsule that will carry Isaacman and his three crewmates to space for a three-day mission orbiting the Earth at an altitude higher than the International Space Station.

It’s known exactly what Isaacman paid to make Inspiration 4 happen, but it’s certain to be more than the $250,000 ticket price for a sub-orbital flight with Virgin Galactic. But in the wake of Virgin Galactic Founder Richard Branson’s suborbital flight to space on July 11, and Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos following suit on a Blue Origin rocket on July 20, it may be that the commercial space tourism market is finally heating up — even if the price for a ride to space remains a bit fuzzy.

Like purchasing a supercar, if you need to ask how much a ticket to space costs, you probably can’t afford it.

On the low end, Virgin Galactic offers a sub-orbital trip to the edge of space for $450,000, or a little less than two Lamborghinis. Of course, Virgin Galactic flights are currently grounded pending an FAA investigation into an error that occurred during Branson’s spaceflight — and the company’s failure to report to the regulator.

Bezos’s Blue Origin hasn’t disclosed the price for a ride on its suborbital New Shepard vehicle, but are likely to go ticket prices around the level of the private bids offered for seats on Bezo’s July 20 flight, Laura Forczyk, the owner and founder of the space analytics firm Astralytical tells Inverse. “I think that is probably still in flux, what their final price will be, but it’s probably along the lines of a million dollars,” she says, “or at least $500,000 per flight, per seat.”

Isaacman was the only Inspiration 4 crewmember to pay his way — although two of his crewmates were selected in part due to their fundraising for the mission’s charitable beneficiary, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital — but neither he nor SpaceX have disclosed what he paid. Some estimates based on what NASA is believed to be paying SpaceX to fly NASA astronauts to the ISS about Crew Dragon as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew program would put the price at $50-$55 million per seat on Inspiration 4, putting Isaacman in for a minimum of $200 million.

“The difference between a multimillionaire and a billionaire,” Forczyk says, “That’s what we’re seeing.”

 

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