On Friday, a retired NASA astronaut and three paying customers set off on a journey to the International Space Station.
It is the first time that NASA has collaborated in arranging a space tourism visit, and the mission is the first to go to the space station where all of the passengers are private citizens. NASA officials said that the flight marked a pivotal moment in efforts to spur space travel by commercial enterprises.
The deputy program manager for the space station at NASA said during a news conference that this is a big milestone for the campaign to help foster a commercial low-Earth-orbit economy.
Most of the customers for trips to space will be the very wealthy in the near-term, according to the mission. The seats for the 10-day trip, including eight days aboard the station, were sold for $55 million each. The same system that takes NASA astronauts to and from the station was hired by the company.
At 11:17 a.m. The mission, called Axiom-1, lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida into clear blue skies.
The capsule detached from the second stage of the rocket, and the official thanked the crew. You guys are enjoying your trip to the space station.
The customers on the Axiom-1 mission are Larry Connor, managing partner of the Connor Group, a firm in Dayton, Ohio, that owns and operates luxury apartments, and Mark Pathy, chief executive of Mavrik Corporation, a Canadian investment company.
They will be led to the space station by a former NASA astronaut who is now a vice president at the company.
What a ride, Mr. L, reported from the ground.
They are going to dock at the space station.
Although the Kennedy Space Center is part of NASA, they had no role in the launch or the ride. The agency's officials were happy about that, as they look to a future when they can simply buy services from commercial vendors.
The International Space Station is a technological marvel, but it costs NASA more than a billion dollars a year to operate. Although NASA wants to extend the lifetime of the current station, it hopes that less expensive space stations are in place by then.
For NASA, that means learning how to work with private enterprise in space, while for Axiom and other companies, they have to figure out how to build a profitable off-planet business.
The space station will be visited by four or five such missions, and then it has an agreement with NASA to attach several modules it is building to the space station. The International Space Station's modules are to be detached to form the core of an Axiom station when it is retired.
Michael T. Suffredini, the president and chief executive of Axiom, said that this is the first mission in the effort to build a commercial space station.
Space tourism increased last year. Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon, started carrying paying customers on brief suborbital trips to the edge of space. Virgin Galactic began selling tickets for future flights after flying its founder, Richard Branson, on a short flight.
None of the passengers on the Crew Dragon were astronauts, which was the first time that had happened. The three people who would never have been able to afford the trip were given opportunities by Mr. Isaacman. The trip did not go to the space station, and the four spent three days in space before returning to Earth.
Each of the space travelers is paying his own way, and the experience is different. Yusaku Maezwa, a Japanese billionaire, traveled to the space station on a Russian rocket and was accompanied by professional Russian astronauts. The mission from launch to the space station is under the control of the two companies.
Mr.Connor objected to being called a space tourist.
The space tourists will spend up to 15 hours training in space. Depending on our role, we have spent anywhere from 750 to over 1,000 hours training.
This is the future that NASA has been working toward for a long time.
The law that established NASA was amended in 1984 to encourage private enterprise off Earth. The privatization of NASA's space shuttles was put on hold after the loss of Challenger.
The Soviet space program was ahead of NASA in selling access to space during the waning years of communism. Dennis Tito, an American businessman, was the first tourist to visit the International Space Station. NASA needed to buy seats on Russian rockets for its astronauts to get and from the space station because Russia stopped taking private travelers after 2009.
The idea of space tourism has been opened up by NASA in the last few years. Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator during the Trump administration, often spoke of NASA being one customer out of many and how that would greatly reduce costs for NASA.
For NASA to be a single customer, there have to be other customers. Zero-gravity manufacturing or pharmaceutical research may eventually come to fruition.
Wealthy people who pay to visit space themselves are the most promising market for now.
When asked how much it costs to go to the International Space Station, the company declined to give a price a few years ago.
The price is tied up in the rocket and the spaceship. Customers have to pay for accommodations and amenities once there.
Private companies can use the space station for a price. NASA said it would charge companies like Axiom Space $35,000 a night for the use of sleeping quarters and amenities, including air, water, the internet and the toilet. NASA raised the prices for future trips to the station last year.
The crew members of the Axiom-1 were trained in the same way as NASA astronauts. The toilet was an example given by Ms. Weigel. They didn't need to learn how to fix the toilet if it malfunctioned because they were guests.
The visitors to the space station will be given an orientation of what to do in emergencies and how to use facilities.
The astronauts will conduct 25 scientific experiments on the space station during their eight day stay. The work will be done with institutions like the Cleveland Clinic and the Montreal Children's Hospital. The astronauts will conduct technology demonstrations that could be used to build future spaceships.
The crew members on the space station coordinate the activities of the visitors so that they don't try to use the same facility at the same time.
It is more than a 1,000-piece puzzle, and it will fit all that together.
Some of the sleeping quarters are makeshift because of the large number of people staying on the U.S. segment. One person will be sleeping in the Crew Dragon.
The passengers will be careful not to get in the way of other crew members.
We will be guests on the I.S.S., Mr. L. F3;pez-Alegr said last month.
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