What are the common types of space tourism?

There are four common types of space tourism, such as parabolic flight, high-altitude flight close to space, suborbital flight and orbital flight. ??

The cheapest option is to fly in a parabola, where tourists can experience weightlessness for about half a minute. Astronaut training also uses a similar method, and the cost is around a few thousand dollars, such as the American "Vomit Comet" aircraft and the Russian "Il-76" aircraft. ?

Some high-performance aircraft can fly to an altitude of tens of thousands of meters. You can see the terrain curve of the earth below you and the dark sky above your head, and experience an endless sense of emptiness. This probably costs tens of thousands of dollars. For example, Russia's "Mig-25" and "Mig-31" high-performance fighter jets can fly to an altitude of more than 24 kilometers and are planned to be used to implement this kind of tourism;?

Some special aircraft It can fly near the Karman Line, which is 100 kilometers above the ground, which is suborbital airspace. The time from engine shutdown to reentry into the atmosphere can last for several minutes, and the price of this flight is probably tens to millions of dollars. ?

Space tourism in the true sense is orbital flight, more than 300 kilometers above the ground, and is extremely expensive, costing tens of millions of dollars.

Private space travel competition escalates

On July 20, Amazon founder Bezos will fly into space with three others. But the suborbital space flight rocket of Blue Origin, a company invested by Bezos, adopts a different design. The company's New Shepard vehicle is a capsule plus a rocket system that launches vertically from a launch pad, carrying passengers more than 60 miles into the air in a screaming flight of about 11 minutes.

"New Shepard" is a 60-foot-tall (approximately 197 meters) reusable rocket that will launch a six-passenger space capsule approximately 62 miles (approximately 197 meters) above the ground. (100 kilometers) at the edge of space, the entire mission will take about 10 minutes, and passengers will have a 3-minute sightseeing experience in a microgravity environment.

After the two companies Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic begin commercial operations, they will become direct competitors. They all court ultra-wealthy, thrill-seeking clients who are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to experience the excitement of sonics and a few minutes of weightlessness.

After Virgin's launch announcement, Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith said that he wished Branson all the best, but claimed that he had not actually entered space because " They didn't fly above the Kármán line and it was a very different experience."

The so-called Karman Line, 100 kilometers above the ground, is the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and space recognized by the Federation Internationale de l'Aviation Internationale (FAI). Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket launches its crew capsule beyond the Karman Line, providing several minutes of weightlessness.

The launch vehicle manufactured by Musk’s Space Exploration Technology Company (SpaceX) will completely change the rules of the game. SpaceX will reach an orbital speed of at least 17,000 miles per hour (approximately 27,400 kilometers) per hour after launch, providing the spacecraft with enough energy to orbit the Earth rather than being immediately dragged back by Earth's gravity. It's also how SpaceX is able to put satellites into orbit or transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station.