By akademiotoelektronik, 02/06/2022

Space vacations: they did it-we tomorrow

It's very early, very early, in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. For this day, Anousheh Ansari got up at 1 am. At breakfast, she drank some wine before praying to summon up her courage. She called Grandma soon. Absence. Then he joined his mother and husband Hamid, who were already in tears, in the hotel lobby. Strangely, she had never felt so calm.

She got on the bus for the last time, and the bus took her and her two companions to the foot of the cab. She was the first to get on board, and climbed onto the boat with ladders and small elevators. Ansari sat down and tied himself up. She should be afraid, she knows it, but she has a "tattooed" smile on her face. Two hours of program and technical control followed, but passed at astonishing speed until the signal. 5. 4. 3. "I really have to go." 2. "I love you, Hamid." 1. Take off smoothly. Today is September 18, 2006, and Anousheh Ansari becomes the fourth space tourist and the first woman in history.

This article was originally published in the 35th issue of Our Tomorrow published in August 2021. A problem can always be found in our online store.

20th Anniversary of Space Tourism

Multi-millionaire Anousheh Ansari grew up in Tehran but was educated in the United States. She made a fortune in the telecommunications industry. The account of her last few minutes on Earth before the big departure comes from her live blog on the International Space Station (ISS). Thomas Pesquette continues until November.

She knows the resort like the back of her hand because she stayed there for a week. For this star-studded dream, the Iranian woman spent about $20 million. Anousheh Ansari belongs to a very closed caste. So far, only seven people have spent a "week's holiday" in space, because this year marks the 20th anniversary of space tourism. With four more trips planned from September, the phenomenon is expected to get worse in the coming months.

Space vacation: The dream of a citizen "like everyone else."

Britain's Eric Anderson was the first to sell the dream of seeing a citizen fly into space "like everyone else". In 1998, the entrepreneur founded Space Adventures, which wanted to "let everyone explore space". He was ambitious, surrounded by famous astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin, the second American to walk on the moon, and signed an agreement with the Russian space agency to let his clients sail from Kazakhstan in the Soyuz spacecraft.

The first of these was Dennis Tito, an American businessman who worked for NASA and later made his fortune in science and technology. He was a perfect ambassador. Twenty years ago, in April 2001, the Californian travelled aboard the Soyuz TM-32 spacecraft to the International Space Station. When he returned, he told anyone who wanted to hear about his "incredible floating feeling" and hoped that "thousands of people would experience what I've been through with 5% of what I've given."

Traveling in the starry sky is a dream for some people

Britain's Richard Garriott, the sixth space tourist to leave in October 2008, recalls: "The day I decided to go into space, the NASA administrator told me that I was not qualified to be an astronaut because I needed glasses," Richard Garriott told "We Tomorrow." My father, Owen Garriott, was an astronaut. All my neighbors were astronauts, and when I was 12, I was told I couldn't be part of their club. "

His nickname "Lord of England" did not give up his dream. He made a lot of money from video games by launching the Ultima franchise and started investing in commercial space flights. "After Dennis Tito left, he sat in my seat: I paid for it to exist. But it fell when the dot-com bubble burst and I was broke, so I couldn't afford to travel anymore. " The Englishman gave up the vanguard position to his successor, and his starry sky journey attracted great attention in America.

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Huit mois d’entraînement avant de partir en vacances dans l’espace

Touristes ? These millionaires prefer to use the word "civilian" to distinguish them from astronauts, while also getting rid of the label of vacationers. "Of course, we're not trained to fly a shuttle," concluded New Yorker Gregory Olson, the third visitor in 2005. Mais il y a quand même énormément de choses à apprendre : enfiler sa tenue, réagir en cas d’urgence… Si quelque chose arrive, je veux faire partie de la solution, pas du problème.”A total of eight months of pre-take-off training were conducted at the Russian space base. Richard Garriott added: "From weightless flight to how to cook food." But on the whole, it is very interesting. "

Until the end, they were all on the same line, initially uncertain and constrained by their bodies. "I had a medical problem before taking off, so when I took off, I was never worried that the rocket would explode, but just worried that something was wrong and I would be kicked out of the plane. Pat me on the shoulder and tell me it's over," Gregory Olson recalled. I was ecstatic when that thing disappeared. Because I know the next ten days are mine, "added Richard Garriott, who finds himself at the heart of a diplomatic clash between NASA and Russia after the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia. "The only time I am 100% sure to leave is when the rocket ignites."

Cognitive shock

Once in space, qualifiers disappear. "We can do a few zero-gravity flights, but finding weightlessness is an extraordinary pleasure. "Seeing Earth, it really changed my life," said Richard Garriott. Ce dont il témoigne s’appelle l’”overview effect” (littéralement, “l’effet de surplomb”), une prise de conscience dont ont déjà témoigné plusieurs astronautes de retour de vols spatiaux et qui engendrent des conséquences à long terme, notamment le développement d’une conscience écologique. "In the first few hours, I spent a lot of time looking at the earth through the window," Olson said. I took thousands of photos, hours of video. . . It's amazing, "Richard Garriott said.

Scientific work, lectures at school: Instead of leaving empty-handed, these elite travelers are often given tasks to take up their time on board. But their special status among the crew still leaves them considerable leeway. For the extravagant Richard Garriott, the tour was an opportunity to perform an unprecedented performance in orbit: Shooting the first space film (sci-fi short film Apogee of Fear), hiding the first geo-cache on the International Space Station (thanks to GPS coordinates, a treasure that can be found), sprinkling the ashes of a Star Trek actor in the sky …

Please also read: Who will be the next person to walk on the moon?

Weightlessness dependence

The trip lasted eight days. It's time to accompany the newcomers to the International Space Station and then go down the mountain with the astronauts returning to Earth. On their return trip, they parachuted into the desert of Kazakhstan and hesitated to rediscover gravity. But we never really came down from space. "Anyone who has a chance to go there can confirm that we're not going to get tired of it," Richard Garriott said. Weightlessness will bring a smile on your face and make you addicted. "

While many professional astronauts are required to return to space during their careers, it is much rarer for a tourist because they need to spend between $20 million and $35 million, depending on their journey. The only one taking off again is Charles Simone, a Hungarian executive of Microsoft. "It's a unique opportunity to go there, but obviously we want to expand it as much as we can," he told the outlet.

Cruise prices remain the biggest obstacle. Predecessor Dennis Tito's prediction that tens of thousands of people will go into space by 2020 is optimistic, to say the least: Fewer than 10 people have followed his example since then, with the most recent civilian departure being in October 2009, when Cirque du Soleil's founder, Canadian Guy Lalibert.

Go on a space vacation with "a group of his friends."

If the past decade has been a decade in which projects have been abandoned or cancelled, 2021 should be a year of revival, with Elon Musk's space company SpaceX rising in this commercial race to the stars. In September, the Inspiration4 mission will fly in Earth orbit for three days aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft. Unpublished statement: There will be no professional astronauts on the space shuttle. The first customer and captain, American billionaire airplane pilot Jared Isaacman. As part of his space program, he is raising money for the Children's Hospital at the St. Jude Foundation (Memphis, USA). Il offre une place à Hayley Arceneaux, survivante d’un cancer des os; à un donateur, Christopher Sembroski; et à une personne, via un concours, souhaitant lancer son entreprise.

Jared Isaacman said: "I hope that in the future we will have a group of friends going to space together." This is the world I want to go to, so it can be a part of daily life. "

Space photography

Should we see the impact of Elon Musk on the number of civilian space projects? Russian director Kerim Hippenko and actress Yulia Peresild will travel to space in September to shoot a big budget film, the Russian space agency announced; Space Adventures has found a new client, Japanese billionaire Yuzaku Maezawa, who documented his preparations on the YouTube channel and is expected to leave in October; A new mission launched by SpaceX will go into orbit in January 2022. Is this enough to prove Dennis Tito right? Maybe not exactly. But there are numbers. In the next six months, there should be more tourists going into space than in the past two decades.

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