2021… will still be Space Odyssey. Yes, because it will be a crucial year for space exploration with missions that will develop and consolidate during the current year. First of all, NASA’s ambitions to return to the moon with the Artemis project they become more and more concrete; the Red Planet which this year will be the protagonist of three missions including the mission Tianwen-1 (with orbiter, lander and rover) launched from China.
Then there are the private individuals who have reinvigorated the sector.
Elon Musk con la sua Space X at the forefront with increasingly ambitious goals (colonizing the Moon and Mars) and then the billionaire Richard Branson, who with his Virgin Galactic, has already planned the first suborbital tourist trips, which from 2022 (supposedly) will bring the 6,000 lucky ones who have written the $ 250,000 check to float in zero gravity for 7 minutes, and fly a total of 120 with the SpaceShipTwo, the space plane of Virgin Galactic whose interiors were unveiled last year. Among the lucky owners of the precious ticket there are Leonardo DiCaprio, Lady Gaga e Justin Bibier, who may be on board the maiden flight with Sir Richard Branson.
Man will therefore return to the Moon and go to Mars (it is not yet known when), but when mere mortals will be able to go to space for pleasure, without being astronauts, but only astroturisti? Given that a very small club composed of 7 individuals has ventured into space, since 2001 with the pioneer Dennis Tito which spent 20 million dollars, until 2009, with the Canadian Guy Liliberté (co-founder of Cirque du Soleil) was the last of an exclusive club that closed its doors with the retirement of the Space Shuttle, but which could reopen precisely this year thanks to private carriers.
The “second era” of space tourism will begin already this year. There SpaceX Crew Dragon – which has already made the first flight with a crew to the ISS – is ready to send the first private crew on the international space base ISS, perhaps already in October, for a stay of at least eight days where Tom Cruise will be ready to shoot a new episode of the saga Mission Impossible. The crew of the AX 1 mission (this is his name) will be composed of as well as Tom Cruise also by the director Doug Liman, who will film the scenes directly on board the orbiting station and an unofficial third person. The price for this part of the mission should be $ 165 million for the three seats and $ 35,000 (per person) for each day on board the ISS. It will be the first private mission to orbit, the first private mission to the ISS and the first time that SpaceX sends private citizens into space.
A few days ago the first group of astroturisti willing to spend 55 million dollars each to spend ten days (7 nights) on the ISS, reaching an altitude of 400 kilometers at a speed of 28,800 km / h. The mission is of the private company Axiom Space, which has made an agreement with NASA and SpaceX that it will use its carrier, and which also plans to build an orbiting hotel designed by Philippe Starck. The take-off is scheduled for January 2022, but preparations will begin in these days.
The first private ISS crew in the history of humankind has been assembled.
Commander Michael López-Alegría
Mission Pilot Larry Connor
Mission Specialist Mark Pathy
Mission Specialist Eytan Stibbe
Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1): The start of a new era. pic.twitter.com/vBlr0ASRhj
— Axiom Space (@Axiom_Space) January 26, 2021
The crew for the historic mission, called Axiom 1, it will be composed of 4 people: Michael López-Alegría, former NASA astronaut and vice president of Axiom, will be the first commander of a civilian mission in space; Larry Connor, American entrepreneur and non-profit activist, the pilot. Then will follow the two passengers Mark Pathy, Canadian investor and philanthropist and Eytan Stibbe, top gun of the Israeli army and multimillionaire businessman.
Commander López-Alegría has already flown 4 times in space, in his 20-year career at NASA, and visited the ISS in 2007. At his side is pilot Larry Conner who is 71 years old (incredible but true) and he is the oldest person ever to go into the cosmic void. Pathy will be Canada’s eleventh astronaut and Stibbe the second Israeli. All four will train with Axiom Space for 15 weeks and have already paid part of the $ 55 million needed to pay for the trip. According to López-Alegría, this is only the beginning, “even in the 1920s and 1930s, airplane flights were very expensive and in the future we will be able to travel in space at affordable prices,” he said in an interview.
If we exclude Tom Cruise and director Liman, who will still go there to shoot a film (so I work), Axiom Space will bring the first citizens into space ushering in a new era in which space exploration will no longer be the exclusive prerogative of professional astronauts, but open to all (so to speak, of course).
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