BBC ON THIS DAY | 28 | 2001: First space tourist blasts off 2001: First space tourist blasts off A billionaire businessman from California has become the first paying passenger to go to outer space. Dennis Tito, aged 60, set off from Kazakhstan at 1338 local time (0838 GMT) for an eight-day holiday aboard the International Space Station. For Mr Tito, a former Nasa employee, it is the fulfilment of a dream he has held for 40 years. He paid $20m (�14m) for his trip of a lifetime, but he has faced a number of setbacks. First, Nasa rejected his proposal, on the grounds that he is not a trained astronaut. Dream ticket So he turned to Russia. The space authorities in Moscow agreed to take him - but his ticket became null and void after his original destination, the Mir Space Station, was decommissioned and fell back to Earth earlier this year. He was then offered a place on board a scheduled flight with a Soyuz supply mission to the International Space Station. The change of plans provoked a bitter row between the United States and Russia.

After months of wrangling, the American space agency only agreed to allowing Mr Tito on board the Space Station on the condition that he agree not to sue if injured, to pay for anything he breaks, and to sleep only in Russian sections of the station. Even then, it looked as though the flight might not go ahead, after last-minute computer glitches forced the Endeavour space shuttle to delay its return to Earth from the ISS and Nasa requested that the Soyuz trip be put off. Moscow refused to delay the mission, and after a tense stand-off Nasa finally relented. Now, though, Mr Tito can put all that behind him, as he heads out of the Earth's atmosphere and towards the destination that at times has seemed so near - yet so very far away. First Space Tourist: How a U.S. Millionaire Bought a Ticket to Orbit First Space Tourist: How a U.S. Millionaire Bought a Ticket to Orbit By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | April 27, 2011 06:00am ET MORE American businessman Dennis Tito, the world’s first orbital space tourist, is seen training for his historic 2001 flight to the International Space Station.

Tito launched in April 2001 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft thanks to a $20 million deal brokered by the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures. Credit: Space Adventures This story is part of a SPACE.com series to mark a decade of space tourism. Coming tomorrow: The future of space tourism and its impact on space science. If the era of commercial spaceflight has a birthday, it's April 28, 2001. On that date, American businessman Dennis Tito became history's first space tourist , paying his own way to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Forty years to the month after Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, Tito showed that there was money to be made in human spaceflight -- potentially lots of money, as he plunked down a reported $20 million for his flight. Now, 10 years later, the industry looks set to heat up, with multiple firms jockeying for position in a commercial space race that is arguably already under way.

"The private spaceflight industry did start with Dennis' flight," said Tom Shelley, president of Space Adventures, the Virginia-based company that brokered Tito's eight-day mission with Russia's Federal Space Agency and has sent a total of seven people on eight orbital flights since 2001. "That was the first real milestone and demonstrated to a lot of people that there was a market for private citizens to go to space." [ Photos: The World's First Space Tourists ] A lifelong dream, nearly deferred Tito made his millions in the world of finance. But he was once an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and has been a space enthusiast since he was a teenager. "My dream was to fly in space before I die," Tito said. "And I basically came up with that lifelong goal around the time of Yuri Gagarin's flight ." In early 2000, Tito started working toward making his dream a reality. He would turn 60 later that year, and he felt like his chances of getting into space were rapidly running out.

The oldest rookie spaceflyer at the time, after all, was NASA astronaut Deke Slayton, who first made it to orbit in 1975 at the age of 51. "So I was gettting over the hill, I thought," Tito told SPACE.com. "So I said, 'It's now or never.'" In June 2000, Tito signed a deal with a company called MirCorp to ride a Soyuz to Russia's Mir space station. However, those plans fell through in December of that year, when Russia announced that it planned to deorbit the aging station. (Mir burned up in Earth's atmosphere in March 2001.) Undeterred, Tito soon made other arrangements. He signed on with Space Adventures, which brokered an April 2001 flight to the International Space Station , again on a Soyuz. The station was a relatively new project at the time, having just begun assembly operations in November 1998. NASA makes it tough The Russians agreed to take Tito's money and offer him a seat on a Soyuz. But the other station partners -- notably NASA and space agencies from Canada, Europe and Japan -- were not so thrilled.

They informed Russia that they "recommended against" Tito's mission. NASA officials said at the time that they didn't object in principle to the presence of a paying customer aboard the orbiting lab. They just didn't think Tito's training would be sufficient by April, which they said was a time of complex and crucial station operations. "During this period, the presence of a nonprofessional crewmember who is untrained on all critical station systems, is unable to respond and assist in any contingency situation which may arise, and who would require constant supervision, would add a significant burden to the Expedition and detract from the overall safety of the International Space Station," reads a NASA press release from March 19, 2001. Tito thinks his age may also have been a factor. "If you're older, heart attacks happen, strokes happen, whatever," he said. "And what are they going to do, transport a corpse back to Earth? That would be very embarrassing for them, and traumatic." So NASA did what it could to keep Tito from getting off the ground in April, according to Tito and Space Adventures officials. "They put up everything that they could throw in the way to make it not happen," Shelley told SPACE.com.

Eight months at Star City Meanwhile, Tito carried on. He continued his training at the Star City complex outside Moscow, where cosmonauts have prepped for flight since Gagarin's day. Tito spent the better part of a year there, toiling in a sort of limbo. "It wasn't easy," Tito said. "I had to hang out in Russia for eight months without really knowing whether I was going to fly or not." Eventually, Tito's perseverance paid off. Over NASA's objections, he launched on April 28, 2001, becoming the 415th person ever to reach space. But Tito said all the drama and difficulties are water under the bridge, especially since the agency has been so supportive of the six other space tourists who have since flown to the orbiting lab -- and so supportive of private spaceflight in general over the past decade. [ 10 Years of Space Tourism ] "Their support is stronger than I would've ever dreamed or hoped for," Tito said.

"So my bottom line is, I have nothing but good things to say about NASA." Fulfilling the dream Tito made it to orbit, spent about six days aboard the space station, and then landed in Kazakhstan on May 6, 2001. His mission has had a lasting impact, inspiring a range of private spaceflight investment and activity, according to Shelley. "I think [Virgin Galactic's] Richard Branson and [Blue Origin's] Jeff Bezos, and even Elon [Musk of SpaceX] -- they really wouldn't be in this industry if it wasn't for what Dennis originally did," Shelley said. Tito's flight, he added, demonstrated "that this was a feasible activity for private citizens to step up and pay the money." For his part, Tito said he is happy to have been a part of the birth of this industry, though he shifts praise onto spaceflight entrepreneurs and the orbital tourists who came after him. And for him, of course, the trip will always resonate on a much more personal level. "To me, it was a 40-year dream," Tito said.

"The thing I have taken away from it is a sense of completeness for my life -- that everything else I would do in my life would be a bonus." You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall . Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook . Editor's Recommendations World's first space tourist 10 years on: Dennis Tito - BBC News BBC News World's first space tourist 10 years on: Dennis Tito 30 April 2011 Image caption Dennis Tito's jubilant return to Earth: "I just came back from paradise!" Ten years ago, US multi-millionaire Dennis Tito became the world's first-ever space tourist. He is said to have paid $20m for his eight days in space. Mr Tito blasted off on 28 April 2001, but only after a struggle to get anyone to take him - the US space agency Nasa refused on the grounds that he was not a trained astronaut, so it was the Russians who facilitated the trip. To date, only six people have followed in his footsteps - paying for a ticket to orbit in space.

I am one of the happiest humans alive But 10 years on, the lure of making space tourism more accessible to the masses is just as strong. Virgin Galactic hopes to take fare-paying passengers into space in around two years time, and a Russian company has even announced plans for a hotel in space. On the tenth anniversary of the flight, Dennis Tito reflected on his eight-day holiday in space for BBC World Service. Dennis Tito There was absolutely no fear. I was so excited and so were my crew mates. We were going to be in space, and we thought of nothing else, but the success of that mission. Media captionWatch: Dennis Tito arrives at the International Space Station So there was absolutely no apprehension - it was just a really good, euphoric feeling that finally the day had come. It was not a shuttle, it was a space capsule; we were literally elbow-to-elbow. The countdown began, and it went on schedule to the second. It was a little surprising when lift-off occurred - I thought it would be much more rigorous; you could barely feel it, and you could not hear it. When I witnessed a launch from the outside, even a mile away, there was a huge sound.

But we heard nothing of that within the space craft. 'Like flying' As we lifted off and the fuel began to burn, the vehicle accelerated and it kept on accelerating, and then you felt just a gradual build up of G-forces. Eight minutes and 50 seconds later, you experience your last of the three-gs, and then zero-gs when the engine shuts down - that is the most spectacular moment of the entire flight. At burn out you become weightless; there are pencils that are hung from strings in the cabin, and at orbit insertion, those pencils start to just float. It was a sense of completeness - from then on, everything is a bonus And then looking to my right, out of the window, I could see the blackness of space, I could see Earth, and the curvature of Earth, and the sight of Earth from space was just spectacular. I cannot ever duplicate that euphoric feeling that I had at that moment. For me it was a 40-year goal. Often achieving a major goal in life occurs slowly, but this was instant - it was just at that precise moment. It was once we got out of the space suit that we were able to float around and experience weightlessness.

It is really extraordinary, because there is nowhere on earth that we - or any of our ancestors in the entire history of evolution - experience that. It was a wonderful experience; the feeling of floating is just unbelievable. Moving around is not difficult and you learn very quickly. When we were on the International Space Station we had more room - you would push off from one area, very gently, and you would fly to another area. It was like flying, and that was a lot of fun! Image caption Dennis Tito said he could not duplicate the feeling of seeing Earth from space for the first time Vivid Earth It took two days of orbiting the Earth, 16 orbits a day, before we caught up with the station. There were three crew members who were there for about two months as part of the long-term crew, so they don't see many human beings, and they welcomed us with open arms. I think we have a much better view of the Earth from the International Space Station. The port hole that we would actually look out at the earth was through the floor, so I was always looking at earth.

Then we had some port holes that looked out to the side, and we could see the edges of the Earth - so we had two different kinds of views. We would go from one to the other, and I would spend most of the 45 minutes - which is half of one orbit - and be either videotaping the view, or just sitting for 45 minutes, peering out, listening to opera, and just enjoying the experience. The images are vivid in my mind. I continue to enjoy it every day! It went very quickly and probably the most disappointing thing for me was after a total of eight days in space, I had to return to Earth. I would have happily stayed up there for months! For me, there was very little transition from the space flight to Earth. Within 48 hours I was actually back to my running - I ran a couple of miles. With Nasa, there was a strong feeling that my flight shouldn't take place. And I think it's somewhat understandable, it was the first truly private space flight. And I think that they were concerned, number one, about me being a private citizen; and number two, that my age may not have qualified me. They had probably some reason to be concerned.

Space future I hope that tens of thousands of people can experience what I experienced, for 5% of the cost. Image caption "I continue to enjoy it every day": Dennis Tito 10 years on I believe there will be a time, it may take 10 or 20 years, where the cost for flying in orbit might be as low as a million dollars in today's money. A million dollars is certainly a lot of money, but there are many millionaires in the world today, and I know people that would spend their last penny to have this experience. I often thought that if I did spend my last penny, I could live on social security for the rest of my life and still be happy, because I'd achieved what I wanted to achieve. It was a sense of completeness - from then on, everything is a bonus. And the last 10 years, everything since then, has been just extra. And I think I am one of the happiest humans alive because of that.

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Profile: Tito the spaceman Saturday, 28 April, 2001, 11:57 GMT 12:57 UK Profile: Tito the spaceman Tito has undergone 900 hours of cosmonaut training Forty years after Yuri Gagarin became the first man in orbit, an American businessman has become the world's first space tourist. Tito in space Worked for Nasa in the 1960s Estimated $200m fortune Wants to become a goodwill space ambassador for George W Bush Dennis Tito blasted off on his trip to the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, having paid Russian space chiefs a reported $20m (�14m) for the privilege. Tito is on board a Russian supply ship as a passenger, riding with two veteran cosmonauts. The flight makes the 60-year-old the 415th person in space - and the first as a paying traveller. The flight is a dream come true for the Californian financier, who has been trying to join the elite club of space travellers for decades.

Hard fight "It is not going to be a holiday (but) to me it is a life's dream and the start of a new career," Tito told journalists, during a break from training for the mission. Tito, from Los Angeles, started his career as a space scientist, designing flight trajectories for three historic Mars missions in the 1960s. Tito will blast off on a Soyuz rocket He worked at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena for five years, before leaving to set up the finance company Wilshire Associates, through which he made his fortune. But despite his millions, Tito has had to fight to blaze a trail for a new generation of adventure tourists. He first looked into a space vacation in 1991, on a trip to Moscow. And when he did finally get hold of a ticket into space he suddenly found it to be null and void thanks to Russia's decision to scuttle the Mir space station before it fell uncontrollably from the sky. Civilian history Russian space officials later offered him a ride on a Russian rocket ship supplying the ISS. Tito's former employer - Nasa - initially objected to the trip, citing safety concerns.

Tito is a celebrity in Russia But international space officials finally agreed that Tito could fly, subject to him signing a deal relieving all national space agencies of responsibility in the event of a tragedy. Tito also signed a contract saying he will pay for any breakages he causes and he is banned from US segments of the ISS unescorted. Tito may be the first to pay for a trip into in space, but he is not the first civilian to make the journey. One of Nasa's early attempts to put a non-professional in space ended in disaster when teacher Christa McAuliffe and the crew she was flying with were killed in the Challenger explosion in 1986. Tito also follows confectionery scientist Helen Sharman, who in 1991 beat thousands to become Britain's first astronaut, a Japanese journalist and a member of the Saudi royal family, who both went to Mir.

Search BBC News Online World's First 'Space Tourist' Lifts Off - ABC News ABC News World's First 'Space Tourist' Lifts Off By ABC News Email Dennis Tito, a 61-year-old California millionaire and former NASA engineer, became the world's first paying space tourist when the Russian space agency launched him and two Russian cosmonauts aboard a rocket today. Tito and tthe crew blasted off from the Kazakstan cosmodrome on time this morning. Tito appeared calm, wearing a space suit and a smile. The trip by the Russian crew was almost delayed due to concerns from NASA that the space station would get too crowded while an American crew did some necessary computer repairs. Fortunately for Tito, NASA said Friday that it struck a deal with the Russian Space Agency, allowing him to launch on time without interrupting the American crew's work on the ailing International Space Station. Despite reservations that he wasn't qualified to join professional astronauts in space, the nations that run the international space station agreed to allow Tito's visit after Russia insisted that it would go ahead with the mission.

Tito paid the Russian space agency $20 million to fly in space, but Russia's partners in the space station — especially NASA — objected, saying his lack of training would require additional safety measures. Russia also said it had been unwilling to postpone the Soyuz mission because the cosmonauts must replace the space station's escape craft, whose service lifetime expires at the end of the month. The Soyuz capsule, which is considered the space station's lifeboat, needs to be replaced every six months. Fit to Fly? The oldest child of Italian immigrants, Tito says he dreamed of space flight when he saw Sputnik launch as a teenager in 1957. As an adult, he spent years as a rocket scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., planning spacecraft missions to Mars and Venus. Eventually, he switched to investing and amassed a fortune at his own investment firm. Tito has been training at the Star City, Russia space center for a year, learning the details of a Soyuz spacecraft and practicing how to survive a landing in Siberia. To prepare for the launch, he trained in a centrifuge that exposed him to eight times the force of gravity.

He's also learned his way around the mock Soyuz capsule. Just days before the launch, he proclaimed that he well prepared. "The training is what counts and I've had a significant amount of training. And that, coupled with my aerospace engineering background, I think puts me in a very strong position, as far as being able to function in space," he told ABCNEWS. Tito has no duties during the mission. "I'm not a fighter pilot, I'm a businessman, and I want to be able to absorb as much of this experience and relate it to as many people as I can," he said. He said he would take pictures and tell people about the experience upon his return. The American crew on the space station says they welcome Tito's visit to orbiting spacecraft. "We'll welcome anyone who shows up at our hatch, and we'll invite them inside and treat them like we would any spacefarer," said U.S. astronaut James Voss in an interview transmitted from the station. ABCNEWS' Jim Slade and Willow Lawson contributed to this report. 0 Shares A children's history of space timeline, the key space exploration events, ideal research for space projects or homework!

As specialist retailers of space toys, space dressing up and other fun space stuff, we love everything about space exploration. Here is a list of the most important events in space history. If you have any queries or think something is missing, please email us at info@spacekids.co.uk If you would like to visit our online shop, please visit In 1942 the German V2 was the first rocket to reach 100km from the Earthï¿½s surface (the boundary of space). The rocket was designed by Wernher Von Braun, who later worked with NASA as the creator of the rockets that went to the moon. In 1947, the first animals were launched into space. Fruit flies were used to study the effects of space travel on animals, and were chosen because they are more similar to humans than you might imagine! The flies travelled with a supply of corn to eat on the flight. Albert II, was the first monkey in space. He was a Rhesus monkey, a type of monkey that originally comes from Asia.

Albert went into space on 14th June, 1949 in a specially adapted American V2 rocket, that flew to a height of 83 miles from earth. On 4th October 1957, Russia launched the first satellite into space; Sputnik 1, and the space age had properly begun! Sputnik was the first satellite in orbit around the earth. Today there are over 500 working satellites in space. Sputnik means "Satellite" in Russian. In November 1957, the Russian space dog Laika became the first animal to orbit the earth. Laika travelled in a spacecraft known as Sputnik 2. Laika means "Barker" in Russian, and her mission helped scientists understand whether people could survive in space. By 1959 Both American and Russian scientists were in a race to get a spacecraft to the Moon; the Russians made it first. Space-probe Luna 2 crash-landed into the moon at a speed that would kill an astronaut if one had been travelling in it! It was ten more years until a human visited the moon's surface.

On 12th April 1961, Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Gagarin's spacecraft, Vostok 1, completed one orbit of the earth, and landed about two hours after launch. Gagarin had to bail out and land using his parachute, because the Vostok 1 was designed to crash land! The first woman in space was Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. After her 1963 mission, Valentina became an important member of the Russian Government, and has been awarded many honours and prizes for her achievements. A crater on the far side of the Moon is named after her! In 1963 US President John F. Kennedy promised the world that the US would land men on the moon before 1970. Before risking people's lives, NASA sent a robot spaceship, to make sure they could land safely. It was called Surveyor 1, and it made the second soft landing on the Moon on 30th May 1966, a few months after Russian probe Luna 9 landed successfully.

Once it had landed on the moon , the robotic spaceship Surveyor 1 started taking photographs of the moon's surface, which it transmitted back to excited scientists in America and around the world. The scientists used this vital information about the terrain to work out how they might land people on the moon safely. On 20th July 1969, Neil Armstrong , and then Buzz Aldrin took "one small step" and became the first men on the moon. The first words said on the moon were "the Eagle has landed". Their spaceship, Apollo 11 worked perfectly, flying them 250,000 miles to the moon, and bringing them all the way back safely to earth. Buzz was a childhood nickname - his real name was Edwin! Two days into its journey to the moon, on 13th April 1970, Apollo 13 suffered an explosion caused by a wiring fault. Using only whatever was on board, NASA scientists and the astronauts on board improvised repairs to bring the crippled spaceship home. The mission was a successful failure: although the crew never walked on the moon at least they made it home alive!

From 1971 American astronauts on the fourth, fifth and sixth Apollo missions enjoyed use of a moon car to explore the moon. Known as the Lunar Rover, it was electric powered, and had a top speed of 8mph. It was designed and developed in only 17 months, by Boeing, the aeroplane company famous for making the Jumbo Jet. Find out more here . In 1973, Russian space probe Mars 2 explored Mars, the fourth planet of the solar system . The probe was made of two parts. One part stayed in orbit for a year, sending pictures of Mars back to earth. The other was to land and explore the surface of Mars, but it was destroyed when its parachute failed to open. Until 12th April 1981 all spacecraft were designed to be used only once. The Space Shuttle , was designed to be reused for up to 100 visits to space, in an attempt to make space travel less expensive. With five hugely powerful rocket motors, it can fly at more than 17,000 miles per hour. Six were been built, but none fly any more - NASA retired the last of the fleet in 2011.

On January 28th 1986, tragedy struck. Space Shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after launch, because of a fuel system failure. All seven astronauts on board were killed, and all shuttles were grounded for nearly three years. This shocking accident reminded the world of the dangers of space travel, and the incredible bravery of all astronauts. The MIR space station was built in sections, each piece launched by a rocket and then joined together in orbit. Construction started in 1986, with the last piece being fitted ten years later! MIR was the first consistently inhabited long-term space station. MIR was destroyed in 2001 when it burned up as it crashed back to earth. In 1989, Helen Sharman entered a competition to become the first British astronaut in space. After 18 months of intensive training , Helen was part of a Russian mission to the MIR space station. She spent eight days in space conducting scientific experiments. She used to work for the sweet company that makes Mars bars! In 2000 the first permanent crew moved into the International Space Station (ISS), where crews of astronauts have been living ever since.

The ISS is a huge space station for research and space exploration that began construction in 1986, with the final major module arriving in 2010. On the 28th April 2001 American millionaire Dennis Tito became the first space tourist when he paid around 20 million dollars for a ride in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Dennis spent a week in orbit, most of the time visiting the International Space Station. He had to train for 900 hours just to be a passenger! On June 21st, 2004, SpaceShipOne made the first ever privately funded manned space flight. This space plane was built by a private aviation firm to win the 10 million dollar Ansari X Prize. A new Airline, Virgin Galactic has been set up to offer private tourist flights into space, using a new version of this space plane. Despite a terrible crash in testing in 2014 in which a pilot was tragically killed, tickets remain available for flights starting around 2015. As NASA began to plan retirement for the Space Shuttle, private companies began work on spacecraft to replace it.

One of these companies, SpaceX, became the first to launch a privately funded liquid-fueled rocket into Orbit, the Falcon 1. SpaceX now uses its Falcon rockets to launch their Dragon capsule - an unmanned vehicle that takes supplies to the ISS. Launched in 2004, it took European Space Agency's Rosetta probe ten years to reach Comet 67P/Churyumovï¿½Gerasimenko. The World watched as the ESA team successfully oversaw a soft landing by their Philae lander, which conveyed valuable data from the Comet's surface. The U.S. National Space Policy of 2010 set out goals for space exploration; to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and to the planet Mars in the 2030s. Many of the astronauts that will be involved in these exciting missions are only children right now! Why not visit the Spacekids online shop for fun space related toys, dressing up, and other cool stuff at visit our learn webpages for more articles about space exploration at HobbySpace - Space Tourism HobbySpace .

In April of 2001, Dennis Tito became the first traveler to pay for a trip to space with money out of his own pocket. He decided to do it and then just did it. That's what tourism is all about. Since then six other "personal spaceflight participants" have traveled to the ISS. The trips were arranged by the company Space Adventures . Market Studies by NASA and many other organizations have shown that there are sizable markets for space tourism, both suborbital and orbital, and that the markets will grow rapidly as the cost of sending a person into space drops from current levels. Adventure tourism, such as trips to Antarctica or Mount Everest, has long been a profitable business. This can involve packages with prices as high as $100k range and even higher. Though you commonly hear talk of "space joyrides for the rich", the development of space tourism will follow the normal course of development seen for most all consumer technologies and services. Tourism itself began as something only done by the very rich. Passenger flights on airlines were initially very expensive. VCRs, DVDs, PCs, etc. all started out as very expensive "toys". Eventually competition and economies of scale (i.e.

mass production) take over and prices drop to the level the middle class can handle Experience microgravity on a commercial parabolic flight. Before orbital rides are widely available, suborbital flights will be the most common way to ride into space. There are several companies currently planning suborbital space vehicles for tourism and other applications. The typical plan is to got to around 100km where one can see the horizon out to 1000km or so and clearly see the curvature of the earth and the starry blackness of space. In October of 2004, Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne won the X PRIZE and thereby started a new race to develop the first vehicle that will provide suborbital space rides to paying customers. Suborbital generally refers to an up-and-down ( i.e. mostly vertical) flight that reaches an altitude of around 100km or more but does not go into orbit around the earth. The billionaire Richard Branson in September 2004 announced a contract with Burt Rutan that gave him funding to design and build a passenger vehicle referred to as SpaceShipTwo (SS2).

The goal for the SS2 was to fly safely and routinely above 100km for a cost of $250k per seat. The SS2 carries 6 passengers and 2 pilots. The initial goal of Virgin Galactic was to begin commercial flights well before 2010. However, development problems, particularly with the propulsion system, led to many postponements. Commercial flights were finally expected to start in 2015 but an accident in Oct. 2014 destroyed the SpaceShipTwo and killed the copilot. The accident was caused by a combination of pilot error and a poor design of the controls of the return system. Richard Branson, with the support from the 700+ people who have put deposits down for flights, decided to continue with the program. The newly built SpaceShipTwo Unity vehicle was rolled out in January 2016. It is to begin unpowered test flghts in 2016 and powered flights in 2017. If all goes well, commercial flights would start in 2018.

Meanwhile, Blue Origin , the company founded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com fame, has continued step-by-step development of vertical takeoff and landing reusable rockets. As of July 2016, the New Shepard rocket vehicle has flown four times to over 100 km. The vehicle is a combination of a booster and crew capsule. After the engine shuts down, the New Shepard capsule separates and a crew of up to 6 people will experience about 4 minutes of weightlessness as the capsule passes over the apogee of the flight. It will then enter the atmosphere and land by parachute. Meanwhile, the booster does a powered vertical landing. The first crewed flights are set for 2017. If all goes well with the test program, commercial flights with passengers will start in 2018. The ticket prices are expected to be initially in the $250k range. You can also train for spaceflight by experiencing microgravity in Russian plane flying parabolic trajectories. The company ZERO-G also offering such rides in the US for $5000 per person. The first 20 flights were already sold out before they began regular service.

ZERO-G offers flights out of Las Vegas, Kennedy Space Center and other locales. If you can't pay for an orbital trip, perhaps you can win a ride . There are usually several contests going on at any particular time that offer the opportunity for the winner to go into space. A commercial space habitat prototype built by Bigelow Aerospace . When orbital flights become lower in price, there are companies designing space hotels where you can enjoy microgravity sports and astonishing views of earth. The company Bigelow Aerospace has launched two prototypes of its inflatable space habitat. Another module called BEAM was attached to the International Space Station in 2016. The company currently hopes to launch a BA-330 module (330 cubic meters volume) to the ISS in the 2020 and later in the 2020s create a free-flyer station comprized of two or more BA-330s. SpaceX and Boeing would provide commercial transport to the station. See Opportunities and Pricing - Bigelow Aerospace (Spring 2013) . See this slide presentation by Sam Coniglio at the Space Tourism Society for a nice overview of the possibilities for future space tourism.

If you would like to travel in space in spirit only, then send a token of yourself , e.g. your name or DNA sample, on a space probe. The company Space Adventures and other companies offer rides on high performance jets such as the MIG-25, which can go to 25km in altitude. See also the section on Astronomy Tourism that involves trips to see eclipses, Aurora and other astronomical phenomena. Books on Space Tourism: Here are a couple of his current projects: Golf Sponsorships - hold hole-in-one tournaments in which the winner gets to ride on a Zero-G aircraft There are insurance companies that sell so-called "hole-in-one policies" that pay off if someone hits a hole-in-one at such a tournament. The companies know the odds for hitting hole-in-ones so they calculate the premiums such that over many such tournaments they come out ahead. The purse for the X Prize, in fact, was funded via a "hole-in-one" policy in which the insurance company essentially bet against any team winning the competition before the deadline. eSpaceTickets.com now offers a package of resources that make it easy for an organizations to hold such tournaments with a space prize theme.

Space Tour's Long Distance Services Tour2Space offers this space tourism sweepstakes ("no purchase necessary"). Purchase of products from their affiliate advertisers allows you to enter the contest. Trans Lunar Orbital Vacation Raffle - Trans Lunar Research is a non-profit organisation aiming to "set up the first manned Lunar Station on the surface of the Moon." They hope to bootstrap their efforts with a raffle that will fund their work. Dole's Win a Trip to Outer Space Contest - This contest was won by a retired man who decided to take $50k in cash instead of waiting for the trip to space. This contest offered the winner a $98,000 trip on Space Adventure's space cruiser (formerly the Zegrahm Space Voyage program) that would fly a suborbital flight sometime in this decade). Edge of Space Sweepstakes Contest to fly on a MIG 25 sponsored by the travel agency Travelers Advantage and Space Adventures Producer Mark Burnett to Develop TV Show: Destination Mir - Space.com - Aug.10.00 Space Commander / Brainpool / Space tv The German Brainpool AG group announced this contest that would send a winner each year to the International Space Station.

They reportedly wanted to reserve 7 slots on Russian Soyuz rockets; one for each year of the program. However, the web page no longer responds and nothing turns up in a search at Brainpool so probably the project has either died or returned to a longer term development stage. Space tv lets candidates fly to the universe - Spaceref - Dec.12.00 Ancient Astronaut / Sky Games - Image World Media MirCorp signed a deal in 2001 with Image World Media to reserve a seat on each of two Soyuz flights in 2003. The Asia based company wanted to use the seats to fly the winners of survivor games shows to the ISS. MirCorp To Launch Game Show Winners Into Space in 2003 - Space.com - Nov.21.01 TV 2 - Den store mission (The Big Mission) - a Danish TV contest that was to award contestants the opportunity to ride on a sub-orbital flight when they become available. Otherwise, they could take a monetary prize. Don't know if any prizes were ever awarded.

Here is an interesting interview with a former Shuttle astronaut who competed in a non-space reality show: Interview: Astronaut 'Survivor' Dan Barry - collectSPACE - Mar.13.06 . Space Tourism Pioneer: Q & A With Private Spaceflyer Dennis Tito Space Tourism Pioneer: Q & A With Private Spaceflyer Dennis Tito By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | April 27, 2011 06:00am ET MORE Dennis Tito became the first space tourist when he launched toward the International Space Station in April 2001. Here, he shares his experiences at a space conference in 2003. Credit: NASA Kennedy Space Center This story is part of a SPACE.com series to mark a decade of space tourism. Coming tomorrow: The future of space tourism and its impact on space science. On April 28, 2001, American businessman Dennis Tito ushered in the era of private spaceflight when he blasted into orbit aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, bound for the International Space Station. Tito paid a reported $20 million for his eight-day jaunt, becoming the world's first space tourist .

In the process, he helped demonstrate the money-making potential of human spaceflight – potential that many different companies are now racing to tap. As the 10th anniversary of Tito's groundbreaking flight nears, SPACE.com caught up with the space pioneer to chat about his experience -- and the prospects for private spaceflight going forward SPACE.com: Does it seem like it's been 10 years since your flight? Tito: It seems like a short time, because so much has happened that in my view is extremely positive in the commercial human spaceflight domain. SPACE.com: Could you give some examples? Tito: Shortly after I flew, Mark Shuttleworth flew. Then Greg Olsen and Anousheh Ansari -- a total of seven people and eight flights. [ Photos: The World's First Space Tourists ] The fact that we've now done this eight times with seven people is one important accomplishment, because it's demonstrated that it isn't just one crazy guy that decided he wanted to fly in space. There are people that are willing to make big sacrifices -- financially, putting their lives on the line and taking the time to train in Russia.

I think the success of the [Ansari] X Prize, and Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne successfully flying suborbitally [in 2004], was a major accomplishment for a private company. And then the follow-on, with Virgin Galactic signing them up and funding the development of SpaceShipTwo . We will have suborbital commercial spaceflight, I think, within the next couple-three years at a price that people can afford. So that's the second major accomplishment. The third major accomplishment goes beyond anything I've seen done by one person since [Soviet aerospace engineer Sergei] Korolev or maybe Wernher von Braun -- what Elon Musk has done with SpaceX. It's just absolutely incredible what he has accomplished so far. I think this is one man that we'll look back upon as being one of the greatest space entrepreneurs of all time. Flying the Falcon 9 with the Dragon space capsule and successfully re-entering it -- he's well on the way to not only developing a cargo ship, which is almost there, but a manned craft, and that will be really our next method, other than calling upon the Russians, to transport people to space.

And the fourth [accomplishment] is politically what has been done at NASA and the administration in terms of changing the whole nature of procurement, and the way they're supporting commercial human spaceflight. I think this is probably the biggest fundamental change in NASA philosophy and government policy with regard to space in many, many decades, if not from inception. It's just mind-boggling. I look back at those accomplishments more than I even look at my own flight as an accomplishment, because it just happened to coincide with this 10-year period. SPACE.com: But you did help get the ball rolling in many ways. So how does it feel to be a part of that? Tito: Well, I'm very happy that I was there, but let me clarify what really happened at that time. My dream was to fly in space before I die. And I basically came up with that lifelong goal around the time of Yuri Gagarin's flight . So here I was, in the year 2000, and I was about to turn 60. I said, "Time is running out." I was gettting over the hill, I thought.

So I said, "It's now or never." That's why I pushed so hard. And I pushed very hard. It became kind of an obsession. I had to convince the Russians -- because I knew that was the only way to go -- that I was serious. I had to demonstrate that I was really committed to this, and I wouldn't let them down. Because they hadn't done that before -- it was all brand-new. [ 10 Years of Space Tourism ] And then I had to convince them I was in good physical shape, which was difficult in itself because I was 60 when I really started training. And the life expectancy of a Russian male was 57. So in their mind I'm already dead [laughs]. So that was the challenge. Now, a part of it was, I was very open to the media. I held a number of interviews on the primary channel, Channel 1 in Moscow, and I made an effort to kind of win over support. I didn't have 100 percent Russian support -- the Russian space agency was not initially as enthusiastic. The Energia people were, and the Star City people were, but the Russian space agency was a little bit tighter connected with NASA.

And clearly NASA was not interested in the idea -- in fact, turned very negative on the idea. It wasn't easy. I had to hang out in Russia for eight months without really knowing whether I was going to fly or not. SPACE.com: So NASA made it pretty hard for you? They tried to keep this from happening? Tito: Oh, they really tried. To their credit, though, they [have since] turned 180 degrees. And my view is, whatever hardship they caused me then, I forgive them totally. SPACE.com: Do you think NASA's reluctance was because this was so new? At the time, they said April 2001 was a bad time for a tourist trip because there was a lot of assembly work being done on the space station. Tito: Well, there's a whole series of theories. Remember, [would-be teacher-in-space] Christa McAuliffe was a private citizen selected by NASA to be an astronaut and tragically died in the Challenger accident [in 1986]. That was a real big blow to the nation. It's certainly painful, but for people that are professional astronauts to lose their lives is a possibility, because that goes with the territory.

But to see a private individual, this thing happen, is something else. And I think at that point, NASA decided that they weren't going to fly private citizens anymore. It was a big public relations risk, it was a big negative shock to the nation and they didn't want to go through this again. And we can understand that. That's reasonable. I think another issue is, they were concerned about my age. If you're older, heart attacks happen, strokes happen, whatever. And what are they going to do, transport a corpse back to Earth? That would be very embarrassing for them, and traumatic. So those are probably a couple of factors. And then, since they didn't really select me, they had no idea whether I was really qualified. They didn't know whether the Russians were just slipping me through because they needed the money, and that I was some bozo with a lot of money, and I was just going to totally screw things up when I got up there. Well, we all know that didn't happen. To NASA's credit, they recognized that, and they immediately changed their policy to support it. And now you go 10 years, and their support is stronger than I would've ever dreamed or hoped for.

They've been very supportive of private spaceflight -- the individuals flying on the station. [Spaceships of the World: 50 Years of Human Spaceflight ] So my bottom line is, I have nothing but good things to say about NASA. SPACE.com: Once you got to orbit, what was it like? What were some of your most memorable experiences? Tito: Well, the first thing was lift-off. The nine minutes of sheer terror that they describe? I didn’t find it that way at all, because the training was excellent. The thing I do remember is at burnout of the third stage, which meant that we had just entered orbit -- they had pencils hanging from strings in the cabin of the Soyuz. And these pencils just started floating, and I knew it was weightless. You couldn't really tell yourself, because you're strapped in with your belts, so you didn't float at all. But I knew that we were in orbit. And I looked out the window, saw the blackness of space, saw the curvature of Earth, and I just said, "Yes. I made it. I accomplished my life's dream." And that moment I will never forget.

SPACE.com: Only a few hundred people have ever had that view. Tito: I was the 415th human to reach space. To me, it was a 40-year dream. The thing I have taken away from it is a sense of completeness for my life -- that everything else I would do in my life would be a bonus. SPACE.com: Has the experience changed your life in other ways? Tito: Well, I'm empowered by that success, by being able to accomplish it. Even though I will say I accomplished my life dream, now I have some other goals that I think I can accomplish. I recently got my glider rating a couple of years ago, and now I'm working on two glider aircraft, contributing to the construction and planning on being a pilot, to set some world records for both speed and altitude. And, who knows? That might be accomplished some day. I think it's feasible. SPACE.com: Would you like to go back to space? Space Adventures [the company that arranged Tito's flight] is selling seats now for a trip around the moon…. Tito: You know, I never had a goal of going around the moon, although I'd love to to that.

But it's out of reach, I think, moneywise. I have to be practical. That's probably $120 million, and I'm not prepared to spend that kind of money. And, frankly, I think even if I had that amount of money sitting in the bank, I'm 10 years older now. There is a time to hang up your boots as far as that goes. There'll be other people that can do that. I'd rather just sit back and watch them accomplish another milestone. And I'll deal with something that -- like, soaring goals that probably will broaden my experience more than repeating what I've done in the past. SPACE.com: Do you see orbital spaceflight opening up to a lot more people in the next few decades? Tito: I definitely do. And I think it's going to be much bigger than most people predict. I think that we're going to see the costs, in today's dollars, of sending an individual to space for a week or whatever reduced by a major, major amount. Right now, I think it's about $50 million. It could be a million or two if we get some reusability in orbital spacecraft.

I see great potential in the Falcon 9, being able to deliver people to orbit very inexpensively. [ Vote Now! The Best Spaceships of All Time ] You've had close to 10 people pay large amounts of money. There aren't that many people who are worth $50 million. Now, if you lower this down to a million or two -- there are actually millions of people in the United States who are worth a million dollars. SPACE.com: Yes, slashing the price would expand that pool enormously. Tito: Oh, geometrically. So I think the big surprise is going to be -- not that we're not going to see thousands of people flying suborbitally, but that that's going to kind of whet the appetite. And people will say, "Oh, I flew suborbitally, I came back, I was real comfortable from a safety standpoint. I'm ready to graduate and go spend a week in orbit." SPACE.com: Do you think it's feasible to see the price come down that much in 10 years or so? Tito: Yes. But I may be off in time a little. I think it'll eventually get down to that price in today's dollars.

It could happen within 10 years. But I think it will happen within 10 to 20 years. And if I'm wrong, it'll be $5 million -- we won't quite be there yet. But I think you're going to see a lot of people flying in 2021. SPACE.com: It's really exciting to think about those possibilities. Tito: It is exciting. Because as human beings, we need new challenges. And the history of our species is that, for millions of years, we've been migrating. We started in Africa, and we've been migrating in waves around the world. That's a natural part of survival. And we're going to migrate to Mars and maybe other habitats. We're going to set up colonies. It's so ingrained in our behavior as humans to explore, and to expand and to migrate. We're wired that way, and that's why it's so satisflying. You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall . Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook .

Editor's Recommendations Mars mission plan launched by US millionaire Dennis Tito | Science | The Guardian Close This article is 3 years old A US millionaire who became the first private space tourist has unveiled ambitious plans to send a man and woman – probably a married couple – on a round trip to Mars when planetary alignment allows in 2018. Dennis Tito, 72, a former rocket scientist who made his fortune through investments, said his Mission for America aims to spur a new era of space exploration. Tito, who became the first private space tourist when he paid the Russians $20m (£13m) for a ticket to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2001, outlined his plans in Washington DC on Wednesday. He is not intending to fly himself. Speculation over the details of the risky voyage has spread through the space community in recent weeks after the Inspiration Mars Foundation , a non-profit organisation formed by Tito, hinted at a Mars mission. The trip will take advantage of the alignment of heavenly bodies in January 2018 to fly around Mars and return to Earth in the relatively short time of 501 days. The same opportunity will not arise again until 2031.

Tito said he would fund the mission until the end of 2014 and hoped to raise the rest of the money through donations from private investors and foundations, through media rights sales and potentially through selling scientific data to Nasa. "There is no time to lose," he said. "Now is the time." Tito has put together a team with a pedigree, including Jonathan Clark, a former Nasa flight surgeon who is now an adviser at the National Space Medicine Biomedical Research Institute in Houston. Keith Cowing, editor of the NasaWatch website, said: "Unlike the spate of space commerce companies that have flashed on and off the news in recent months, this effort has substantial cash behind it – at the onset. That fact alone moves this idea from giggle factor to the verge of credibility." The mission, likely to launch on 5 January 2018, aims to take a man and woman from the US on a flyby to within 100 miles of the Martian surface, and return them safely to Earth. The planned trajectory is known as a "free return": once fired into space, the capsule will swing around Mars and come back to Earth regardless of what happens to its occupants.

"As a voyage of human discovery, this would be the most significant journey in the history of our species," said Anu Ojha , director of the UK National Space Academy. "Their feasibility study shows that this is possible and with pretty much off-the-shelf hardware. It is extremely uncomfortable but it is doable." The feasibility study used a modified Dragon capsule from the private US space company, SpaceX, launched on one of the company's Falcon heavy rockets. In transit, the astronauts will have use of an "inflatable habitat module" that will detach before Earth atmosphere re-entry. The actual capsule the pair will travel in, excluding the inflatable addition, is likely to be "the size of a toilet", the authors said. Continuing the lavatorial theme, they said they calculated the crew would need one toilet roll every three days. The mission faces substantial hurdles. The human body adapts to space by losing muscle and bone, and astronauts need daily exercise on resistance machines to slow down the wasting. Finding room for those machines is crucial. Then there is the radiation in space, which can damage organs and raise the risk of cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

How the body and mind respond to deep space travel is essentially unknown, but the mission could provide much-needed information on how human physiology copes with the environment. "The science return in terms of understanding Mars will be minimal, but the science return in terms of understanding human physiology will rewrite the textbooks," Ojha said. Another major threat comes from huge bursts of radiation that spray from the sun during solar flares or "coronal mass ejections". The launch window coincides with a low in the cycling activity of the sun, but that only reduces the risk of a flare blasting the spacecraft. "If you get a coronal mass ejection, there is virtually nothing you can do about it," Ojha said. Nasa took the risk during the Apollo era, but those missions were days long instead of months. Many experts say the mission will stand or fall on Tito's ability to raise funds. Tito said the cost would be similar to that of a mission to low Earth orbit – the realm of space occupied by the ISS – but did not give a full costing. But it is almost certain that he will not get rich from the mission.

He said: "Let me be clear, I will come out a lot poorer as a result of this mission but my grandchildren will come out a lot richer for the inspiration it will give them." Crew on Dennis Tito's Mars mission will face unprecedented dangers – and time is too tight for the usual test flights Published: 1 Mar 2013 Rats thousands of miles apart collaborate on simple tasks with their brains connected through the internet Published: 1 Mar 2013 Kevin Fong: Impossible it isn't, but the Inspiration Mars Foundation's proposed mission would run the risk of catastrophic failure Published: 22 Mar 2013 US millionaire Dennis Tito wants to send two people on a round trip to Mars in 2018.

Tim Dowling imagines his own trip to the red planet with his wife Published: 28 Feb 2013 Inspiration Mars: Dennis Tito, Millionaire Former Space Tourist, Announces Privately Funded Plan for Mars Flyby in 2018 - ABC News ABC News Mars or Bust: Dennis Tito Plans to Send Couple on 2018 Mission By NED POTTER WATCH Inspiration Mars: to the Red Planet by 2018? 0 Shares Email In 2001 the millionaire Dennis Tito became the first paying space tourist -- he bought a flight to the International Space Station from the Russian space agency. Now he's aiming higher. He and a group of fellow space entrepreneurs announced today that they will try to mount the first-ever flight to Mars , sending a man and a woman to fly past the red planet and return safely in 501 days. And they say they hope to pull it off by 2018 -- just five years from now, and decades earlier than NASA or anyone else has even contemplated. Tito, now 72, says he does not plan to fly himself, but he does plan to bankroll part of the mission himself.

A former NASA engineer who went into finance to make his fortune, he says the flight would be possible because it would use privately designed spacecraft already in development -- perhaps a rocket and conical space capsule built by Elon Musk's SpaceX company, with an inflatable module made by Robert Bigelow's firm for extra room. "It's not a commercial mission, it's a philanthropic mission," said Tito in an interview with ABC News. Video: Mars or Bust by 2018 It would be a tough, dangerous, lonely trip, which is why Tito's group, Inspiration Mars, suggests the crew be a married couple. They would not even land on Mars -- too complicated to organize for now -- just speed by, perhaps getting a look at it from an altitude of 100 miles. But Inspiration Mars says the excitement of that first foray to another planet would change the world. "It's a great step for humanity," said Tito. "I think it would be really exciting, not only to our generation, but younger generations as well." Pictures: Images From the Final Frontier Is it possible, or crazy? Doctors have worried about radiation in deep space; psychologists have fretted about the stress on astronauts alone for more than a year in a cramped ship.

And Tito concedes the technical challenges are daunting: "We'd better start burning the midnight oil" to make the flight happen in time. It so happens that in 2018, Earth and Mars would align in such a way that a round-trip could be made with relatively little fuel. Another chance like this would not happen until 2031. Insipration Mars says in a paper that the ship would leave on Jan. 5, 2018, pass Mars on Aug. 20, and be home on May 21, 2019. That is, if everything works. Can it? Would you and your spouse want to be alone in deep space for a year? "This 'Mission for America' will generate new knowledge, experience and momentum for the next great era of space exploration," wrote the organizers. "It is intended to encourage all Americans to believe again in doing the hard things that make our nation great." 0 Shares

Question: In 2001 who became the first 'space tourist'?
Answer: Dennis Tito