We Spoke To Astronauts About How Space Tourism Will Change Life Here On Earth
Between the expenses, fuel & exclusivity, SPACE TOURISM sparks a lot of heated conversations these days. Whether you think the ‘DEMOCRATIZATION’ of the technology is a gimmick or the greatest advance in travel in recent years — you have to admit, you are talking about it.
Now, we’ve heard what the entrepreneurs, celebrities and politicians have had to say. But we were wondering: what do ASTRONAUTS, the few people on earth who have ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED the WONDER of space travel, think about commercial space flights?
We turned to TRAVEL WRITER Jillianne Pierce, who, by day, is actually a space policy lawyer with a slew of famous friends who’ve been to space.
I’ll get this out of the way first: I’m a huge space nerd. So much so, in fact, that my wedding to my pilot husband was officiated by an astronaut — the same astronaut who officiated the marriages of two of my girlfriends. Oh, and by next year, they’ll both be astronauts, too.
Yes, this is my real life. Since 2014, I have worked in the space industry. My very first week on the job, I met Sirisha Bandla and Michael Lopez-Alegria. Sirisha was, like me, a space policy wonk. We became fast friends. Mike is a retired NASA astronaut who holds the NASA record for the most time spent space-walking. He became a mentor, friend, and then, wedding officiant. Kellie Gerardi and I met later, at a conference, but by then we were already friends on social media.
Anyway, of the three of us whose weddings Mike officiated, I’m the normal one. A lawyer by training, my feet remain firmly planted on terra firma, even as my friends suit up for the stars. For all its problems, Earth is by far my favorite planet, and I don’t intend on leaving it anytime soon. Still, I believe in the benefits of commercial human spaceflight — enabling non-professional astronauts to take voyages of discovery and reflection, and ultimately, inspiring them to return to Earth and facilitate change for the better.
Maybe you’ve read Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell's quote about the effect of seeing the fragility of Earth from space, “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it.”
To date, the number of humans to travel to space is fewer than one thousand, but that’s about to change. 2021 saw the launch of a test crew aboard Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity, paying commercial customers aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard, and the well-publicized multi-day Inspiration4 orbital mission aboard SpaceX’s Dragon Crew Capsule. The era of commercial human spaceflight for non-professionals is now a reality, and with it comes the opportunity for “normal” people to experience the overview effect.
As someone who took a traditional path from the Navy to become an astronaut for NASA, Mike was originally “none too thrilled” upon learning that one of his crewmates on International Space Station Expedition XIV in 2006 would be Anousheh Ansari, a non-professional spaceflight participant. “But Anousheh completely turned my perspective around… through her blogs from the ISS (a brand new phenomenon at the time), she was reaching hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who would otherwise not care about what was going on in human spaceflight.” This struck a chord with Mike, and he began to understand the concept of democratizing the experience of spaceflight.
Mike is currently aboard at the International Space Station, this time, as the commander of Axiom-1, the first-ever all-private crewed mission to the ISS. His crew consists of three paying customers, but Mike insists they aren’t tourists. Instead, Larry Connor, Mark Pathy, and Eytan Stibbe will spend a week aboard the space station conducting experiments and educational outreach.
“I don’t know anyone who has been to space that hasn’t experienced the subtle but real change in perspective known as the Overview Effect,” Mike admitted. “I felt the connection to Earth and the people on it more with each mission, and I anticipate Ax-1 will be no different. I’m thrilled to see how it affects my three crew mates.”
Aside from the rare opportunity to live in orbit for multiple days, companies like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are planning to ferry tourists and researchers to the edge of space almost as frequently as airplanes take people around the world.
Sirisha earned her commercial astronaut wings when she flew with Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson aboard the VSS Unity last summer. She learned at an early age that poor eyesight would prevent her from taking the same path that Mike did. So, she forged her own, first becoming educated as an engineer and then working in policy. Although the entire flight lasted 90 minutes, even a few minutes at the edge of space were life-changing for her. Sirisha noticed that she’s become more mindful of the environment since her spaceflight.
“We’ve all seen pictures, but seeing it in real life while you’re weightless, while you’re floating, while it’s silent — it’s hard to describe. It was an incredible feeling,” she told her alma mater, Purdue. “The atmosphere looked just as thin as people think. It was a very thin blue line and then outside, the atmosphere is just nothingness. I felt very small, but I didn’t really feel insignificant. It just put it into perspective: That is everything and everyone I’ve ever known and we are incredibly lucky to have this because there’s nothing else around, and it’s beautiful and it’s brilliant.”
Just months after Sirisha’s flight, Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, also traveled to space — this time, aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-18. Upon landing, he choked back tears on the broadcast as he told founder Jeff Bezos, “What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine.... what I would love to do is to communicate as much as possible the jeopardy. The moment you see the vulnerability of everything. It’s so small. This air, which is keeping us alive, is thinner than your skin. It’s a sliver. It’s immeasurably small, when you think in terms of the universe. It’s negligible… It would be important for everybody to have that experience by one means or another.”
For anyone curious about the view but apprehensive about riding on top of a rocket, companies like Space Perspective and World View promise a gentle ascent and hours-long flight in a capsule suspended beneath a giant helium balloon. Their marketing focuses almost exclusively on the impact of seeing our planet from space, and renderings include a planned wet bar. “For the first few hundred humans to venture into space, the spaceflight focused entirely on function,” says Kellie. “But for the next few hundred humans to travel to space, we have the opportunity to optimize on experience as well. The next wave of space travelers won't all be engineers, and that's entirely the point.”
Kellie, confirmed as a payload specialist on an upcoming science mission with Virgin Galactic, points out that missions like Inspiration4, in which four non-professionals raised millions of dollars for charity and spent three days orbiting earth, “prove that the limiting factor to more people becoming astronauts has always been access — not aptitude.” Despite her future space flight profile being short, Kellie says that, “the profundity of the Overview Effect feels rooted in the overall act of leaving Earth and seeing our planet from the blackness of space, whether you come right back down or to stay in orbit. There's a perfect blend of human defiance, resilience, and fragility in that journey.”
With raging wars, a pandemic, climate change, and social justice movements, some might criticize going to space as frivolous, out of touch, privileged — akin to the cringy video of celebrities singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” that went viral at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yes, we are facing compounding systemic issues. Yes, we need to address them. And yes, it’s still a good thing to open up space opportunities to non-professionals. Remember, commercial aviation was once only for the ultra-wealthy. Space tourism can also be a noble endeavor, an undertaking to help humanity unite rather than divide. What better way for people to see how fragile and unique our planet is - how connected we all are?