American singer Katy Perry became a part of history earlier this week when she flew on a Blue Origin capsule to the edge of space, around 100 kms from the Earth's surface.
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00:00On April 14th, singer Katy Perry and five others completed a successful all-female trip to the edge of deep space.
00:08The brief foray into space was on board a vessel from Blue Origin, the space company that's owned by the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
00:15I feel super connected to love. So connected to love.
00:20I think this experience has shown me you never know how much love is inside of you, like how much love you have to give.
00:30And how loved you are until the day you launch.
00:34Perry was part of Blue Origin's all-women space mission, which included Jeff Bezos' fiancé, Lauren Sanchez, journalist and TV host Gayle King,
00:44civil rights advocate Amanda Guken, film producer Carrie Ann Flynn, and entrepreneur, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe.
00:52The mission, which lasted for around 11 minutes, involved the New Shepard rocket taking the women more than 100 kilometers above Earth,
01:01crossing an internationally recognized boundary of space known as the Carmen Line and offering a few minutes of weightlessness before they descended.
01:09I don't have, I can't put it into words, but like I looked out the window and we got to see the moon.
01:18It was pink. Was it pink?
01:19Full moon. It wasn't pink, but it was almost full.
01:22And Earth looked so, it was so quiet.
01:28With the success of this mission, Blue Origin has now taken 52 people past the edge of Earth's atmosphere.
01:39Bezos was among the first passengers on its first crewed mission in 2021.
01:44These missions reflect the growing interest in space tourism, providing everyday people a chance to live out their astronaut dreams by sending them into space.
01:52So, there are two main types of space tourism, suborbital and orbital.
02:00The suborbital spacecraft takes passengers just beyond the Carmen Line.
02:05Passengers get to spend a few minutes in space and then come back to Earth, which is what Katy Perry did.
02:10Then there's the orbital spacecraft, which takes passengers much further than the Carmen Line.
02:15Passengers usually can spend from a couple of days to more than a week at an altitude of nearly 1.3 million feet.
02:23There are three major private players in the space travel industry.
02:27Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX.
02:34So, if you have dreams of blasting off to orbit, you likely need to have either very deep pockets
02:40or a name that's recognisable enough to get you invited as an honoured guest.
02:46While Blue Origin hasn't disclosed the exact cost of its civilian mission,
02:50the website says applicants must pay a whopping $150,000.
02:56In Indian rupees, it's 1.28 crores as a refundable deposit.
03:00On its first crewed flight in 2021, Blue Origin had auctioned off a seat for $28 million.
03:07That's a whopping 241 crores.
03:10Virgin Galactic, meanwhile, has sold a 90-minute ride to suborbital space for $450,000, 3.85 crores per seat.
03:20So, space perspective charges can be $125,000, 1.07 crore rupees per person
03:27on a six-hour journey to the stratosphere in a balloon-borne pressurized capsule.
03:33Then there's Axiom Space, a Texas startup that's been marketing a 10-day trip to space
03:38for $55 million.
03:41So, experts have noted that the cost of space travel will only reduce
03:45as more and more space companies enter the field and launches become more frequent.
03:49Now, while this entire industry, that's right, there's actually a space travel industry,
03:59was valued at $848.28 million in 2023, it reached $1.3 billion last year,
04:06according to a report by Research in Markets.
04:08By 2030, the industry is estimated to touch $6.7 billion, growing at the rate of 31.6% between 2024 and 2030.
04:18So, that's a 31.6% growth rate.
04:21So, currently, space tourism is clearly accessible only to the super-rich.
04:30Blue Origin's latest flight did receive a lot of flack due to its lack of accessibility
04:35as those on board it were either millionaires or celebrities.
04:39And watching from the ground were also recognizable faces,
04:43Khloe Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Oprah Winfrey, and so that raised further eyebrows.
04:47Environmentalists have also slammed the damage caused by rockets
04:51emitting gaseous and solid chemicals directly into the upper atmosphere.
04:56And that's why environmentalists remain skeptical,
04:58repeatedly highlighting that the money and resources spent on such recreational trips
05:03could be of much better use to push climate and environmental action on Earth.