Although humans have explored much of the planet and its environs, certain areas remain inaccessible to all but the wealthy.
Private individuals can orbit the moon in a Russian spacecraft for USD 100 million and spend a week on the International Space Station (ISS) for USD 20 million.
Those who are more conservative can spend half a million dollars to fly to the dawn of space or $250,000 to explore the depths of the planet’s oceans.
New industries catered to billionaire tourists have proliferated in recent decades, launched by some of the most renowned capitalists, including Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk.
“Rich people, they love rocket ships,” Donald Trump said of private investment in space during a cabinet meeting in 2018. ‘That’s good. That’s better than us paying for it.’
These “guys” also like submarines. Branson, who founded Virgin Galactic to take private individuals into space, founded Virgin Oceanic in 2014 to visit the deepest waters on the planet.
British billionaire Hamish Harding was also in the Mariana Trench in 2021 aboard the submarine that disappeared this weekend during a tour of the Titanic wreckage and traveled into space a year later with Blue Origin.
Richard Branson, best known for founding Virgin Galactic, has also turned his focus to the waters. In 2014 he founded Virgin Oceanic to reach the deepest points of the world’s oceans. He is pictured on a submarine in 2011
Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin, which takes tourists to space and directly competes with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic
Branson and Bezos founded Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, respectively. Bezos’ Blue Origin has taken paying customers to the edges of space in his New Shepard capsule, where they experience zero gravity for a few minutes and then return.
Although Blue Origin does not disclose the price of those tickets, its direct competitor Virgin Galactic is currently selling seats for $450,000.
But other, lesser-known companies have also been in business for decades and have taken billionaires not only into orbit, but even on trips to the ISS.
The rise of space tourism has been linked to Dennis Tito, an American investment manager who reportedly paid $20 million for a seven-day trip to the ISS in 2001.
The operation was the result of a deal between Russian company MirCorp and American company Space Adventures Ltd and was seen as a way to generate money to maintain the aging outpost.
Established in 1998, it has since brought a number of ultra-wealthy individuals to the station.
Since 2007, it has been offering a $100 million trip around the moon in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that “takes you to within a few hundred kilometers of the lunar surface.”
“It’s not just about working for the government or being a fighter pilot or NASA, it’s available to you and me now,” its chairman Eric Anderson said in a video he used for his trips to the ISS last year advertises.
Californian millionaire Dennis Tito is considered the first space tourist. He is pictured stepping out of a Russian Soyuz rocket in 2001
Dennis Tito, pictured with his wife in 2022, booked a flight to the moon on SpaceX’s Starship earlier this year
“We changed what it means to be an astronaut.” “Space Adventures is the original space adventures company that offers private individuals the opportunity to fly into space,” he added.
His clients include Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, Microsoft software developer Charles Simonyi and computer game developer Richard Garriott.
She organized the flight of Japanese billionaire and fashion magnate Yusaku Maezawato to the ISS in December 2021.
“I’m so curious, ‘What’s life like in space?’ So I plan to find out for myself and share with the world,” Maezawa said in a statement earlier this year. A few months after completing this trip, he said that he would also travel to the Mariana Trench.
In December, the 47-year-old announced that sometime this year he would travel around the moon with Musk’s rocket and satellite company, SpaceX, becoming the first private passenger on a SpaceX lunar mission.
Space tourism has also become a way to fund expensive and unprofitable trips into space in the hope that research and technological advances will eventually bring costs down.
Mike Gold, deputy administrator for space policy and partnerships at NASA, told the Washington Post in 2018 that such sponsorships are useful.
“Just like in the early days of aviation, these early barnstorming activities will help lay the infrastructure and foundation that can lead to future innovations that we honestly cannot imagine right now,” he said.
Space Adventures Ltd organized Japanese billionaire and fashion magnate Yusaku Maezawa’s flight to the ISS in December 2021
Laliberté paid $35 million for a 10-day visit to the International Space Station and became Canada’s first space tourist
NASA’s website states that reaching low Earth orbit is akin to climbing Everest – which has become increasingly accessible over the years but was once a privilege reserved for the very wealthy.
Between the early 20th century and the 1970s, attempts to climb Everest were extremely expensive and rare – only the experienced and determined climbers bothered.
From the 1990s, climbing Everest became increasingly commercialized and costs fell drastically. In recent decades, a mountaineer can expect to spend between $30,000 and $100,000 to climb the world’s highest peak.
One of Everest’s most famous commercial ascents was documented by journalist Jon Krakauer, who in 1996 convinced his employer, Outside Magazine, to sponsor a summit attempt he would write about.
“The plain truth is that I knew better but went to Everest anyway. And I was involved in the deaths of good people, which will remain on my conscience for a very long time,” he concluded in the introduction to his memoirs.
Above the 7,500-meter elevation, in the mountain’s so-called death zone, commercial climbers crowded the mountain and traffic prevented climbers from descending when a storm struck, killing eight climbers.
“Attempting to climb Everest is an intrinsically irrational act—a triumph of desire over sensitivity,” he wrote in the introduction to his memoir.
According to a compilation of records for expeditions to the Himalayas, The Himalaya by the Numbers, the number of commercial ascents of Everest has increased from almost zero in 1970 to about 600 in 2019.
The number of commercial ascents of Everest fell from almost zero in 1970 to around 600 in 2019. The mountain has been overcrowded in recent years, making it impossible for climbers to descend properly
A famous photo taken on Everest in 2019 showed several commercial climbing tourists lined up on a trail near its summit.
In 2014, a Google executive, Alan Eustace, made headlines after jumping from a balloon near the top of the stratosphere. He was lifted in a spacesuit to an altitude of around 130,000 feet by a helium-filled balloon.
After the jump, he spent about 15 minutes parachuting to earth, a jump for which he broke a Guinness World Record.
Texas billionaire Jim Clark spent more than $15 million on a 100-foot yacht called the Comanche in hopes of building “the fastest boat ever”.
Billionaires’ plans to conquer unknown territories have met with much criticism.
In 2021, Prince William told the BBC that the richest people shouldn’t focus on exploration.
A long line of climbers lines a trail on Mount Everest in this May 2019 photo. About half a dozen climbers died the week before descending from the crowded summit
“We need some of the best minds and brains in the world that are focused on fixing this planet and not trying to find the next place to live,” he said.
‘[It] It’s really very important to focus on [planet] instead of giving up and going into space to think about solutions for the future.”
Likewise, Bill Gates has attacked Elon Musk for investing his money in missiles and not vaccines. He told the BBC earlier this year: “It’s actually quite expensive to go to Mars.” “For $1,000 per life saved, you can buy measles vaccine and save lives.”