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Adventures in space will no longer be the exclusive preserve of movies and astronauts if Space Adventures Inc. has its way. And as the pioneering venture of a daring group of aerospace engineers, scientists, astronauts and travel experts, the new company is betting it will. Just as it is betting it will be in on the creation of a commercial space-tourism industry. Joining forces to form the new company are Virginia-based Omega World Travel, the second-largest privately owned travel agency network in the United States, and Connecticut-based adventure travel specialist Quark Expeditions. In addition, Space Adventures has assembled a prestigious Advisory Board including four former astronauts -- an aerospace think tank even the HAL "2001: A Space Odyssey" computer would have found hard to outwit.
Space Odysseys Before 2001
As the first company to roll out a program of bookable space-related adventures, there is the sense of history being made. According to Mike McDowell, president of Space Adventures, founder/director of Quark Expeditions and long time adventure traveler, "We're convinced that the advent of commercially viable space tourism will dramatically change the perception that space is 'out there' for astronauts only. We're going to put it well within the reach of ordinary citizens." In Space Adventures' vision of exploration, this is an historic moment. "The next few decades will be remembered in the distant future as the 'Golden Age' of space flight," McDowell said. "The creation of commercial space-tourism won't just create jobs but launch a whole new industry -- one that will play a crucial role in allowing humanity to permanently open the space frontier." Seventy years after Charles Lindbergh made his solo flight across the Atlantic, he added, 600 million airline tickets are sold in the U.S. alone. "Now, 36 years after the first sub-orbital flight by Alan Shepherd, you and I can venture to the threshold of space, banish gravity and behold the breathtaking curvature of the Earth. A few years hence we'll take the next step to space, using sub-orbital flights to transform civilians into astronauts." However exciting the future prospects for space travel, Space Adventures is also "very much into the here and now," said Gloria Bohan, executive vice president of Space Adventures and founder/president of Omega World Travel. "We've also looked to presently available technology and expertise for inspiration. This is about today as much as tomorrow."
Space Available, Effective Immediately
Armed with its toll-free number for space-related travel, Space Adventures will accept bookings, effective immediately, for such adventures as zero gravity (weightless) flights and journeys to the outer limits of Earth's atmosphere at the edge of space (70,000 feet high). Those who prefer to stay closer to the ground may pursue the stars in a Space Adventures program that ushers them behind the scenes of a leading Space Observatory, or allows them to build and launch their own rocket with an experienced team of rocket enthusiasts.
But the crowning touch will undoubtedly be the sub-orbital flights to 62 miles above the Earth (its curvature splayed below, the star-filled darkness of infinite space above) which Space Adventures and leading aerospace experts believe are only three to five years away. Space Adventures is now accepting reservations for sub-orbital flights (through deposits to be held in protected escrow accounts).
Advisory Board of Aerospace Luminaries
Complementing its pioneering experience in travel and adventure (including first-ever expeditions of the Arctic and Antarctic), Space Adventures has assembled an Aerospace Advisory Board that defines "blue ribbon."
It numbers such luminaries of the aerospace industry as former U.S. astronauts (Space Shuttle and Skylab missions) Dr. Byron K. Lichtenberg, Dr. Owen Garriott, Capt. "Hoot" Gibson and Dr. Charlie Walker. It is also graced by leading academics in the field: Dr. Giovanni Fazio of the Harvard Smithsonian Observatory, Dr. Suzanne Churchill, expert in space physiology and medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Laurence R. Young, Apollo Professor, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and director of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute. Most significantly, Bohan noted, "this is not a largely symbolic Advisory Board. Instead every member is a company shareholder who participates as an advisor, planning adventures, periodically leading tours and providing clients with the most up-to-date, exciting and factual space-related adventures possible."
Included in Space Adventures progressive series of Steps to Space are Terrestrial Tours, Zero Gravity Flights, Journeys to the Edge of Space and Sub-Orbital Flights (described in "Steps to Space" news release).
Omega World Travel serves more than five million customers in 60 countries every year. Quark Expeditions and its sister company Adventure Network International have opened up the Arctic and Antarctica, assisting thousands of adventurous spirits in exploring these formerly inaccessible frontiers.
