Technology
Space Tourism
Space tourism gives tourist experience of space travel recreational, leisure and scientific experimentation. The Karman line is an arbitrary line which separates outer space from earth’s atmosphere. It is at an altitude of 100km. So space travel begins from an altitude of 100 km.
The Karman line divides any vehicle as aircraft which fly below it or spacecraft which fly above it.
Types of Space tourism flight as of now.
Suborbital flight: In this type of flight the passengers are taken to the edge of the space where they experience weightlessness for a few minutes.
Orbital: In this type of flight the passengers are taken into the orbit around earth. It gives a chance to see the planet earth from space and experience weightlessness for a longer period of time.
Space tourism started near the end of the 1990s after the deal between Russian Company MirCorp and the American Space Adventures Ltd. American Space company SpaceX has also started spacecraft to be chartered for orbital flights and in September 2021 carried four private citizens to orbit the earth for three days. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are some of the aerospace companies which took tourists for suborbital flight.
The frontier of space is beyond the orbital and suborbital flights, to lunar excursions and Mars and beyond. As the space tourism industry evolves space tourists will grow and it will operate as a full-fledged industry which will be capable of truly opening the frontier of space.