After some 60 years of highly trained astronauts going into space, the related technologies and costs have altered to the point where increasing numbers of private citizens can become space tourists, initially suborbital for minimal times and Earth orbital for up to the order of two weeks. There has also developed a rapidly improving digital reality/immersive virtual presence technology providing space tourism experiences at minimal cost and available essentially to everyone. The safety aspects of physical space tourism need further development, but those that relate to the space environment are tolerable for a few weeks from the 60 years of manned space flight experience. As space tourism over the years expands beyond earth orbit to moon, Mars, asteroids, other planets, etc., the safety issues will need to be seriously worked. Tourism is only a portion of what will become major opportunities and expansion of commercial space beyond earth utilities into deep space, enabled by the ongoing major reductions in the costs of space access.
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Since the late 1950’s, humans in space (defined herein as Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and beyond) have, with very few exceptions, been restricted to highly trained astronauts. Going forward, there is an increasing expectation that technologies will enable the public to visit and vacation in space. With the ever-increasing capabilities of what is now termed digital reality (DR) or immersive presence, there are two approaches to space vacations: virtual and physical. Both will be discussed herein (Bushnell, 2020). The potential space tourism experiences include destinations such as space stations, moons, planets, and asteroids. Also, virtually only with currently known or projected technology, planets/moons around other stars. Discussed herein are the space tourism issues that technology needs to address to enable space tourism, resultant space tourism experiences, and developing commercial deep space.
Space is dark, cold, a nearly perfect vacuum, with microgravity, GEV level galactic space radiation, unimaginable distances, where solid matter is a trace species, but which supplies the energy that enables human existence. Space is often referred to as the final frontier, and the general environmental conditions, as stated, are very different than those under which humans have evolved on Earth. Therefore, considerable technology is required to enable humans in space. In fact, even physics appears to change at cosmological scales including dark matter/energy, huge disagreements between quantum theory and the cosmological constant, and the mystery of what happened to the anti-matter. There is also the increasing interest in, and search for, life on other worlds, which may be silicon- or sulfur-based instead of carbon. Overall, there is a lot to learn. Solar system destinations beyond the Moon, Mars, and nearby asteroids require greatly increased trip time (years to decade(s)), costs, distances, and improved health and safety technologies.