Space tourism is the burgeoning field of human space travel for recreation and/or leisure. There are a variety of options for those interested in recreational space travel including, but not limited to, orbital space travel and sub-orbital space travel. Orbital space travel refers to a space flight in which the spacecraft remains in space for at least one orbit. The estimated
amounted to roughly 385 million U.S. dollars in 2021, and this figure was forecast to reach 555 million U.S. dollars by 2030. Meanwhile, suborbital space travel refers to a space flight that reaches outer space but does not complete one orbital revolution or reach escape velocity. Future options for space tourism may include trips to Earth’s moon, other planets such as Mars, and space hotels. As it stands, the market is still young and developing. When surveyed in 2021, adults in the United States believed that
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What is the public’s opinion on space tourism?
Although many people are interested in the prospect of traveling to space, the industry is not without its share of controversy. Currently, the exorbitant costs of space travel are such that only high-net-worth individuals can afford a ticket. A survey conducted in September 2021 examined the
share of U.S. adults who believed billionaires should be spending money traveling to space, the results of which were divided. The majority of respondents, 59 percent, stated that they believed billionaires should spend money on traveling to space as “it’s their money and they can decide how to use it”. Meanwhile, the remaining 41 percent of adults believed that they should spend their money on something else. Another survey in 2021 found that the U.S. public opinion on
which space companies were leading the private sector’s push into space was less divided. A clear majority of respondents believed that Elon Musk's company Space X was leading the private sector’s push into space. This opinion was shared across respondents of
all generations.
Do the public want to travel to space?
As of September 2021, the
share of U.S. adults that would want to travel to space if money were not an issue was 49 percent. Meanwhile, a slight majority of respondents, 51 percent, had no interest in going to space.
Men were more interested in traveling to space than women, with 56 percent of respondents stating that this was the case. Comparatively, only 44 percent of women were interested in going to space. The
share of the U.S. public that would go to the moon as a tourist if money were not a factor was smaller than the share that would simply go to space. A total of 61 percent of respondents stated that they would not go to the moon as a tourist, while 37 percent of respondents stated that they would. As of December 2021, the
U.S. generation most interested in going to the moon as a tourist if money were not a factor was Gen Z, with 55 percent of respondents stating that this was the case.
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