NASA Wants To Open The International Space Station To Tourists

Have you ever wanted to go to space? If you have, you’ll be pleased to learn that NASA has announced their plans to open up the International Space Station (ISS) to tourists come 2020. The concept of space tourism isn’t new, but with NASA opening up the ISS, it will allow tourists to explore new places that were previously restricted.

According to NASA chief financial officer Jeff DeWit, “NASA is opening the International Space Station to commercial opportunities and marketing these opportunities as we’ve never done before.” Unfortunately, these visits to space will not come cheap. It has been estimated that it will cost about tens of millions of dollars for a round trip ticket into space, and that it will cost space tourists about $35,000 per night that they spend up there.

There will be about two short private missions made per year to the ISS, and each of these missions are expected to last up to 30 days, meaning that staying there for the entire month will cost an additional million or so, on top of the cost of traveling up there. This means that as far as tourist destinations are concerned, a holiday to the ISS is definitely well out of the reach of many.

However, if you do have the funds, it could possibly be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of trip because let’s face it, it will probably be a while before space travel will become the norm and it will probably not be in our lifetime.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: NASA, Space