BY MAX MCAULIFF, STAFF WRITER
Former “Star Trek” Captain Kirk actor William Shatner made history this month, becoming the oldest person to ever go to space.
Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, blasted Shatner and four others into outer space. This marks Blue Origins’ second trip in what they hope becomes a successful space tourism business.
Jeff Bezos, a life-long Star Trek fan, handpicked Shatner to be one of the first civilians into space. Picked due to his role as the famous Captain James T. Kirk in “Star Trek: The Original Series”, Shatner expressed joy and amazement upon his return home.
According to CNN Business, Shatner spoke to Bezos upon his return to Earth saying, “What you have given me is the most profound experience, I am so filled with emotion, just extraordinary … I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now.”
With space travel on the rise due to the emergence of privately owned spacecraft companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX, civilian space travel will see increases in popularity as well. The topic that’s up for debate is whether the 10-minute trip into space is worth the hefty expense.
Blue Origin hopes to have their space tourism program fund other more ambitious projects they are working on. One of these projects that SpaceX is also working on is to put a human on Mars. Manned missions to Mars are the primary goal of space programs, and all other rocket launches tend to be test runs and ways of generating revenue for the inevitable trip to Mars.
The cost of civilian space travel varies on the length and location of one’s trip. According to The Washington Post, reports out of Virgin Galactic in 2019 stated that civilians would soon be able to fly to the edge of space for only $250,000. This is similar to Blue Origin’s flight with William Shatner, as the total time from launch to landing was only ten minutes.
On the other hand, Road Show reports that NASA in 2019 stated that civilians would be able to travel to the International Space Station for a whopping $50 million. That price tag is not including the $35,000 a night fee to stay on the International Space Station.
So, what is the allure for civilians to spend hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to travel to space? First off, if someone is even thinking about going to space, odds are money is not an issue for them. Unless handpicked by Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, someone that goes to space is going to have to pay a hefty amount.
Second, and the reason that most people go to space, is that it will be the best experience of their life. Kids grow up wanting to be astronauts not because they want to study astrophysics but because they want to travel to space.
Civilian space travel is an exciting opportunity that should be encouraged and, in time, available to the many.
