The 1960s was filled with predictions about the future of Space Tourism. Afterall it had only been 35 years from Lindberg to Yuri Gagarin. Many space TLs have been focused on continueing human missions to the Moon after Apollo or contininueing space stations after Skylab or Manned missions to Mars. But I haven't seen a single timeline that has really investigated the possibility of orbital or even suborbital space tourism becoming a low-cost routine activity. 50 years after the first airflight, airtravel was relatively routine for the general public, 50 years after Vostok 1 and space travel is still limited to government astronauts or millionaires and billionaires.
It would certainly require a massive drop in the cost of sending payloads into space. There have been many proposals.
Proposals in 1969-1971 called for a fully reusable TSTO Space Shuttle. The estimated cost per kg for one design (produced by Grumman & Boeing) was only $585/kg (1999 dollars).
There's also Philip Bono's SASSTO study from 1966. This vehicle, based on the S-IVB stage but with aerospike engines added, was a Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing SSTO. It had a payload capacity of 3,629kg to a 185km orbit and an estimated launch cost of $0.03 million in 1968 dollars (roughly $200,000 in 2014 dollars when I run it through an inflation calculator). It was designed to launch a Gemini capsule or other small payloads.
There were also numerous proposals for low-cost space launchers in 1990s aswell including Black-Horse/Blackcolt, X-33/Venturestar, the X-34, the DC-X etc. Most of these ideas however died with the begining of the Millenium.
The DC-Y was a full-orbital version of the DC-X, No government sponsor could be found for the concept and the $ 5 billion development cost was never funded. If it had been funded in 1991, the first DC-Y suborbital flight was predicted for 1995, and a first orbital mission in 1997. The total cost of developing the first flight certified Delta Clipper was to be comparable to or less than the development of a new commercial airliner. Total cost for the development of the DC-Y prototype program was estimated at $5.06 billion, including production of four flight vehicles. The ticket price for early versions of the Delta Clipper, if it met cost goals, could be less then the price for a round-the-world cruise on the QE2 ($40,000 to $140,000). A second generation vehicle could further reduce this cost. Once fully operational the Delta Clipper was to be as safe as flying on a typical commercial airliner.
Also what cost target low enough for "routine" space tourism (thousands of passengers per year) and also realistic to achieve.
$500,000
$250,000
$100,000
$50,000?
As of 2015, Space Tourism is still limited to $20-50 million tickets on the Soyuz to the ISS or (hopefully) in a year or two suborbital flights lasting just six minutes in space for $250,000.
It would certainly require a massive drop in the cost of sending payloads into space. There have been many proposals.
Proposals in 1969-1971 called for a fully reusable TSTO Space Shuttle. The estimated cost per kg for one design (produced by Grumman & Boeing) was only $585/kg (1999 dollars).
There's also Philip Bono's SASSTO study from 1966. This vehicle, based on the S-IVB stage but with aerospike engines added, was a Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing SSTO. It had a payload capacity of 3,629kg to a 185km orbit and an estimated launch cost of $0.03 million in 1968 dollars (roughly $200,000 in 2014 dollars when I run it through an inflation calculator). It was designed to launch a Gemini capsule or other small payloads.
There were also numerous proposals for low-cost space launchers in 1990s aswell including Black-Horse/Blackcolt, X-33/Venturestar, the X-34, the DC-X etc. Most of these ideas however died with the begining of the Millenium.
The DC-Y was a full-orbital version of the DC-X, No government sponsor could be found for the concept and the $ 5 billion development cost was never funded. If it had been funded in 1991, the first DC-Y suborbital flight was predicted for 1995, and a first orbital mission in 1997. The total cost of developing the first flight certified Delta Clipper was to be comparable to or less than the development of a new commercial airliner. Total cost for the development of the DC-Y prototype program was estimated at $5.06 billion, including production of four flight vehicles. The ticket price for early versions of the Delta Clipper, if it met cost goals, could be less then the price for a round-the-world cruise on the QE2 ($40,000 to $140,000). A second generation vehicle could further reduce this cost. Once fully operational the Delta Clipper was to be as safe as flying on a typical commercial airliner.
Also what cost target low enough for "routine" space tourism (thousands of passengers per year) and also realistic to achieve.
$500,000
$250,000
$100,000
$50,000?
As of 2015, Space Tourism is still limited to $20-50 million tickets on the Soyuz to the ISS or (hopefully) in a year or two suborbital flights lasting just six minutes in space for $250,000.
