SpaeCor News

Believe it or not the first space tourism company is not American. In fact its not even a company! Russia has a long standing reputation for promoting space tourism.

Russia’s economy may be the reason for the first space tourists. While NASA is against space tourism at this time, Russia needs the money and will send anyone willing to pay into space on one of their Soyuz rockets. The first space tourists were businessmen from various country’s offering to pay boatloads of money to rocket their way to the stars.

Russia may have started space tourism, but they may need to step it up in order to stay in business. Like many companies today facing competition, having the ability alone may not be enough to compete in the new space tourism industry.

Thanks to the Ansari X prize space tourism is blossoming into a full fledged industry taking hold in the 21st century. The winners of the Ansari X prize, Scaled Composites tout their ship Spaceship One as the ultimate reusable spacecraft. Virgin Galactic took the lead in space tourism by purchasing Spaceship One as their method to boost tourists into space.

Not only will Russia have to compete with different companies but many sovereign nations have plans to boost their space presence such as India and China. China’s Taikonauts may not be space tourists but its only a matter of time before wealthy Chinese business owners pay top dollar for a ticket to space. Russia has some catching up to do if it hopes to stay in business.