Forget about traveling to another country for vacation! Boeing and Space Adventures have a much more interesting destination in mind for you: the International Space Station (ISS) in low Earth orbit (LEO).
So, how would you get there?
Well, Space Adventures plans to market passenger seats on commercial flights aboard the (future) Boeing Crew Space Transportation-100 (CST-100) spacecraft to LEO.
Potential customers reportedly include private individuals, companies, non-governmental organizations and US federal agencies other than NASA.
“To date, all commercial flights for private spaceflight participants to the ISS have been contracted by Space Adventures,” explained Boeing VP Brewster Shaw.
“If NASA and the international partners continue to accommodate commercial spaceflight participants on ISS, this agreement will be in concert with the NASA administrator’s stated intent to promote space commerce in low Earth orbit.”
According to Shaw, Boeing and Space Adventures have not yet set a price per seat for spaceflight participants, but will do so only when full-scale development is under way.
Nevertheless, Boeing continues to advance its design for the CST-100 spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Crew Development Space Act Agreement.
The spacecraft, which can carry seven people, will be able to fly on multiple launch vehicles and is expected to be operational by 2015.
It should be noted that Space Adventures has already successfully contracted and flown seven spaceflight participants on eight missions to the International Space Station.
