A Chinese private company, InterstellOr, has announced plans to send tourists to the edge of space by 2028. Tickets mainly cost 3 million yuan, which is about $430,000.
In keeping with the recent revelation, 20 people, including an actor, engineer and a poet, have already signed up. The company’s CYZI suborbital spacecraft will carry seven passengers to the Karman Line, providing a remarkable experience with three to six months of weightlessness.
The announcement is a hot topic on Chinese social media and tops the trending search list on Baidu. While many Internet users welcomed China’s entry into commercial space tourism, they expressed skepticism about the company’s safety standards and ambitious timeline.
In this regard, Yang Yuguang, chairman of the Space Transportation Committee of the International Astronautical Federation, said CGTN that suborbital space is technically less challenging than orbital human spaceflight.
He noted that suborbital missions only require a speed of about $1$km/s, while orbital human spaceflight requires 7.8 kilometers per second to maintain a stable orbit.
The core challenge lies in establishing a rigorous verification process to ensure absolute safety, while final approval is only granted once these tests have been successfully completed. Although the current ticket price is high, experts predict that technological advances and economies of scale could reduce costs to a tenth of current levels within 20 years. Regardless of future costs, the unveiling of the CYZI spacecraft has already had a significant impact on the industry.
