What is it about?
Space tourism - how we (will) fulfill our dream of going into space with airplanes, rockets, gigantic towers and spaceships. Space is just 100 km away; so if you could drive a car vertically upwards, then you would be there in 1 hour. Until this "car" exists, we will have to resort to planes, missiles and rockets. This article explains the systems that currently exist and takes a look into the not-so-distant future, when humanity will fulfill its dream of spaceflight with the help of gigantic towers and powerful spaceships.
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Photo by NASA on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Space tourism is not only a fun acticity for the rich and powerful, but an important innovation driver for the aerospace sector. Buzz words like reliability, reusability, cost awareness, mass production and competition among different actors define the framework, which governs the current and future development of the sector. If all goes well, prices for a suborbital flight might plunge to 50,000 USD and eventually we will see hypersonic jets that will carry us from the US to Europe in something like one hour of travel time. Coasting along the edge of space at 50 kms+, passengers will experience the curvature of the Earth, while seeing both the Sun and the stars in a pitch black sky above them.
Perspectives
I love to analyse opportunities and challenges from a holistic perspective, as I am deeply convinced that today's complex issues cannot be answered by a one-dimensional analysis. Everthing is entangled and intertwined and space tourism is no exception. What we perceive as a hyper-crazy trend, will become a mainstream activity in the decades to come, similar to the jet planes that have changed the world forever.
Norbert FRISCHAUF
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Space Tourism, February 2026, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004747692_005.
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