18. Space Commercialization and Tourism

Purpose:

Expand commercial activity in space from a niche primarily government-driven endeavor to a broad economic frontier. This includes space tourism (sending private individuals to experience space, whether suborbital joyrides or stays on orbital stations or even around the Moon), as well as the development of commercial space stations, lunar commercial ventures, and resource extraction. The goal is to lower the cost of access to space so that private enterprise can thrive, leading to new industries (space hotels, media/film in space, manufacturing in microgravity, etc.), and to give more people the life-changing perspective of seeing Earth from space.

Current Stage:

We’ve seen the dawn of real space tourism in the early 2020s. In 2021, billionaires competed: Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos) flew its first passengers (including Bezos himself and Wally Funk) on a suborbital hop above 100 km on the New Shepard rocket, and since then has flown multiple suborbital tourism missions cbsnews.com. Virgin Galactic (Richard Branson) also flew Branson on its SpaceShipTwo spaceplane, offering a few minutes of weightlessness and Earth view at ~80 km. Virgin Galactic has a backlog of customers at $450k a ticket and began commercial service in mid-2023. These suborbital trips last about 10-15 minutes of weightlessness – essentially high-end thrill rides, but they've made hundreds of people "astronauts" by some definitions already.

In orbit, SpaceX led the way: In 2021, the Inspiration4 mission flew a private crew of four (paid by billionaire Jared Isaacman for charity) for three days orbiting Earth in a Crew Dragon capsule – the first all-private orbital mission. Then in 2022, Axiom Space coordinated the Ax-1 mission: four private individuals (one Axiom employee and three paying customers ~$55M each) flew to the International Space Station (ISS) for a 10-day stay thespacetravelsummit.com. More private ISS visits are planned (Ax-2 flew in 2023, Ax-3 and 4 are scheduled, with varying mixes of wealthy tourists and national astronauts from countries without their own vehicles). Russia’s Soyuz has also taken private tourists to ISS, including two in late 2021 (one being a film director shooting a movie scene).

The price is extremely high for orbital tourism, but demand seems to exist among the ultra-wealthy. Companies like Space Adventures broker these with Roscosmos historically (they flew Dennis Tito, etc., in 2000s) and now with SpaceX.

Looking ahead: Axiom Space is building the first commercial space station modules to attach to ISS by 2025, aiming to eventually detach and form a standalone private station when ISS retires (likely 2030). Other companies (Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef concept with Sierra Space, and Northrop Grumman’s station concept) have NASA seed funding to develop commercial stations – NASA plans to be an “anchor tenant” by buying services rather than operating a government station post-ISS thespacetravelsummit.com. This commercial LEO development is akin to the commercialization of airlines after government pioneers.

Space hotels: A company called Orion Span had floated ideas (not yet realized) for a small hotel in orbit. A company Space Perspective plans a near-space luxury balloon experience (not orbital, but to the stratosphere for hours with a cocktail lounge!). The market for these experiences by 2030 could be sizable; one estimate expects space tourism market to reach $10 billion by 2030 thespacetravelsummit.com, with suborbital likely the bulk of volume (thousands of people paying ~$100k-$500k) and orbital the bulk of revenue (dozens paying $50M+).

Beyond tourism: SpaceX’s Starship and other developments are drastically cutting launch costs, which invites more commercial activity. Mass satellite constellations like Starlink are already a big business (broadband internet from thousands of satellites – SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon’s Project Kuiper in the works). This is making space a domain of large private infrastructure akin to telecom networks.

There’s interest in resource utilization: e.g., NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) hires small companies to send landers to the Moon with experiments, some aiming to prospect water ice, etc. A couple of companies (Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines) will land on the Moon via CLPS in 2023–2024, delivering both NASA and private payloads, basically starting a Moon delivery market. Down the line, maybe mining lunar water for propellant or mining asteroids for metals is envisioned, but likely beyond 2035 for any significant operations.

Media and entertainment: We’ve seen a movie partly filmed in space (Russia did a bit on ISS, Tom Cruise has talked with SpaceX about filming in orbit). Reality TV ideas (like a contest to send a winner to ISS) have circulated. This will likely continue, as the novelty of filming in zero-g draws audience.

Key Players:

Space companies – SpaceX is huge, providing the transportation for orbitals (Crew Dragon, Starship soon) thespacetravelsummit.com, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic for suborbital. Axiom Space for stations and managing private astronaut missions. Boeing may eventually fly tourists on its Starliner if it enters service. Governments – NASA, ESA, etc., facilitating by buying commercial services (e.g., NASA’s pricing policy to allow private ISS visits) and regulating safety. Rich individuals – basically the initial customer base (people like Tito, Isaacman, etc., who fund missions). Over time, perhaps middle-class participation in suborbitals might grow if prices drop to say tens of thousands (like expensive adventure tourism rather than impossible cost).

Potential Impact:

The growth of space commercialization marks a shift where space is not just for astronauts and scientists, but for everyone (with enough money) – potentially analogous to how air travel was once luxury but became common. By 2035, if current trends hold, hundreds or a few thousand private citizens will have gone to space in some capacity thespacetravelsummit.com. This could have cultural impacts – seeing Earth’s fragility from space (the “Overview Effect”) often turns astronauts into environmental ambassadors. If more people experience that, it might subtly influence society’s outlook on global issues or our unity.

Economically, space tourism and commercial stations open a new sector. Jobs ranging from space tour guides (former astronauts hired by Axiom to accompany tourists) to space hotel staff could emerge. The market growth to $10B by 2030 and beyond suggests a significant niche luxury industry thespacetravelsummit.com. Also, the technological push to accommodate civilian travel might yield innovations in life support, safety, or comfort that benefit other space activities (and possibly spin-offs on Earth).

Commercial stations like Orbital Reef plan mixed use: tourism, research, manufacturing. Manufacturing in microgravity can produce high-quality crystals or fiber optics not possible on Earth; a few experiments have shown promise (e.g., ZBLAN glass fiber). By giving private labs a place to work in orbit, we could see new materials or biotech processes (protein crystal growth for pharma) with Earth benefits.

Space mining is further out but if progressed, it could upset resource markets on Earth or supply space construction materials (e.g., building large solar power satellites or habitats using asteroid metals).

Societally, the idea of ordinary people in space changes our narrative – it’s no longer just heroic astronauts but maybe your wealthy neighbor or in a generation, maybe you if costs keep dropping (Starship could drastically reduce per-person orbit cost if fully realized; Musk talks about <$100k for a Starship seat eventually). That democratization of access would cement humanity’s expansion off-world in a sustained way thespacetravelsummit.com. It parallels how aviation evolved from barnstorming to routine flight.

One must consider safety and risk: a major accident in space tourism could set the industry back or raise regulatory hurdles. So far, tragedies like the 2014 Virgin Galactic test crash killed a pilot, and in 2007 a SpaceShipTwo ground test accident killed engineers – sobering reminders that spaceflight is inherently risky. Operators will need very high safety standards to protect paying customers and their business.

Another aspect: international and legal frameworks. Right now, space tourism falls under countries’ spaceflight regulations (e.g., FAA in US for launch licensing, and participants fly as “spaceflight participants” who sign informed consent). As it grows, we may need more formalized rules perhaps via the UN or others about space traffic management (to avoid Kessler syndrome as more private launches occur) and shared use of space resources (avoid conflicts over lunar territories for commercial bases).

By 2035, one could imagine an ecosystem where government astronauts, private researchers, and tourists all mingle on a commercial space station; where a few intrepid tourists even looped around the Moon (Yusaku Maezawa’s dearMoon is slated to do that in coming years) thespacetravelsummit.com; and possibly an early-stage private lunar camp visited by both government and private expeditions. It’s the beginning of human settlement and enterprise in space becoming an extension of the global economy and human society thespacetravelsummit.com, not just an isolated government endeavor. This will have broad consequences: inspiring millions, generating new knowledge, and even beginning to shift some economic activities off-world (with unknown but exciting long-term effects on humanity’s growth and resilience). The early 20th century saw the birth of commercial aviation; the early 21st sees the birth of commercial spaceflight, potentially just as transformative over a longer arc.