China has revealed plans to open the country’s Tiangong space station to tourists within 10 years, competing with space tourism billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson.
Tiangong is China’s first fully modular space station. The first module, called Tianhe, was launched into orbit in April 2021 and was occupied by July 2021, Space reports. Tiangong’s final modules should launch later this year.
Yang Liwei, who became the first Chinese astronaut in 2003, said tourists visiting Tiangong “is not a matter of technology but of demand”. Liwei said it is likely that people without astronaut training could be launched into orbit.
“And it can be realised within a decade as long as there is such demand,” Liwei said. China is also working on a tourist-friendly reusable spacecraft that could take up to seven people to the station.
Space tourism at Tiangong station
CAS Space, a commercial spinoff of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), also aims to offer trips to space for tourists as soon as 2025.
This comes after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin completed its first space tourism flight in 2021. Bezos is now attempting to launch his own space station into orbit.
Richard Branson’s spaceship company Virgin Galactic got approval to fly customers to space last year. Elon Musk is also putting commercial astronauts into orbit via his company, SpaceX.
In addition, Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) is making progress on the world’s first space hotel, Voyager Station, which is expected to debut in 2027.
LUSSO Dating is organising the first date in space for singles on the planet Earth.
Image: Creative Commons
