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ISS NASA Space

NASA To Open International Space Station To Tourists (bbc.com) 111

Posted by msmash from the wow dept.
NASA is to allow tourists to visit the International Space Station from 2020, priced at $35,000 per night. From a report: The US space agency said it would open the orbiting station to tourism and other business ventures. There will be up to two short private astronaut missions per year, said Robyn Gatens, the deputy director of the ISS. NASA said that private astronauts would be permitted to travel to the ISS for up to 30 days, travelling on US spacecraft. "NASA is opening the International Space Station to commercial opportunities and marketing these opportunities as we've never done before," chief financial officer Jeff DeWit said in New York. NASA said that private commercial entities would be responsible for determining crew composition and ensuring that the private astronauts meet the medical and training requirements for spaceflight. The two companies hired by NASA are Elon Musk's SpaceX, which will use its Dragon capsule, and Boeing, which is building a spacecraft called the Starliner.
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NASA To Open International Space Station To Tourists More

NASA To Open International Space Station To Tourists

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  • I need an extended stay (Score:3)

    by Lije Baley ( 88936 ) on Friday June 07, 2019 @12:12PM (#58725598)

    Yours truly,
    S. R. Hadden

  • 5 Stars (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Great views! Food a little off. Also the toilet kind of sucks.

    • I strongly urge Mr Trump to take a vacation there. Plenty of opportunities for hotels and golf courses up there.

    • I booked my flight yesterday. You...?

    • the toilet kind of sucks.

      The shit genuinely does hit a fan up there.

    • Why? Can't the excrement simply be fired towards the sun? At some point near it, it would get split into all its individual atoms

      • You really need to play Kerbal Space Program.

        It would take a lot of energy to fire something towards the sun from the ISS orbit. Much easier to just throw it out the back window and let it burn up in the earth's atmosphere (which they do, sort of).

  • Discounts (Score:5, Funny)

    by Zephyn ( 415698 ) on Friday June 07, 2019 @12:25PM (#58725652)

    NASA is to allow tourists to visit the International Space Station from 2020, priced at $35,000 per night.

    I heard Priceline can get you 28K if you book on a Wednesday.

    • Re:Discounts (Score:5, Funny)

      by Zorro ( 15797 ) on Friday June 07, 2019 @12:28PM (#58725668)

      Don't you know anything?

      You have to book with https://www.orbitz.com/

    • NASA is to allow tourists to visit the International Space Station from 2020, priced at $35,000 per night.

      I heard Priceline can get you 28K if you book on a Wednesday.

      Can they get a discount on the rocket ride to get me up there?

  • Won't that let all the air out?

  • Once the program is up and running, it feels like $35k/night is too cheap. Admittedly, it's almost impossible to actually price this out, but it does feel like something you could start out at $500k/night, and work your way down as you figure out whether it's reasonable.

    • Re:Launch beta testers should stay for free. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Friday June 07, 2019 @12:45PM (#58725776) Homepage

      Once the program is up and running, it feels like $35k/night is too cheap.

      That's just a loss leader. They make it up on astronaut training and over-priced rocket fare.

    • It doesn't include the multimillion dollar ticket to get up there nor does it account for all of the other costs involved in getting you the bare minimum training needed. Space tourists are nothing new, albeit its been rare. Every time this has happened before NASA et al have made sure they get some use out of the tourist and have put them to work on something. Obviously no silicon valley millionaires are going to do a spacewalk but they will probably make them supervise the "experiments" that primary schoo

    • From your headline, I thought you were suggesting sending Satya Nadella there

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Once the program is up and running, it feels like $35k/night is too cheap. Admittedly, it's almost impossible to actually price this out, but it does feel like something you could start out at $500k/night, and work your way down as you figure out whether it's reasonable.

      Falcon 9 ($62m) + Crew Dragon ($?m, crew of 7) = $10 million/head, easily... so 30 days on ISS = 30*$35k = ~$1 million on top. It's basically "please come visit and give us PR" price, if they tried to charge $500k/night there's a good chance potential customers would say thanks but no thanks who needs the ISS. It cost $150 billion to build, there's no way they'll make even a tiny fraction back on hotel service. The only bad they really could do is hurt the impression they're key space infrastructure, much l

  • The price of 60M was based on taking 4 ppl. Dragon can take 7. Hopefully, SX will simply divide the 240M by number going up and charge each seat by that amount. IOW, NASA will see their cost go down as well.

  • NASA needs to offer the so-called "Holy Trinity" of blackjack, coke and whores.

    And advertise that whatever happens on the ISS . . . stays on the ISS.

    An "all you can eat" free buffet would be vital to the success as well.

  • If NASA really intends to help commercialize space, they really need to bring multiple habitats up to ISS and vet them. BA and axiom are the 2 likely companies. If adding a 3rd, then ILC/Dover combined with SNC. Still getting BA330 up there would allow another 6 ppl to the 9. In addition, it would allow shifts, which would really make the station productive. Finally, why only American crafts? Why not allow Russians to bring ppl up? Fair Competition will bring down prices.

    • You can run into limitations of the life support system. That will need to be expanded as well. Also it seems the ISS as we know it will only be around through the mid 2020s. I think the Russians intend to undock their modules and use them to form the basis of a new station of their own....assuming they have the money to do that.

      • im not sure that the Russians will do that. I suspect that they will stay if we work with them on going to the moon. Personally, I think it is INSANE to not have them as a partner to the moon. They will simply go with the CHinese. But more importantly, they have overall been a decent partner. Yeah, there has been some words, and yes, they charge us a butt-load for going to the ISS, but still.

    • If NASA really intends to help commercialize space, they really need to bring multiple habitats up to ISS and vet them.

      Bigelow's BEAM inflatable has been attached to the station since 2016. They intend to keep it attached through 2020, and possibly longer. It could stay as long as 2022 if Bigelow exercises contract options. Right at the moment, they're using it as a closet. Yes a B330 would be nice, and it addresses your other respondent's complaints about life support, since it's included.

      The first B330 was scheduled to launch in 2020, but on a ULA rocket that doesn't exist yet, so the odds aren't good, and in fact the

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jonwil ( 467024 )

        If ULA doesn't have the rocket for it, change things up and use a Falcon Heavy instead.

  • Just $35,000 per night? (Score:5, Funny)

    by hAckz0r ( 989977 ) on Friday June 07, 2019 @12:52PM (#58725810)

    I think they need to explain this "cost per night" concept a little better.

    Considering the ISS orbits the earth about every 92 minutes, and "night" occurs every 92 minutes, that could rack up a considerable bill in no time at all. At more than 15 trips around the Earth in 24 hours, at $35k a pop, that will set you back around half a million dollars per earth day.

    Beware of the small print when signing for purchasing your tickets.

  • Flat Earthers? (Score:3)

    by Pascoea ( 968200 ) on Friday June 07, 2019 @12:52PM (#58725818)
    Can we send one (or more) of the flat earthers up there? I'd be OK if that entire segment of the population finally shut up. Or do you think they'd find a some way to explain it all away anyway, even if one of their own witnessed it first-hand?

    • They would say something along the lines of:
      "Well I clearly can't see the sphere in my line of sight, therefore it must be flat and our orbit is just an optical illusion."

      You can't convince someone who doesn't want to be.

    • It'd be a lot cheaper to take them to any ocean beach, where they can also witness the curvature of the Earth first hand.

  • I see it has a really lousy Yelp review.

  • "NASA is to allow tourists to visit the International Space Station from 2020, priced at $35,000 per night"

    Make your cheque payable to Roscosmos, without which you cannot reach the ISS.

    Unless trampoline technology is greatly improved.

  • The space station cost $150 Billion to build and operate. $35,000 per night is essentially a rounding error in the ISS budget of the main contributing agencies. A 1 month stay would be priced at a measly $1 Million. The value to the private astronaut would be far in excess of $1 Million.

    The price seems low by at least a factor of 10.

  • Wait until one of these, launched by a Falcon Heavy, pulls up beside the ISS with 600 Chinese tourists aboard. How many people will be able to go through the station at a time?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Wait until one of these, launched by a Falcon Heavy, pulls up beside the ISS with 600 Chinese tourists aboard. How many people will be able to go through the station at a time?

      I recently got on an elevator in NYC at the same time a large group of young Chinese tourists appeared. I was near the rear of the pack, and it looked like the elevator was nearly full so I hesitated. I immediately felt a half dozen little hands on my back and was propelled into the elevator as if I were surfing a wave, while accompanied by the sound of the giggling girls behind me.
      Extrapolating from this single incident, I think the answer to the question may be "all of them".

  • Loads of air miles.
  • They forgot to mention that you need to negotiate transport separately... So throw on millions extra for a launch vehicle and space on a commercial crew capsule.

  • Room was too small, had to share a toilet with whole crew
    The views were nice, but can't go and really enjoy yourself
    Meals were so/so , felt pre-prepared and presentation needed work.
    On the whole 3 stars at best

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