During travel season, a trip to Disney World may sound exciting, but to some space enthusiasts, taking a space flight in orbit around the earth may sound astronomically more intriguing.
But a trip to the moon is much less attainable than the common individual may think.
Space travel and tourism is often misunderstood, as many underestimate the monetary and energy costs of the endeavor. While some space stations have made limited travel somewhat available, the ability to stay in orbit is still a distant reality for a non-astronaut.
“(Currently), you can take a person high enough to a place where the space is black and earth looks curved,” said Michael Rich, a research astronomer in the UCLA Department of Physics and Astronomy, adding that generally a trip to the International Space Station on a Russian spacecraft costs about about $20 million.
But the type of trip Rich refers to is a suborbital trip in which those traveling will go just beyond the atmosphere and into space, but will not continue to orbit the earth.
An orbital flight is more costly and is generally restricted to astronauts and researchers though space tourists have flown on orbital missions to the International Space Station.
“Basically, you go up into space, but you come back down like a rock or baseball ““ you don’t orbit around the earth,” Rich said.
Since a flight orbiting around the earth has a tangential speed as well as a gravitational pull from earth, people inside the shuttle feel weightless since the shuttle experiences something similar to a free-fall.
The more common suborbital flight allows only for five to 10 minutes of the floating-in-air experience that a flight orbiting the earth permits.
But the smaller time period that an individual would get to feel weightless on a suborbital flight is not the only drawback to space travel interest ““ monetary cost and the lack of physical and mental preparedness is another large barrier.
“The cost and risk of sending people up are large factors to consider. (On orbital flights) so far we’ve sent people who are highly trained … just the logistics of getting their bodies fit is alone another barrier,” said Kathy Kornei, a graduate student in the physics and astronomy department.
Like Kornei, NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said that while the market for tours is growing, NASA will continue to do research and focus on development to pave the way for space travel and tourism.
“(Space travel) is still very dangerous. It’s never as safe as flying in an airplane, and there is little room for error,” he added.
Though ensuring safety is something that is continually being improved on through research, it is still a factor that serves as a deterrent to space travel progress.
Also holding back the expansion of space travel and tourism is the lack of funding for most projects.
“Space travel will always be a millionaire’s game, with relatively brief tours for the well-endowed. For either governments or budding space transport industries, taking along a tourist or two on trips designed for other purposes will be a clever way of helping to finance the very high cost of the launches,” said Mark Morris, a professor in the physics and astronomy department and vice chair for astronomy and astrophysics.
And while lack of funding holds most back, some experts still find value in human presence in space.
“So far it is mostly government projects as part of the nationalistic goal of demonstrating technological prowess. Humans at the moment do not need to be in space for any objective reason ““ robotics really works well and is way less expensive. However, there is nothing like a man stepping onto the moon for real impact on our integrated consciousness,” said Roger Ulrich, a professor in the physics and astronomy department.
Other experts such as Ned Wright, a professor in the physics and astronomy department, say that space travel in a form that is frequent and common is not a likely prospect.
Perhaps we will never be able to send those interested into space casually as “we will run out of petroleum before we can get off the planet in any large numbers,” Wright said.
And while there are seemingly many factors that make common space flights seem light years away, enthusiastic students such as David Ahnger-Pier, a second-year astrophysics student said he would love to be a scientist or tourist in space and said he hopes ticket prices will lower.
“If it was practical, I would jump at the chance,” Ahnger-Pier said.
With public interest, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the general intrigue space poses to other industries, like hotel companies.
According to the NASA Web site, ideas such as permanent space hotels are possible options in the future for space tourism.
“A hotel would offer more features and offer longer durations. Hotels would offer more comfort and privacy, as well as such things like zero or one-sixth-gravity sports,” according to the NASA web site.
Parallel to NASA’s predictions, Ahnger-Pier said, “I can certainly foresee an industry and profit for space hotels and lunar hotels possibly when the technology becomes cheap enough.”
With reports from Shaudee Navid, Bruin reporter.