A few hours ago, cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, and Yozo Hirano returned to Earth on the Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft, which landed in Kazakhstan, after spending 12 days on the International Space Station, where they arrived on December 8. It was a space tourism journey set up in an agreement between the private company Space Adventures and the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
This journey wasn’t the first example of space tourism that included a stay on the International Space Station but was the most remarkable in a year rich in news in this field. 2021 was marked by journeys beyond the Earth’s atmosphere with civilians aboard various spacecraft, from the Blue Origin’s suborbital ones to SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission, which reached an orbit higher than the Station without forgetting Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane.
These trips have often been accompanied by controversy over the amount of money spent on space tourism. The Inspiration4 mission raised over $200 million for a pediatric oncology hospital but billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is rumored to have paid over $80 million to indulge in spending a few days on the International Space Station. In reality, he and his assistant Yozo Hirano, who filmed the stages of the journey, also participated in some scientific research by undergoing medical tests similar to those used to monitor the astronauts’ health but it was above all the very exclusive journey of a billionaire.
The controversy is unlikely to stop new space tourism missions that could become relatively common in the coming years. Space Adventures is planning more trips of this type but in recent years another company, Axiom Space, announced various plans for commercial space flights. It’s a collaboration with SpaceX to initially set up missions on the Station with astronauts sent to conduct work on behalf of private companies but the flights on Crew Dragon spacecraft could also include tourists. Axiom Space has ambitious plans that include adding new modules to the Station with the possibility of building a commercial space station. Tourists will still be billionaires but in the next few years, we can expect an opening of the space to various commercial enterprises.
