The Commercial Space Industry

1) Historical background: When did the idea of "space tourism" begin? How has it developed? What have been the hurdles and accomplishments? Start in the 1960's - present day.

In 1951, Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. They published an insert order form in their magazines and books to be completed by people who wanted to travel to space; 400,000 responses were collected. Then later Pan Am, in 1969 began taking ticket reservations for a shuttle to the moon; 90,000 reservations were accepted. However, no such trips were scheduled. In April 2001, American businessman Dennis Tito became history’s first space tourist, paying his own way to International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Tito was the first space tourist to pay $20 million. NASA objected the idea because they were being protectant for his own safety and everyone else. NASA and other partners in the space station objected to the plans, claiming that Tito was not properly trained and that the station was not ready for amateur space trippers. Russia has taken seven people to space as tourists. A Virgin Galactic, VSS Enterprise, SpaceShipTwo tried to provide a space trip in October 2014, it consisted of a suborbital flight that would take space tourists (approx. $250,000 per person) just above the 100-kilometer altitude line, that’s in the Earth’s atmosphere from space. The tourists would experience only a few minutes of weightlessness and view the curvature of Earth. However, during its voyage it suffered a catastrophic in-flight breakup and crashed in California. This put a substantial delay in commercial space tourism flights, the NTSB mentioned that this could have been a pilot error. Risk and failure plays a huge role in the industry and with that comes the time wasted on a project.

2) Give a brief summary of the rules and regulations that currently govern the commercial space industry. When and why were they developed? Start with the first rules developed in the 1980s. Do you feel that they are appropriate or that the need to be more or less restrictive?

The Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984, signed by President Ronald Reagan on October 30, 1984 came into effect when the realization of the economic benefits of utilizing private space companies. Just like everything else in the aviation industry, there must be a standard in place for others to abide by. The 1984 Act opened the doors for private space flight for the first time in the nation’s history, it proved to be less than adequate in addressing all the legal and regulatory issues associated with private space travel. Consequently, the act was amended twice. First in November 1988, making it easier for contractors to obtain licenses and launch insurance. Secondly, establishing the process for licensing space launch vehicles, paying passengers to fly into space on their own risk on commercial flights. There have been two laws added to the 1984 Act by President Bill Clinton: Commercial Space Act in 1998 and Commercial Space Transportation Competitiveness Act in 2000. The space industry is still so new and the laws will continue to be added accordingly, private space travel remains a legislative concern at the national level, and will likely continue as such for the foreseeable future, since the private space travel industry is only growing. Safety and costs, as like everything else that is new to the industry, continue to be the biggest concerns in the delay of the space industry. Russia has many scheduled flights to space where NASA has piggybacked on until 2019. If many of the U.S. laws that are in place are lifted perhaps we could get ahead of the Russian’s, these restrictions have given them a three-year lead ahead of the U.S. from order to flight.

3) Where do you see space tourism headed and in what time frame? I.e., do you think it will be accessible to the general public, not unlike the commercial airline industry? Do you think it will develop into a means of transportation or do you think that it will perpetually exists as a one-time, bucket list adventure? Why?

Space related tourism in today’s world is still restricted to adventures and recreational opportunities which are related to space but yet remains terrestrial. I believe that it’s been in slow mode for a while now, due to the cost associated with moving forward and if for whatever reason that doesn’t work out, you basically must start over. The high costs limit the benefits obtained from space applications. Telecom business and remote sensing satellite operators have been able to make serious money from the use of space. Cheap access to space could also make futuristic projects like lunar mining and the colonization of the solar system much more feasible. Space tourism can boost public support for space exploration in general. Spaceflight may now finally fulfill the promise and benefits from increased public and political support and funding in the process. Adventure tourism is clearly a large and growing market, there’s a huge potential market for space tourism, and many people are willing to pay a considerable about to experience travel. The space tourism market will evolve through different phases, as it has been for many years. Current market survey that someone in their 20’s is interested in space travel and competitors are aiming for this market. There have been many way to do space tourism, they are focusing on human imagination. Currently, a few types of trips have been in the works, such as; Virtual space trip and sight-seeing via telepresence. Sponsors of the space projects want to conduct their own excursions like; joyrides, sub-orbital jump, orbital trip, space-walk, and space hotel. These have been something that sponsors have put a lot of thought into orbital facilities and hotels, we can only dream of what it would be like.

4) What are the qualifications to work in the space tourism industry  - either from the pilot or the management perspective? This may require some research, perhaps even making a phone call.

Space tourism operators have plenty of rules and guidelines to be authorized to conduct the actual flights.  The establishment of rules in crew qualification and training shows that the FAA is very engaged in promoting safety. FAA has a detailed and concrete regulatory framework on space tourism. The types of aerospace education that is needed in the space industry would start with a minimum of a bachelor’s degree and eventually work its way up to a doctoral degree. As for the actual spacecraft crew, pilot astronaut, mission specialist and payload specialist are needed. Other categories associated with working in the aerospace field are as followed: physical scientists, life scientists, social scientist, mathematicians, engineers, technicians, engineers’ designers, and technical communicators. Many aerospace jobs can be found at: https://www.usajobs.gov/, http://nasajobs.nasa.gov/, http://www.nasa.gov/, http://www.nasa.gov/exploration, http://www.nasa.gov/aero, http://www.nasa.gov/about/sites/index.html, and http://www.nasa.gov/earth. There will different sectors in the aerospace industry as there is in the aviation industry. Private and commercial, and they will have different rules and regulations applied to each category.

Foust, Jeff. (January 17, 2018). GAO warns of further delays in certifying commercial crew vehicles. Retrieved February 21, 2018 from http://spacenews.com/gao-warns-of-further-delays-in-certifying-commercial-crew-vehicles/.

NASA. (October 28, 1998). Commercial Space Act of 1998, Title II – P.L. 105-303. Retrieved February 21, 2018 from https://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/commercial/CommercialSpaceActof1998.html.

United States Department of Transportation. (September 27, 2017). Office of Commercial Space Transportation Regulations. Retrieved February 21, 2018 from https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/regulations/.