Tourism is a beautiful and magnificent experience. What could be more delightful and marvelous than traveling across the embrace of the Earth, exploring different places, learning from their history, and distilling their sciences?
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From East to West, North to South, and across the capitals of the world, the tourism industry has continually activated its professional functions to offer everyone the opportunity to explore, wander, and nurture hope in contemplating the diversity of natural and man-made environments. The means to achieve this recreational and educational purpose have included a variety of vehicles—by air, sea, and land.
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However, the stereotypical image of tourism and travel has been shattered in recent years to include something that rivals the very concept itself: space tourism—a term borrowed from the future but currently under implementation and development.
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Outer space is vast and expansive, as much as it is unknown and mysterious, which has led billionaires and visionaries to ambitiously devise ways to make it a potential tourist destination.
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With the technological, economic, industrial, and media advancements achieved by leading nations, the dream of space tourism is now closer than ever, and the prospect of turning ordinary people into space travelers is becoming a not-so-distant possibility.
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Nonetheless, breaching the atmosphere and walking on Mars or the Moon remains extremely difficult and dangerous, and both are still generally considered impossible due to scientific challenges.
Yet, a significant number of established and emerging companies have decided to confront these challenges and are determined to turn the impossible into tangible reality.
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The activities of these companies vary greatly. Some specialize in building space hotels, others in offering space tours, and so on. Still, they all share a common factor: their initiatives remain within the realm of preliminary planning, with no practical accomplishments in space travel just yet. But the stirring of dreams and ambitions isn’t such a bad thing after all... So let’s take a closer look at a few of these companies before moving forward.
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1- Virgin Galactic
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An American company founded by businessmen Richard Branson and Michael Colglazier, Virgin Galactic specializes in offering commercial spaceflights. Its headquarters are located in California.
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Its bold slogan, "Turning the future into the inevitable," might actually come true.
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I say “might” with confidence, because what the company has achieved so far is impressive. In 2018, it launched a test flight beyond Earth’s orbit. While the launch was successful, ensuring success without a human aboard remains a difficult guarantee.
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2- SpaceX
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Arguably the largest company in the space tourism category, SpaceX is also American. It is owned by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, known for his audacious dream of colonizing Mars one day.
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The company is renowned for its cutting-edge capabilities and its fame among peers.
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It has already succeeded in launching a variety of missions ranging from exploration to providing internet services. However, neither SpaceX nor its ambitious founder should be underestimated. In 2017, Musk announced his willingness to pay for any pair of customers to take a trip to the Moon.
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Ultimately, the project failed, and the idea disappeared.
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3- Boeing
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This American company is primarily known for its expertise in aviation, but if you’ve flown in the sky, what’s stopping you from flying in space?
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Boeing has signed several agreements with the renowned NASA and has manufactured the Boeing CST-100 Starliner capsules, which NASA has used in human space transportation projects. No tangible results have yet materialized, but time will tell if these agreements bear fruit.
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Let’s stop here with the companies and ask a vital question...
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If American astronauts managed to walk on the Moon in 1956, what’s stopping us from walking on it in 2024? In fact, why can’t our homes be surrounded by planets instead of trees? Speaking of trees, why not plant in space?
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These are all logical questions that reflect humanity’s deep desire to explore, learn, and continually renew itself.
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Undoubtedly, there are institutions and research centers around the world aiming to turn space into an additional playground—one from which everyone can benefit. This is despite opposition from some parties who claim that continuing on this path will harm the environment.
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But have we succeeded in sending humans into space yet?
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If we set aside the controversial American Moon landing by Buzz Aldrin and his historic steps on lunar soil, most of what is sent to space today consists of machinery and satellites. Sending humans to such an extraordinary environment is ethically questionable. Well, maybe astronauts accepted the mission and allowed themselves to be sent to that dark realm, but it was never with the intention of colonization or tourism.
Because tourism means making the experience available to everyone.
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I’ll end this brief article with a few quotes that reflect various perspectives on space tourism:
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“I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.”
— Stephen Hawking, astrophysicist.
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“The rocket will free man from his remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet.”
— Wernher von Braun, rocket engineer.
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“Space travel is life-enhancing, and anything that’s life-enhancing is worth doing. It makes you want to live forever.”
— Ray Bradbury, science fiction author.
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