Space tourism to rocket into reality
Space tourism to rocket into reality
Seeking an ultimate vacation? Forget planet Earth. The time is fast approaching when you can go into space to see a sunrise and sunset every 90 minutes. A team of international researchers has predicted that space tourism will rocket into reality in this century and the "final frontier' could begin showing up in a number of travel guides by the year 2010. Till now, only a few multi-millionaires have been able to afford the current $ 20 million price tag to go up in a Russian rocket for a two-week stay at the International Space Station. But, according to the researchers, shorter and more affordable "suborbital' space flights, costing $ 80,000 per trip, will drive space tourism in the near term. "During these flights, a spacecraft reaches space, but it does not enter Earth's orbit. Suborbital trips are likely to become available to tourists by 2010-2015, while tourism in space hotels is on a longer trajectory, predicted to become a reality in 2025. "Passengers will enter a world that only astronauts and cosmonauts have experienced