The tourism model, which serves those who want to go to extremes, comes with its own risks and of course appeals to those with a lot of money. But these risks often don’t deter wealthy billionaires and other privileged individuals from going into harsh environments.
But the recent death of five passengers aboard the Titan submarine has raised a new debate: Should space tourism, which promises to visit space as part of the growing commercial industry, consider the event as a serious warning?
Authorities ended the search and rescue mission for the missing Titan submarine, which exploded as a result of an internal explosion while trying to visit the wreckage of the Titanic, and announced that the passengers in it lost their lives. While the latest tragedy may have occurred thousands of meters below the surface of the ocean, it also seems likely to fuel the growing space tourism industry that has taken civilians thousands of meters above the Earth’s surface.
Titan was built at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama as part of an agreement between its operator, OceanGate, and the space agency. The submarine was built using aerospace-grade carbon fiber, and its manufacture has helped NASA learn more about developing spacecraft that can survive extreme pressure levels.
He had traveled to space before he died on Titan.
Aside from the similarities of the means, only a select few have access to this type of extreme tourism. In fact, one of the billionaires on Titan was explorer Hamish Harding, who had previously traveled to the edge of space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket in June 2022.
Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos also got on his own rocket in 2021 and traveled to suborbital heights above Earth’s surface to reach the “edge of space.” Bezos became the second billionaire to go into space, after British businessman Richard Branson became the first person by nine days.
However, the fact that these journeys are accessible to very few does not mean they are safe. As the last incident showed, even a $250,000 ticket does not guarantee a smooth journey. Space travel tickets are also priced similarly at the moment, though they may get a little cheaper in the near future.
Recently, Branson’s Virgin Galactic company announced that it will begin offering commercial trips on the company’s suborbital spaceplane this summer, with a price tag of $450,000 per ticket. But Virgin Galactic has had a tumultuous history in suborbital flights. In 2014, the company’s SpaceShipTwo vehicle suffered an in-flight anomaly and crashed, killing one of its pilots and seriously injuring the other.
Another billionaire, Jared Isaacman, is preparing to board a SpaceX Dragon spaceship later this year for the first in a series of private space expeditions. The Polaris Dawn mission is also planned by a commercial crew to include the first spacewalk where astronauts are attached to a spacecraft while working in outer space.
These flights will not come close to reaching space, a borderline 100km above the surface, but passengers will be able to see the darkness of space and the curvature of the Earth.
NASA is trying to streamline some of the details surrounding these trips by introducing a set of guidelines for Axiom Space’s commercial crews to the International Space Station (ISS). Even without direct regulations from the space agency, the commercial space industry is built on decades of experience and an existing framework that helps inform these special trips.
Space tourists not aware of the risks?
Still, space tourism remains a risky business, and what is even more alarming is perhaps that avid travelers are not fully aware of the risks. Similar to the waiver signed by passengers aboard OceanGate’s Titan, space tourists are compelled to sign a waiver stating at their own risk before boarding a commercial spacecraft.
There is little regulation surrounding the space tourism industry as it is still relatively new. The US Federal Aviation Administration is the agency that issues commercial space licenses, but its role ends here as there are no other guidelines regarding the safety of crew members on board.
However, it is certain that the space tourism industry urgently needs regulation. Beyond that, perhaps the wealthy need a harsher reminder that space is an extreme environment that cannot be taken lightly, like the bottom of the ocean.
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