How many ways are there for space tourism?

Broadly speaking, people often say that there are at least four ways of space tourism: parabolic flight of aircraft, high-altitude flight close to space, suborbital flight and orbital flight.

▲ $5,000 to experience parabolic flight

Parabolic flight is not real space tourism, it can only make tourists experience weightlessness in space for about half a minute, and astronauts usually experience weightlessness in this way during training. If tourists fly parabolically on planes such as "Il -76" used by Russian astronauts for training, the cost is about 5,000 dollars.

▲ 1 10,000 dollars to experience high-altitude flight.

Flying into space at high altitude and close range is not a real space tourism, but it can let visitors experience the feeling of being at a very high altitude. When tourists fly to the sky 18 km above the ground, they can see the terrain curve of the earth under their feet and the dark sky overhead, and experience endless emptiness. At present, the planes planned for this tour include Russian MiG -25 and MiG -3 1 high-performance fighters. These planes can fly above 24 kilometers, and the ticket price for traveling by them is about $65,438+0,000.

▲65438+ million dollars to experience suborbital flight.

Suborbital flight will produce a state of weightlessness for several minutes. America's private manned spacecraft "Spaceship I" and Russia's planned tourist spacecraft "C-XXI" are typical examples of this kind of flight. They can produce weightlessness for several minutes during the flameout and reentry of rocket engines. The price of this kind of flight is about $6,543,800 per person.

▲ 20 million US dollars to experience orbital flight

American Olson experienced real space tourism-orbital flight. At present, the tool to realize orbital tourism is mainly the International Space Station, and the "buses" for tourists to reach the space station are mainly the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and the American space shuttle. After the space shuttle Columbia crashed, most space tourism agencies turned their attention to Soyuz series spacecraft. Each ticket to travel with them is about $20 million.

Edit the diversification of space tourism projects in this paragraph.

Apart from the four relatively formed forms of "space travel" mentioned above, aren't there any new projects to enrich space travel? Imagine a resort hotel suspended for 400 kilometers on the ground. It is reported that the Russian space department is planning to jointly design a miniature "space hotel" by the government and enterprises. Some American engineers have also suggested that a cabin that flies around the earth for a long time can be built with light inflatable materials, and its "room fee" will be slightly cheaper than traveling to the space station.

Some American and Russian experts are still exploring the use of nanomaterials to make "space elevators". One end of the "elevator" sling is fixed on the platform on land or sea, and the other end firmly grasps the spacecraft flying synchronously with the earth, about 36 thousand kilometers from the ground. The ultimate goal of this study is to lift people and goods in the solar elevator by tens of thousands of kilometers, and the transportation cost per kilogram load is estimated to be only 10 USD. If the idea of "space elevator" can be realized, space tourism and space passenger and cargo transportation will usher in new development opportunities.

At present, space tourism is an orbital flight, which is mainly realized by the International Space Station, and the "means of transportation" for tourists to and from the space station are mainly the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and the American space shuttle. However, the unit price of this kind of tour exceeds 20 million dollars. To this end, some international institutions and enterprises have turned their attention to various cheap "quasi-space tourism". "Quasi-space tourism" mainly includes parabolic flight of aircraft, high-altitude flight close to space and suborbital flight. In order to maintain its superiority in the field of space tourism, American space exploration company also announced the "Moon Tourism" plan. According to this plan, visitors will first go to the International Space Station, stay in the station for a week, and then take the Soyuz spacecraft to the moon to enjoy the "Moon Scene" at a close distance from the orbit of the moon 160 km. American "space exploration" company has launched a new tourism project-spacewalk ambitiously.