Spaceflight Companies Promised to Do Science—So How’s It Going?

She wrote that the guidance and insight they give their customers helps move the needle forward on microgravity research.

Bandla says that analysis for their projects is still in progress. Bandla says that the company gives researchers some flexibility in the kinds of experiments that can be carried on board if the first attempt doesn't go as planned.

The Flight Opportunities program helps academic researchers develop technologies to test near zero-G with commercial flight providers. Many of the payloads they have flown have been funded by that program.

A representative from Blue Origin did not respond to WIRED's questions.

A lot of the money for these flights is coming through their tickets rather than science contracts according to the founder and director of the MIT Space Exploration Initiative. She and her team tested how robotic tiles can join together on their own to create a structure.

Private spaceflights have gotten more attention for their celebrity customers than their science. Jordan Bimm, a University of Chicago space historian, is worried that science is being sold as a token add-on in an experience that sells prestige and spectacular panoramic views. He says it gives a scientific aura to the mission and to the participants when they return to Earth. Once these companies have proven their economic viability and technological capacities, science will become a higher priority. A lot of these companies don't pay much attention to research. She says that at some point it will become important to them.

While few people can afford the six-figure costs of seats on suborbital jaunts today, the price tags could drop over the next decade, allowing researchers to fly with the crew and conduct their own experiments. Bandla claims that Virgin Galactic will do that next spring. The Italian Air Force will send a researcher to study the effects of gravity on a person. It costs $600,000 to get a researcher to run their own experiments. Once the prices fall more, Ekblaw expects to send her graduate students to space.

Some of next year's private missions will collect health and genomic data in space. There will be an investor and race car driver and two Saudi Arabian passengers on the flight. A group of people, including a pilot and two engineers, plan to fly on a rocket in March. There will be 38 experiments on the mission, including ones focused on how weightlessness affects vision and how the body processes pharmaceuticals in space, according to an email sent to WIRED. She wrote that the goal is to encourage ongoing, open, and extensive research that will contribute to improving life here on Earth.

Different levels of transparency when it comes to sharing data are offered by the four companies that fly commercial space trips. It's possible that this variation is similar to the private aviation industry. The differences between Blue Origin and SpaceX are not the same. It's similar to different airlines, which give you different perks, different snacks, and different styles, but they do it differently.