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Space is all yours—for a hefty price

Commercial spaceflight is now officially a thing. But is it a transcendent opportunity for the masses, or just another way for rich people to show off?

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Private citizens have been buying their way into the heavens for decades. In the 1980s, McDonnell Douglas engineer Charles Walker became the first nongovernment individual to fly in space when his company bought him a seat on three NASA space shuttle missions. In 2001, American entrepreneur Dennis Tito dished out a reported $20 million to fly on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) and spend eight days floating in microgravity. 

But beyond those few flights, nothing much happened.

At least not until last year. After decades of development and several serious accidents, three companies—SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic—launched their first tourist flights in 2021. William Shatner rode a Blue Origin vehicle to the edge of space in October. Former NFL star and Good Morning America host Michael Strahan took a similar ride in December. Even NASA, which was once hostile to space tourism, has come around and released a pricing policy for private astronaut missions, offering to bring someone to orbit for around $55 million.

Okay, so it’s a new era—but what does it mean? Do these forays represent a future in which even the average person might book a celestial flight and bask in the splendor of Earth from above? Or is this just another way for the ultrawealthy to flash their cash while simultaneously ignoring and exacerbating our existential problems down on the ground? Nearly all those 2021 escapades were the result of efforts by three billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson. Branson is a mere single-digit billionaire, whereas Bezos and Musk have wealth measured in the hundreds of billions. 

“The greatly undue influence of wealth in this country—to me that’s at the heart of my issues with space tourism as it’s unfolding,” says Linda Billings, a communications researcher who consults for NASA and has written about the societal impacts of spaceflight for more than 30 years. “We are so far away from making this available to your so-called average person.”

Each spot on Virgin’s suborbital spaceplane, the cheapest way to space at the moment, will set somebody back $450,000. A single seat on Blue Origin’s initial suborbital launch sold at auction for $28 million, and the undisclosed price tag of SpaceX’s all-civilian Inspiration4 mission, which spent three days in orbit before splashing down off the coast of Florida, has been estimated at $50 million per passenger. 

Not only are such flights ridiculously far out of financial reach for the average person, says Billings, but they aren’t achieving any real goals—far from ideal given our terrestrial problems of inequality, environmental collapse, and a global pandemic. “We’re not really learning anything,” she says. “There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of thought or conscience in the people engaging in these space tourism missions.”

Laura Forczyk, owner of the space consulting firm Astralytical, thinks it’s misguided to focus strictly on the money aspect. “The narrative [last year] was billionaires in space, but it’s so much more than that,” says Forczyk, who wrote the book Becoming Off-Worldly , published in January, in which she interviewed both government and private astronauts about why they go to space.

Forczyk sees the flights as great opportunities to conduct scientific experiments. All three of the commercial tourist companies have carried research projects in the past, studying things like fluid dynamics, plant genetics, and the human body’s reaction to microgravity. And yes, the rich are the target audience, but the passengers on SpaceX’s Inspiration4 included artist and scientist Sian Proctor and data engineer Chris Sembroski, who won their tickets through contests, as well as St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital ambassador Hayley Arceneaux (the trip helped her raise $200 million in donations for the hospital). Blue Origin gave free trips to aviation pioneer Wally Funk, who as a woman had been barred from becoming an Apollo astronaut, and NASA astronaut Alan Shepard’s daughter Laura.

Forczyk also cites Iranian space tourist Anousheh Ansari, who flew to the ISS in 2006. “She talked about how she grew up in a war zone in Iran, and how [the flight] helped her see the world as interconnected,” Forczyk says. 

Billings thinks the value of such testimonials is pretty low. “All these people are talking to the press about how wonderful the experience was,” she says. “But to listen to someone else tell you about how exciting it was to climb Mt. Everest doesn’t convey the actual experience.”

As with an Everest trek, there’s the risk of death to consider. Historically, spaceflight has had a fatality rate of just under 4%—roughly 266,000 times greater than for commercial airplanes. Virgin suffered two major disasters during testing, killing a total of four employees and injuring four more. “A high-profile accident will come; it’s inevitable,” says Forczyk. But even that, she predicts, won’t end space tourism. People continue to climb Everest, she notes, despite the danger.

Another question is how space tourism might affect the planet. A 90-minute jaunt on Virgin Galactic’s suborbital spaceplane is roughly as polluting as a 10-hour transatlantic flight. Other calculations suggest that a rocket launch can produce 50 to 75 tons of carbon dioxide per passenger, compared with just a few tons per passenger from a commercial airplane.

Experts warn that even Blue Origin’s New Shepard, which burns hydrogen and oxygen and emits water, could affect the climate since its combustion products are injected high into the stratosphere, where their ultimate impact has yet to be understood. 

The Federal Aviation Administration oversees all spaceflight in the US and might strengthen safety and environmental regulations. The agency currently has a moratorium on new regulations until 2023, which was designed to give the nascent industry time to develop before legislators came in with too much red tape. But few lawmakers or citizens are clamoring for more regulation. 

“There are a lot of other things for people to worry about than whether or not only billionaires get to fly in space,” says Marcia Smith, the founder and editor of the news website SpacePolicyOnline.com, which covers space programs around the world.

Nobody has yet fully articulated a compelling reason to spend enormous sums on private spaceflight. It may have incidental value for science and engineering, or offer a small number of people a sense of transcendence. 

But at the moment, it seems we do it mainly because we think it’s cool.

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What a Ticket on Jeff Bezos’ Rocket Will Cost You

Possibly less than you think.

Jeff Bezos and three other passengers spent roughly 10 minutes Tuesday morning flying on a round trip to space in the New Shepard, a rocket ship built by the billionaire’s aerospace company Blue Origin. The New Shepard took off at around 9:12 a.m. from its launch site near Van Horn, Texas, and flew just above the Kármán Line, a boundary 100 kilometers above the ground that many consider to demarcate the earth from space. After spending a few minutes in zero gravity, the crew descended back down to earth in the New Shepard capsule.

The flight was Blue Origin’s first with people aboard. In its publicity for the mission, the company has said that it wants to send more people into space and will soon start selling tickets, though details about the price and purchasing process are scarce. Other private space companies like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX are planning to sell seats on their vessels, as well. Since 2001, when businessman Dennis Tito became the first person ever to pay for a trip to space, the space tourism industry has seen ups and downs as companies struggled to find ways to make it commercially viable. So far, only a handful of people have been able to pay their way into space. (Even NSYNC singer Lance Bass wasn’t able to raise the $20 million he needed to fly with a Russian space crew in 2002 .) Now, the richest people in the world seem dead set on making regular private space flights a reality. Does this really hail a new era for more widely available trips to space?

At least in the near future, civilians aspiring to visit the cosmos will have to be well-connected or have hundreds of thousands, and perhaps even millions, of dollars to spare. Only one seat was up for sale on the New Shepard for Tuesday’s flight. An anonymous bidder won it in an auction in June for $28 million , though they were unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict and will instead join a future flight. The seat ultimately went to Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old from the Netherlands who became the youngest person ever to visit space. His father, the CEO of a private equity firm, had also bid on the seat and was eventually able to buy it when the winner dropped out. However, Blue Origin has not disclosed how much the elder Daemen paid. The other two passengers were Jeff Bezos’ brother Mark and Wally Funk, a renowned aviator who trained as an astronaut in the 1960s before the U.S. government canned its “women in space” program.

Besides the $28 million figure, Blue Origin has been fairly tight-lipped about its pricing, though it did say on Tuesday that ticket sales are now open to the general public and directed interested customers to email [email protected] . Blue Origin did not respond to an inquiry about the price of tickets, though Reuters reported that the company initially estimated in 2018 that they would run for $200,000 to $300,000. Bezos also said at a press conference after his flight that “the demand is very, very high” for seats and that Blue Origin has already reached $100 million in private sales, meaning that the company will have to schedule more trips and build more rockets. There are plans for two more flights carrying civilians this year.

Flights through other space tourism services will also cost you at least a few hundred thousand dollars. Virgin Galactic was initially offering ticket reservations for $250,000 and managed to sell about 600 of them before stopping in 2014 due to a test crash. Following its first spaceflight carrying human passengers last week (including founder Richard Branson), the company is expected to reopen ticket sales soon at a higher price for when it starts flying people regularly in 2022 . (At the moment, people can place a $1,000 deposit to reserve a ticket.) Analysts estimate that they’ll ultimately cost between $300,000 and $400,000. At a presentation to investors in 2019 , however, Virgin Galactic executives signaled that after this initial hike, their long-term goal was to drastically lower prices to make the service available to a wider range of people—that is, they hope to be able to do business with the rich instead of just the uber-rich. In discussing the size of the market for tickets, they mused that 1.78 million people had a net worth of more than $10 million and could hypothetically afford a $100,000 ticket, while 5.07 million people have a net worth of more than $5 million and might be willing to pay $50,000 for a ticket.

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are only offering suborbital flights, though. If you want to spend more than just a few minutes in space, you’ll likely have to pay tens of millions of dollars. The space tourism company Axiom is flying three people early next year to the International Space Station in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule and will stay there for eight nights; seats are $55 million a pop. That includes the $35,000 per-night cost of living at the space station to cover the cost of life support systems and power. While that rate could get you a suite with a basketball court or bowling alleys in Las Vegas , the Axiom crew will reportedly be spending their nights in sleeping bags.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate , New America , and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

How much are SpaceX tourists actually paying to fly around the Moon?

The short answer: a lot.

By Rachel Becker

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Two mystery space tourists put down a “ significant deposit ” with SpaceX to take a round-trip around the Moon, CEO Elon Musk announced yesterday . Musk didn’t say much about the two unidentified passengers, let alone how much money they’re shelling out for their Moon voyage. Turns out, it’s remarkably difficult to guess the costs of human spaceflight.

“There’s not just a line item that says, ‘Send this person to space.’”

That’s because, unsurprisingly, there’s a lot that goes into launching someone into space. There are the obvious costs: the spacecraft, the rocket, and the fuel. But then there are the less obvious, just as key, costs: the years and equipment needed to train the astronauts, building and maintaining the launchpad, paying the people on the ground in mission control, having rescue plans and personnel ready to get the astronauts or space tourists to safety if there’s an emergency. And that’s just the short list.

“It’s always a more complex answer,” Daniel Huot, a spokesperson for NASA, tells The Verge . “There’s not just a line item that says, ‘Send this person to space.’”

Here’s what we do know: while Musk wouldn’t specify an exact price, he did say that the around-the-Moon mission could cost roughly the same or a bit more than a crewed trip to the International Space Station. SpaceX declined an emailed request for clarification.

So what does that mean? Right now NASA pays the Russian space agency Roscosmos about $81 million and change for a round-trip ticket in a Soyuz capsule . The latest five seats NASA bought in bulk were a little cheaper, about $74.7 million per seat . Another spokesperson for NASA, Kathryn Hambleton, told The Verge in an email that the ticket price includes:

• Training to operate the spacecraft
• Use of the launchpad and launch support services
• Flight control, docking, and undocking services
• Air, consumables, and life support en route
• Standby emergency services for a rescue in orbit, or during landing
• Medical services after landing
• The variable weight of the crew and their cargo to and from the station

The reason why NASA relies on Roscosmos is that the US space agency hasn’t had a vehicle of its own to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS since 2011, when the Space Shuttle program was shuttered. NASA is hoping the $81 million price tag will drop in the future by partnering with private companies like SpaceX and Boeing through the Commercial Crew Program .

NASA estimates that a round-trip ticket to the ISS on the SpaceX Crew Dragon or the Boeing CST-100 Starliner would cost about $58 million . A spokesperson for Boeing could not confirm the ticket price, and SpaceX declined to comment.

How much would this longer trip cost?

A one-way trip to the ISS, however, covers a distance of roughly 220 miles . Musk said yesterday that the SpaceX lunar trip would brush past the surface of the Moon and venture deeper into space, before looping back to Earth — a distance of approximately 300,000 to 400,000 miles . (It’s not clear how they arrived at those numbers, considering that a one-way trip to the Moon when it’s closest to Earth is about 225,623 miles, according to NASA .)

How much would this much longer trip cost? Space Adventures , a travel agency that arranges space journeys with Roscosmos for private citizens, tells The Verge the price tag is more than double the cost of a trip to the ISS: about $175 million dollars per seat. The company, which has already sent seven individuals to the space station, plans to send tourists around the Moon by 2020 — and that’s how much they’re going to charge.

“We cannot be more specific as there are many variables, including destination, vehicle, duration and other options,” Stacey Tearne, a spokesperson for Space Adventures, wrote in an email to The Verge .

One of the variables, which could shoot up the price of any space mission , is of course, delays. And as we know, Musk has a bit of a problem with deadlines .

Update 1:10PM EST, 2/28: Updated to reflect the fact that a SpaceX spokesperson replied to emailed inquiries after the story was published, but declined to comment.

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3 visitors heading to the space station are paying $55M each, all meals included

The Associated Press

The SpaceX crew is seated in the Dragon spacecraft on Friday, in Cape Canaveral, Fla., before their launch to the International Space Station. SpaceX via AP hide caption

The SpaceX crew is seated in the Dragon spacecraft on Friday, in Cape Canaveral, Fla., before their launch to the International Space Station.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched three rich businessmen and their astronaut escort to the International Space Station on Friday for more than a week's stay, as NASA joins Russia in hosting guests at the world's most expensive tourist destination.

It's SpaceX's first private charter flight to the orbiting lab after two years of carrying astronauts there for NASA.

4 astronauts will help scientists learn how space travel affects the human body

Arriving at the space station Saturday will be an American, Canadian and Israeli who run investment, real estate and other companies. They're paying $55 million apiece for the rocket ride and accommodations, all meals included.

Russia has been hosting tourists at the space station — and before that the Mir station — for decades. Just last fall, a Russian movie crew flew up, followed by a Japanese fashion tycoon and his assistant.

NASA is finally getting into the act, after years of opposing space station visitors.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the Crew Dragon capsule attached, lifts off Friday at the Kennedy Space Center. Chris O'Meara/AP hide caption

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the Crew Dragon capsule attached, lifts off Friday at the Kennedy Space Center.

"It was a hell of a ride and we're looking forward to the next 10 days," said former NASA astronaut and chaperone Michael Lopez-Alegria on reaching orbit.

The visitors' tickets include access to all but the Russian portion of the space station — they'll need permission from the three cosmonauts on board. Three Americans and a German also live up there.

No, Russian cosmonauts were not making a pro-Ukraine statement with their spacesuits

Lopez-Alegria plans to avoid talking about politics and the war in Ukraine while he's at the space station.

"I honestly think that it won't be awkward. I mean maybe a tiny bit," he said. He expects the "spirit of collaboration will shine through."

The private Axiom Space company arranged the visit with NASA for its three paying customers: Larry Connor of Dayton, Ohio, who runs the Connor Group; Mark Pathy, founder and CEO of Montreal's Mavrik Corp.; and Israel's Eytan Stibbe, a former fighter pilot and founding partner of Vital Capital.

Before the launch, their enthusiasm was obvious: Stibbe did a little dance when he arrived at the rocket at Kennedy Space Center.

SpaceX and NASA have been upfront with them about the risks of spaceflight, said Lopez-Alegria, who spent seven months at the space station 15 years ago.

"There's no fuzz, I think, on what the dangers are or what the bad days could look like," Lopez-Alegria told The Associated Press before the flight.

NASA's Artemis 1 moon rocket reaches the launch pad

Each visitor has a full slate of experiments to conduct during their nine to 10 days there, one reason they don't like to be called space tourists.

"They're not up there to paste their nose on the window," said Axiom's co-founder and president, Michael Suffredini, a former NASA space station program manager.

The three businessmen are the latest to take advantage of the opening of space to those with deep pockets. Jeff Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin is taking customers on 10-minute rides to the edge of space, while Virgin Galactic expects to start flying customers on its rocket ship later this year.

Friday's flight is the second private charter for Elon Musk's SpaceX, which took a billionaire and his guests on a three-day orbit ride last year.

Axiom is targeting next year for its second private flight to the space station. More customer trips will follow, with Axiom adding its own rooms to the orbiting complex beginning in 2024. After about five years, the company plans to detach its compartments to form a self-sustaining station — one of several commercial outposts intended to replace the space station once it's retired and NASA shifts to the moon.

At an adjacent pad during Friday's launch: NASA's new moon rocket, which is awaiting completion of a dress rehearsal for a summertime test flight.

As a gift for their seven station hosts, the four visitors are taking up paella and other Spanish cuisine prepared by celebrity chef José Andrés. The rest of their time at the station, NASA's freeze-dried chow will have to do.

The automated SpaceX capsule and its four passengers are due back April 19 with a splashdown off the Florida coast.

NASA is just now opening a vacuum-sealed sample it took from the moon 50 years ago

Connor is honoring Ohio's air and space legacy, taking up a fabric swatch from the Wright brothers' 1903 Kitty Hawk flyer and gold foil from the Apollo 11 command module from the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta.

Only the second Israeli to launch to space, Stibbe will continue a thunderstorm experiment begun by the first — Ilan Ramon, who died aboard shuttle Columbia in 2003. They were in the same fighter pilot squadron.

Stibbe is carrying copies of recovered pages of Ramon's space diary, as well as a song composed by Ramon's musician son and a painting of pages falling from the sky by his daughter.

"To be a part of this unique crew is a proof for me that there's no dream beyond reach," he said.

How SpaceX lowered costs and reduced barriers to space

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On March 2, SpaceX plans to launch its first test of an unmanned Dragon vehicle which is designed to carry humans into low Earth orbit and to the International Space Station. If the test is successful, later this year, SpaceX plans to launch American astronauts from United States soil for the first time since 2011.

While a major milestone for a private company, SpaceX’s most significant achievement has been in lowering the launch costs that have limited many space activities. While making several modifications to the fuel and engines, SpaceX’s major breakthroughs have come through recovering and reusing as much of the rocket and launch vehicle as possible.

Between 1970 and 2000, the cost to launch a kilogram to space remained fairly steady , with an average of US$18,500 per kilogram. When the space shuttle was in operation, it could launch a payload of 27,500 kilograms for $1.5 billion, or $54,500 per kilogram. For a SpaceX Falcon 9, the rocket used to access the ISS, the cost is just $2,720 per kilogram.

I’m a space policy analyst , and I’ve observed that cost has been a major hurdle limiting access to space. Since the 1950s, the high cost of a space program has traditionally put it beyond the reach of most countries. Today, state and private actors alike have ready access to space. And while SpaceX is not the only private company providing launch services – Orbital ATK, recently purchased by Northrop Grumman , United Launch Alliance and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin are also players – it has emerged as the most significant.

SpaceX’s achievements

Frustrated with NASA and influenced by science fiction writers , Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002. Though it suffered several setbacks , in 2008 it launched the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket, the Falcon 1. Falcon 9 flew for the first time the next year, and in 2012, the Dragon capsule became the first privately funded spacecraft to dock with the ISS. SpaceX has since focused on recovering key parts of the Falcon 9 to enhance reusability and reduce costs. This includes the Falcon 9’s first stage which, once it expends its fuel, falls back through the atmosphere reaching speeds of 5,200 miles per hour before reigniting its engines to land on a drone recovery ship.

In 2018 alone, SpaceX made 21 successful launches . The new Falcon Heavy rocket – a more powerful version of the Falcon 9 – launched in February. This rocket can lift 63,800 kilograms, equivalent to more than 27 Asian elephants, to low Earth orbit and 16,800 kilograms to Mars for just $90 million. The test payload was Musk’s own red Tesla Roadster, with a mannequin named Starman in the driver’s seat.

In addition to the crewed Dragon tests this year, SpaceX is continuing development of its Starship , which will be designed to travel through the solar system and carry up to 100 passengers sometime in the 2020s. Musk has also suggested that the Starship could serve as the foundation for a lunar base .

Impact on space exploration

SpaceX’s technical advances and cost reductions have changed the direction of U.S. space policy. In 2010, the Obama administration moved away from NASA’s Constellation program , which called for the development of a family of rockets that could reach low Earth orbit and be used for long-distance spaceflight. With NASA falling significantly behind schedule, because of technological difficulties and budget cuts, the Obama administration was left with a choice of whether to boost funds for NASA or change direction .

In 2010, then-President Barack Obama toured Kennedy Space Center and even met with Elon Musk to get a firsthand look at SpaceX’s facilities. The administration chose to reorient the program to focus solely on deep space. For missions closer to home, NASA would purchase services from companies like SpaceX for access to low Earth orbit. Critics objected to budget cuts to NASA as well as concerns about whether the private sector would be able to follow through on providing launch services.

While NASA has struggled to develop its Space Launch System, an analysis from NASA’s Ames Research Center found that the dramatically lower launch costs SpaceX made possible offered “greatly expanded opportunities to exploit space” for many users including NASA. The report also suggested that NASA could increase its number of planned missions to low Earth orbit and the ISS precisely because of the lower price tag.

In addition to substantially affecting human spaceflight, SpaceX has also launched payloads for countries including Kazakhstan , Bangladesh , Indonesia and, most recently, Israel. On Feb. 21, 2019, a Falcon 9 launched a privately built Israeli lunar lander which, if successful, will be the first privately built lunar probe.

Overall, SpaceX has significantly reduced the barriers to space, making it more accessible and democratizing who participates in space-based commerce and exploration.

Challenges ahead

Despite SpaceX’s successes, it faces significant challenges. Earlier this year, SpaceX laid off 10 percent of its workforce to reduce costs. NASA remains suspicious of some of the launch procedures SpaceX plans to use, including the fueling of the rocket with astronauts on board, which was linked to an explosion of a Falcon 9 on the launchpad. The Department of Defense’s inspector general has also announced an investigation into how the Air Force certified the Falcon 9, though it is not clear what initiated the probe.

Among some in NASA, the concern is with Musk himself . In a video last year, Musk was seen smoking marijuana , which prompted NASA to initiate a safety review of SpaceX as well as Boeing, another company aiming to provide launch services. Musk has also found himself in hot water with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding his tweets about another one of his companies, Tesla. In recent days, the SEC has asked a judge to hold Musk in contempt for apparently violating a settlement deal reached last year. While he is undoubtedly the driving force behind both Tesla and SpaceX, erratic behavior could make potential customers wary of contracting with them.

Musk, regardless of his personal missteps, and SpaceX have aggressively pushed technological boundaries that have changed minds, my own included, about the potential of private companies to provide safe and reliable access to space.

• International Space Station (ISS)
• Falcon Heavy
• Dragon capsule
• Space policy

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How much does space travel cost?

Spaceflight has traditionally been a government-led activity — and it's never been cheap. But the stratospheric cost of putting people and payloads into space is finally starting to fall, thanks in part to the rise of SpaceX and other private spaceflight companies.

Here’s a look at what it costs to go to space, whether it’s another satellite that needs to be placed in orbit or an adventurous billionaire looking for a joyride around the moon .

Sending up a satellite

Using its 230-foot-tall Falcon 9, SpaceX charges $62 million to send into orbit commercial satellites weighing up to 50,000 pounds. The closest American competitor is the United Launch Alliance Atlas V, which starts at $73 million for a 41,000-pound payload .

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Those are just starting prices; government agencies typically pay more for a long list of extra services. The Air Force, for example, is paying SpaceX $96.5 million to launch a GPS satellite in 2019 .

Flying to the International Space Station

Since NASA mothballed its space shuttles in 2011, NASA has relied on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get astronauts to the ISS. Russia has been steadily raising the price of Soyuz seats, reaching $82 million each in 2015. The agency last purchased Soyuz seats for $75 million apiece in 2017.

NASA hopes to end its reliance on Russia in 2019, when SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Boeing's Starliner capsules begin “taxi” flights to the ISS. Seats on those spacecraft are expected to cost about $58 million .

How much would I have to pay for a flight into space?

Depending on where you're going, a ticket could set you back anywhere from $250,000 to tens of millions of dollars.

If you're looking simply to cross the 62-mile-high Karman line that marks the boundary between the upper atmosphere and outer space, Virgin Galactic says it will take you there for $250,000. The company says about 650 people already have tickets for the suborbital flights, to be made aboard a winged vehicle called SpaceShipTwo. A date for customer flights has yet to be announced.

Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, plans something similar — sending space tourists on brief suborbital flights using its New Shepard rocket system. The company has yet to set ticket prices or say when paid flights might begin.

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin passengers will join the fewer than a dozen private citizens who have funded their own trips into space. From 2001 to 2009, the Vienna, Virginia-based firm Space Adventures worked with Russia’s space agency to send eight people to the ISS on flights lasting 10 or more days.

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The world's first private astronaut, a wealthy American engineer named Dennis Tito, reportedly paid $20 million to spend eight days in space in 2001. More recently, Guy Laliberté, the co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, shelled out $35 million for an ISS trip in 2009 . Space Adventures still advertises Soyuz flights and plans to start booking trips to the ISS aboard Boeing’s Starliner.

In September 2018, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa would ride the company’s yet-to-be-built Big Falcon Rocket on a trip around the moon. Neither Musk nor Maezawa, who said he would take along seven artists, would discuss the mission’s cost.

What about other rockets?

Small satellites may qualify for a free ride to space through NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites program, which helps universities and research groups fly standardized satellites called CubeSats aboard rockets as secondary payloads.

If your satellite can’t hitch a free ride, you can book a NASA sounding rocket to the edge of space for as little as $1 million . For orbital flights of payloads weighing less than 500 pounds, Los Angeles-based Rocket Lab offers launches of its Electron rocket from New Zealand for about $5 million .

From there, the price goes up steeply. Northrop Grumman's Pegasus rocket, which is air-launched from the belly of a jumbo jet, can place 1,000 pounds in orbit for about $40 million . Stratolaunch, a new venture bankrolled by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, plans to launch Pegasus rockets from its own colossal airplane before offering an expanded line of rockets capable of carrying up to 13,000 pounds. The company has yet to disclose prices.

NASA is developing its Space Launch System, which will carry astronauts to the moon and Mars. The rocket’s per-launch cost has not been disclosed, but the agency now spends at least $2 billion per year on the project. The maiden flight isn’t expected until 2020.

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SpaceX Starship: here’s how much an inter-Earth flight will cost

London to New York in 30 minutes, anyone?

SpaceX’s Starship is coming, and it could offer flights to some of Earth’s biggest cities that last less than an hour.

The rocket, currently under construction at the company’s Florida and Texas facilities, is designed to support some of SpaceX’s most ambitious missions like a trip around the moon and a city on Mars. But one of its most interesting features could be its ability to send humans point-to-point around the Earth, cutting the 11-hours-and-50-minutes flight time of a trip between London and Hong Kong down to just 34 minutes.

Pricing is yet to be determined, but SpaceX has dropped hints about the eventual price for a ticket on the rocket. In comments shared by CNBC reporter Michael Sheetz , SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell described these launches as a “derivative industry” for the company. During the same appearance last Friday, where she spoke on stage with investor Ron Baron at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Shotwell stated that tickets would cost a little more than an economy-class flight, but cheaper than a first-class ticket.

As work continues on the Starship, Shotwell’s comments paint a clearer picture about what to expect from the upcoming rocket. SpaceX employees have previously stated that the company plans to use Starship to send up a satellite in 2021, host a trip around the moon in 2023, and establish a city on Mars by 2050. After CEO Elon Musk unveiled the first full-size ship prototype in September 2019, the race is on to get a prototype to orbit and unlock the next stage in the company’s development.

"Starship halves being joined." Elon Musk shared this photo on his Twitter account on Friday, September 27, 2019.

SpaceX Starship: how much a ticket would cost

When Musk unveiled the BFR in September 2017, the Starship’s predecessor, he explained that the cost per seat for an inter-Earth flight should be “about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft.” Shotwell’s recent comments suggest that it may cost slightly more.

So how much is that? Let’s take the New York to London route, which SpaceX says should take 29 minutes. MoneyInc found in 2017 that the route from Heathrow Airport to John F. Kennedy Airport costs $1,544 for economy and $10,735 for first class. Inverse ’s own analysis found last-minute flights for $1,188 in economy and $13,643 for first class.

This chimes with the approximate figures from Sam Dinkins in the Space Review . He estimated that each flight would cost $1,055,000 to transport 853 passengers, equating to $1,200 per paid seat. Around 70 percent of that money goes on propellant, 20 percent on maintenance, and the rest on paying the crew and amortization costs.

Elon Musk, standing underneath Starship Mk.1.

SpaceX Starship: what you’d get with an inter-Earth flight

The Starship’s inter-Earth flights might not be a particularly comfortable experience. The Starship’s pressurized cabin space is comparable to that of an Airbus A380, and should fit around 100 people with comfortable living arrangements.

For the inter-Earth flights, Musk has suggested the rocket could hold around 1,000 people. Musk compared the flights to an inter-continental ballistic missile moving at Mach 25, or 19,182 miles per hour. It’ll move a fair amount faster than the approximately 600 mph of a jet engine, but that means SpaceX couldn’t provide amenities like bathrooms or food.

“Probably needs a restraint mechanism like Disney’s Space Mountain roller coaster,” Musk stated on Twitter in June 2019. “Would feel similar to Space Mountain in a lot of ways, but you’d exit on another continent.”

A previous version of SpaceX’s website claimed the rocket would offer New York to Los Angeles in 25 minutes, London to New York in 29 minutes, and Sydney to Singapore in 31 minutes. Musk has also suggested it could link to hyperloop , the 700 mph vacuum-sealed pod transit system, to cut travel times from the spaceport to the city center down to 10 minutes.

Musk even wants to cut back the amount of carbon going into the air with each flight. The long-term goal is to use carbon capture to collect the carbon dioxide, then use a series of processes to produce liquid oxygen and methane. This will be used to power the Raptor engines at the base of the Starship.

The Starship could send humans to distant planets and expand the species. But based on the company’s recent comments, it could transform inter-Earth travel.

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Every Space Tourism Vacation You Can Book Right Now, If You’re Rich

Thinking about the an ultimate quarantine experience we got you covered..

Things aren’t going so great on the planet Earth right now, and travel isn’t easy, but if you’ve got a bit of cash, you can really get away. A number of well-capitalized companies have been hacking away at Space Tourism, or commercially flying “regular” people into space, and now it’s on the verge of reality. Thanks to a great deal of financial and human capital put in by organizations ranging from NASA to billionaire-backed startups , we are inches close to turning it into reality.

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Space vacation packages come in a wide variety. For beginners, British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic (SPCE) is offering a 1.5-hour joy ride to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere. NASA is opening the International Space Station to private citizens. And, for hard-core space explorers, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has promised to fly you to the Moon (for a hefty price) in as soon as 2023.

Below we’ve put together the latest statuses of various space tourism projects in the market.

Virgin Galactic’s 90-Minute Suborbital Ride

Destination: Edge of the Earth’s atmosphere

Price: $250,000 per person

Earliest available time: late 2020

Virgin Galactic’s supersonic spaceplane, VSS Unity, will fly passengers up to 100 kilometers (62 miles) above sea level, which is right above the Kármán Line dividing the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space. From there, passengers will get a stunning view of the Earth’s curvature. Then, during the descent, they will experience several minutes of weightlessness like a true astronaut.

VSS Unity has completed two successful human test flights and is in its final stage of testing. Virgin Galactic plans to fly its first paying customer, possibly the company’s founder Richard Branson himself, as soon as this year.

Blue Origin’s Vertical Suborbital Ride

Destination: The edge of the Earth’s atmosphere

Price: $200,000 and $300,000

Earliest available time: unknown

Blue Origin , owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is developing a suborbital tourism program similar to Virgin Galactic’s but using a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing (VTVL) rocket-capsule system called New Shepard. The New Shepard spacecraft has successfully flown above the Kármán Line and returned to the ground.

Blue Origin had planned to launch its first human test flight in 2019 and begin selling commercial tickets (reportedly priced between $200,000 and $300,000 ) soon after. Yet, the plan was quietly canceled last year. The company has yet to make public statements about new test and rollout dates.

NASA’s Multi-Day ISS Getaway 

Destination: International Space Station

Price: $35,000 per night

In June 2019, NASA unveiled its grand plan to allow private citizens to fly to the International Space Station under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program . Passengers will fly in either SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft or Boeing’s Starliner  vessel.

The Crew Dragon recently completed its final crewed test and is ready to be deployed for commercial missions. NASA has said it will allow up to two private trips to the ISS a year, each lasting up to 30 days. The total cost of the trip would be around $50 million per person, the agency said.

SpaceX’s ‘Back to the Moon’ Package 

Destination: the Moon

Price: “Not a trivial amount’

Earliest available time: 2023

Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX has the ultimate space vacation offering: a personalized trip to the Moon. The package has one committing customer so far: Japanese fashion mogul Yusaku Maezawa , who signed up for the trip in September 2018 and has put down an undisclosed deposit. Musk has said the full ticket price is “not a trivial amount.”

SpaceX is currently building prototypes for the rocket ( Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) rocket ) and spaceship (Starship) that will fly Maezawa to the Moon. If all tests go according to the plan, a human launch could take place as early as 2023.

• SEE ALSO : FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel Supports TikTok Ban, Calls Lack of Oversight ‘Stunning’

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Space Tourism: How Much Does it Cost & Who's Offering It?

Last Updated: December 17, 2022

Many of us dream of going to space and over 600 people have traveled to space as astronauts in government-funded agencies such as NASA, the European Space Agency, and Roscosmos. But how much does spaceflight cost in today and how is that expected to change in the coming years? 

With new advancements in spaceflight technology, the costs of space travel are decreasing, making the dream of spaceflight a little closer for us all.

Evolution of Spaceflight Costs and Technologies

During the space race, the cost of sending something into space averaged between $6,000 to over $25,000 per kg of weight not adjusted for inflation and NASA spent $28 billion to land astronauts on the moon, about $288 billion in today’s dollars.

In recent decades, it has averaged around $10,000 per kg though certain missions have been higher due to other factors including the destination, the size of the rocket, the amount of fuel needed, and the cost of fuel. 

After the retirement of the space shuttle program, NASA paid Russia to transport astronauts to the ISS at about $80 million per seat on the Soyuz rocket. NASA’s biggest and newest rocket, the SLS (Space Launch System) which is currently being utilized for the new moon missions including Artemis and Orion, currently costs about $2-4 billion per launch.

But recent years and the addition of private space companies have drastically changed the game. NASA allowed private space companies to develop equipment for missions, including a 2006 partnership with SpaceX under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to provide resupply for crew and cargo demonstration contracts to the International Space Station (ISS). 

This partnership has continued to flourish over the years with SpaceX successfully launching two NASA astronauts in May 2020 on a Crew Dragon Spacecraft, making SpaceX the first private company to send astronauts to the ISS and the first crewed orbital launch from American soil in 9 years.

With the revolutionary technology of reusable boosters from SpaceX, the cost has plummeted, achieving less than $1,600 per kg with the Falcon Heavy (still totaling more than $100 million per launch) and even a projected cost of under a thousand for their next generation model Star Ship.

 These recent innovations are even making SLS the more expensive, less efficient option if SpaceX’s projections continue to progress as expected within margins of error. We shall see how NASA plans to adapt goals in light of this.

The Falcon Heavy is a cost-effective option for launching payloads into space.

The rise of private space companies

With private space companies, the opportunity for civilians to book a trip to space similar to booking a flight came closer to reality. Dennis Tito was the first private citizen to pay for a trip to space with a trip to the ISS from April 28th to May 6th, 2001 for $20 million dollars. Tito purchased his experience through Space Adventures Inc. which was founded in 1998 and offers a variety of different space experiences. They even acquired Zero Gravity Corporation, NASA’s provider of Reduced Gravity Training (not in space) for its astronauts, in 2008. They offer similar experiences for private individuals starting at about $8,200 as of this publishing (December 2022).

Space Adventures sent seven other space tourists to the ISS through 2009, but due to a number of factors, Space Adventures had to put their ISS offerings on hold until 2021 when they were able to purchase two Soyuz seats due to NASA moving their contract to SpaceX. Space Adventures sent two people to the ISS via the Roscosmos Soyuz rocket in December 2021 and is working on expanding its offerings.

In addition to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, there are a number of other private space companies getting into the commercial spaceflight/ space tourism market, most notably Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origins.

Flight Providers & Rates

What are the current rates for commercial spaceflight tickets? What commercial spaceflight trips have already happened? All prices are per person/ per seat.

SpaceX has had the most experience in sending humans to space thanks to its partnership with NASA and Musk has made it clear that he wants to make space travel an option for the public. To date, SpaceX has offered two commercial spaceflight options and has one big one planned for the future:

• SpaceX completed a Multi-Day Orbital Voyage, the first of their new plan to offer private astronaut experiences through their NASA partnership.  
• Estimated $55 million for a 3-day stay inside a modified SpaceX Dragon capsule orbiting the Earth at 357 miles (574 km) with three crewmates, sponsored by billionaire Jared Isaacman to raise money for St Jude’s Children’s Hospital
• Partnership between SpaceX and Houston-based Axiom Space Inc.
• $55 million for a 10-day trip to ISS at 408 km with a weeklong (8-day) stay in the orbital lab. 
• Expected to continue in 2023
• Axiom plans to build a stand-alone space station to replace the ISS with the first module expected to launch in 2024.
• Steve Aoki: American DJ and record producer
• Everyday Astronaut Tim Dodd: American science communicator, content creator, photographer, and musician
• Yemi A.D.: Czech choreographer, art director and performer
• Rhiannon Adam: Irish photographer
• Karim Iliya: British photographer and filmmaker
• Brendan Hall: American filmmaker and photographer
• Dev Joshi: Indian television actor
• Choi Seung-hyun (stage name: T.O.P.): South Korean rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor
• Cost is unknown, likely a minimum of $500 million

2. Blue Origin

Blue Origin: currently offers a 100km 12-minute ride to the Karman Line, the recognized boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space; pricing is still unclear and dependent on a variety of factors 

• On July 2021, Jeff and Mark Bezos went into space on the New Shepard rocket with Oliver Daemen (who won the trip through an auction bid of around 28 million) and honored guest Wally Funk (a member of Mercury 13, the private program in which women trained to be astronauts but ultimately never went to space)
• Blue Origin has completed 6 commercial space flights as of this publishing. Some “honorable guests” have been invited free of charge, such as Funk and actor William Shatner (Captain Kirk from the original Star Trek). Some have been sponsored or have received special deals due to their nonprofit status.
• $28 million winning auction bid for the first flight ( $19 million was donated)
• $1 million for a board member of a nonprofit
• About $1.25 for a Dude Perfect comedy group crew member, hosted by MoonDAO in August 2022

3. Virgin Galactic Subortbital Joy Ride

Virgin Galactic Subortbital Joy Ride: $450,000 for a 90-minute ride to suborbital space 50km above sea level 

• In July 2021, founder Richard Branson flew to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere with two pilots and three other Virgin Galactic employees as the first test of commercial spaceflight for the company
• Each VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo carries up to four passengers
• Expected flights are currently anticipated to begin in 2023 
• Includes training accommodations and amenities; launches from New Mexico

4. Roscosmos/ Space Adventures Customized ISS Trip

Roscosmos/ Space Adventures Customized ISS Trip: $50-60million for a 12-day trip to the ISS at 408 km

• In October 2021 an actress and director shot scenes for the first movie filmed in space
• December 2021 Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and Yozo Hirano for two days (same billionaire planning to go to the moon with SpaceX)
• With the current situation between Russia and Ukraine, this option is effectively nonexistent currently

5. Space Perspective

Space Perspective: a six-hour balloon ride to space/ the stratosphere on their “Spaceship Neptune” at $125,000

• Rides are currently scheduled to begin by the end of 2024. 
• A pressurized capsule will be slowly lifted by a football-field-sized hydrogen-filled balloon 19 miles (30 km) into the stratosphere, about 3 times the altitude of commercial planes. 
• The passenger cabin features a bar, bathroom, and windows for sightseeing and is expected to carry 8 passengers and 1 pilot per trip.

6. Aurora Space Station (no longer in development)

Aurora Space Station was supposed to be the world’s first luxury space hotel, offering a 12-day stay for $9.5 million allowing them to free float, observe space and earth, practice hydroponics and play in a hologram deck, but they shut down operations and refunded all deposits in March 2021. They received a lot of media attention and therefore are noted here due to that notoriety.

Conclusion: the current cost of flying to space

Currently, it is only available to those who can spend an average of $250,000 to $500,000 for suborbital trips (about a fifteen-minute ride to the edge of space and back) or flights to actual orbit at more than $50 million per seat (though typically a longer trip than 15 minutes).

It could be free/ discounted if you can find a sponsor, often for nonprofit/ charity purposes, or if you are someone of notoriety that can help spread the company’s mission. 

Waitlists are available for most offerings, with a deposit, with many stretching years into the future, which might end up helping you have a spot at a more reasonable price in the future if you can save up.

Many companies are looking to provide extended stay options on private space stations in the future, similar to how you might book a flight somewhere and stay in a hotel for a few days. Again, for the immediate future, this is estimated to cost tens of millions of dollars. The biggest portion of the cost would be launching them, though it is still estimated that a couple million dollars will be needed to cover the expenses of your stay while you are on the space station, whether that is included in the ticket price or added on top of that.

Many companies are hopeful they can eventually price a trip to space down to $100,000 but that will likely take some time, even with the cost-saving measures of reusable boosters. Many forms of recent technology have evolved exponentially in recent years and with dropping price rates as well. Just as plane travel was originally prohibitively expensive, but has now become fairly reasonable for the average consumer, the hope is that the same will eventually happen with space tourism, but we will have to see how long that takes. 

While the possibility of going to space is still out of reach for many of us, hopefully, the advancements in recent years and those yet to come will help to continually lower the costs of going to space, just as has occurred in many other fields. This author, for one, truly hopes that the interest of the elite who are currently able to participate in these offerings will spur research and development, not just of space tourism but space exploration in general, to help fuel a quicker journey to space access for all

Written by Sarah Hoffschwelle

Sarah Hoffschwelle is a freelance writer who covers a combination of topics including astronomy, general science and STEM, self-development, art, and societal commentary. In the past, Sarah worked in educational nonprofits providing free-choice learning experiences for audiences ages 2-99. As a lifelong space nerd, she loves sharing the universe with others through her words. She currently writes on Medium at  https://medium.com/@sarah-marie  and authors self-help and children’s books.

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This page is part of our collection of articles about astronauts . If you enjoyed the read, then you’ll love the following articles.

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Covering the business and politics of space

SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9: What are the real cost savings for customers?

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KOUROU, French Guiana — Now that SpaceX appears on the verge of being the first to reuse rocket hardware since NASA with the U.S. space shuttle, investors and competitors are sharpening their pencils to assess the business case.

The prima facie appeal of reusing rockets has always obscured the challenges of refurbishing, at low cost, a rocket stage and engine bloc that has suffered the stresses of hurtling through the atmosphere in advance of landing.

“It’s quite fundamental,” SpaceX founder Elon Musk said April 8 after the Falcon 9 first stage made a clean touchdown on a drone ship located offshore the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, as part of a successful mission to deliver supplies to the international space station for NASA. The stage has since been returned to port and will be repeatedly test-fired to determine its fitness for reuse as early as this year.

“It’s just as fundamental in rocketry as it is in other forms of transport – such as cars or planes or bicycles,” Musk said in a post-launch briefing.

NASA engineering veterans of the space shuttle would surely agree about its being fundamental. But after beating their heads against the problem for years, they also would say it’s much more difficult than hopping back into your car.

“The SSMEs were reusable,” Dan Dumbacher, former NASA deputy associated administrator for exploration systems development, said of the space shuttle main engines. “We tried to make them reusable for 55 flights. Look how long and how much money it took for us to do that, and we still weren’t completely successful for all the parts. I want to be realistic: We are not as smart as we think we are and we don’t understand the environment as well as we think we do.”

Dumbacher was speaking in April 2014, before Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX succeeded in landing the Falcon 9 first stage, first in December on a pad near the launch site, and then during the April 8 mission. But his caution related not to the fact of landing safely, but to the economics of refurbishment.

SpaceX is a privately held company that does not publish its financial statements, making a detailed cost analysis difficult. Outsiders are left with piecing together what they can, based on SpaceX’s public statements.

In March, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the company could expect a 30 percent cost savings from reusing the first stage. If this translated into a 30 percent price reduction to customers, that would drop Falcon 9’s advertised price to $42.8 million from today’s $61.2 million.

When measured by contract volume, SpaceX’s biggest customer is SES of Luxembourg. SES has said repeatedly it is willing to be the inaugural customer for a reused first stage, but would like the price to move closer to $30 million, at least for the first flight.

The interest of SES, a publicly traded company, in rocket reuse has set in motion analyses by investment banks covering the commercial satellite telecommunications industry. The latest is from Jefferies International LLC.

In an April 25 report, Jefferies takes the $61.2 million list price for a Falcon 9 launch and assumes SpaceX makes a gross margin of 40 percent on the launch, leaving a direct per-launch cost to SpaceX of $36.7 million. This includes the costs of the fueled rocket, and of launch campaign.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said the first stage accounts for about 75 percent of the total vehicle cost. If the 40 percent gross-margin estimate were correct, that would mean a total first-stage cost of $27.5 million.

Musk has said the first-stage engine could be reused dozens of times. Jefferies assumes it is used 15 times.

If SpaceX passed on to its customers 50 percent of the cost savings, the company could reduce today’s Falcon 9 price by 21 percent, to $48.3 million, Jefferies concludes.

If SpaceX gave customers 100 percent of the savings, the launch price would drop by up to 40 percent, to $37 million.

“There are ongoing challenges in translating a reused rocket to tangible capex savings – worries about it failing, insurance implications, retrofitting turnaround, building up a critical mass of reused first stages in the warehouse,” Jefferies said. “But the direction of travel is clear.”

Musk said the fuel used on a Falcon 9 is between $200,000 and $300,000. Reserving fuel in the first stage for landing adds mass to the vehicle and deprives it of performance, effectively carrying fuel instead of extra payload — a penalty that expendable rockets do not need to pay. Musk was addressing not the performance penalty, but the issue of fuel cost, which is a non-issue in the overall economics of reusability.

While focusing on the first stage, SpaceX would like to return the rocket’s fairing as well. “That will certainly help, because each of these costs several million,” Musk said.

SpaceX has not addressed how many launches per year it would need to close the business case for reusability. But this is a key issue.

The economies of scale that SpaceX achieves through Falcon 9’s design of using identical engines throughout the vehicle – nine on the first stage and one on the second – will likely be diluted once reused first stages are added into the mix.

The amount of dilution will depend on how many times the stages are reused, and what SpaceX can reasonably assume as an annual launch rate.

SpaceX has not publicly disclosed what it views as a minimum acceptable launch cadence.

SpaceX’s principal competitor, Arianespace of Europe, sees this issue as a potential death blow for any European attempt to reuse its Ariane rockets. In fact, it’s a double whammy for Europe because the same problem that makes it uneconomic for Arianespace makes it necessary for SpaceX to become even more aggressive in the global commercial launch market.

Arianespace Chief Executive Stephane Israel, in an April 23 briefing at Europe’s Guiana Space Center here on the northeast coast of South America, said Europe’s launch sector can only guess at how much SpaceX will need to spend to refurbish its Falcon 9 first stages.

Israel said European assessments of reusability have concluded that, to reap the full cost benefits, a partially reusable rocket would need to launch 35-40 times per year to maintain a sizable production facility while introducing reused hardware into the manifest.

Arianespace’s Ariane 6 rocket, scheduled to debut in 2020, is forecasted to launch 12 times per year starting in 2023, when the current Ariane 5 vehicle is retired.

This rate may increase depending on developments in the commercial market. Seven of the 12 annual Ariane 6 campaigns will be devoted to commercial launches, each carrying two satellites. The five other launches will be for European government customers.

Israel’s argument, which he has made before, is that even if first stages can be recovered and refurbished in a cost-effective way, the launch rate needed for maximum cost savings – and hence price reductions to customers – is beyond Europe’s reach.

The only nations today whose governments are launching sufficiently often to reach those rates are the United States and China, and even these government markets may be insufficient, in and of themselves, to close the business case.

That means any launch provider introducing reusability will have a maximum incentive to search for commercial business outside its domestic market.

The scenario European launch officials fear is one in which SpaceX succeeds in refurbishing stages at a relatively low cost, and then – to close reusability’s business case — becomes even more aggressive on the international market, which is where Arianespace generates most of its revenue.

Peter B. de Selding

Peter B. de Selding was the Paris bureau chief for SpaceNews. More by Peter B. de Selding

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SpaceX: Facts about Elon Musk's private spaceflight company

SpaceX is the maker of Starship and a private space company known for its International Space Station missions.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk

Spacex's first rocket: falcon 1.

• Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy
• Cargo missions to ISS

Crewed launches to the ISS

• Commercial flight
• Starlink controversy
• Future plans

Additional resources

SpaceX is a private spaceflight company that sends satellites and people to space, including NASA crews to the International Space Station (ISS). Founder Elon Musk is also creating and testing a Starship system for lunar landings and, he hopes, future crewed Mars missions.

The company sent its first two astronauts to the ISS on May 30, 2020, aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon and has sent several more crews aloft on behalf of NASA and other entities. 

As of mid-2022, it is the only commercial spaceflight company capable of sending astronauts to space, although it may soon face competition from Boeing's CST-100 Starliner .

Related: 8 ways that SpaceX has transformed spaceflight

SpaceX was founded by Musk, a South African-born businessman and entrepreneur. At age 30, Musk made his initial fortune by selling his two successful companies: Zip2, which he sold for $307 million in 1999, and PayPal, which eBay purchased for $1.5 billion in 2002, The New York Times reported . Musk decided his next major venture would be a privately funded space company. 

Initially, Musk had the idea of sending a greenhouse, dubbed the Mars Oasis, to the Red Planet. His goal was to drum up public interest in exploration while also providing a science base on Mars. But the cost ended up being too high, and instead, Musk started a spaceflight company called Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, now based in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne, California. 

He spent a third of his reported fortune, $100 million, to get SpaceX going. There was skepticism that he would be successful, which persisted into SpaceX's first years.

After spending 18 months toiling privately on a spacecraft, SpaceX unveiled the craft in 2006 under the name Dragon . Musk reportedly named the spacecraft after "Puff, the Magic Dragon," a 1960s song from the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary. He said he chose the name because critics believed his spaceflight aims were impossible.

Musk was already an experienced businessman when he started SpaceX, and he strongly believed that more frequent and more reliable launches would bring down the cost of exploration. So, he sought out a stable customer that could fund the early development of a rocket: NASA . (Later, he wooed launch clients from various sectors to diversify his customer base.) As such, his goal for SpaceX was to develop the first privately built, liquid-fueled booster to make it into orbit, which he called the Falcon 1. 

The company experienced a steep learning curve on the road to orbit. It took four tries to get Falcon 1 flying successfully, with previous attempts derailed by problems such as fuel leaks and a rocket-stage collision. But eventually, Falcon 1 made two successful flights: on Sept. 28, 2008, and July 14, 2009. The 2009 launch also placed the Malaysian RazakSat satellite into orbit.

Related: See The Evolution of SpaceX's Rockets in Pictures

In 2006, SpaceX received $278 million from NASA under the agency's  Commercial Orbital Transportation Services  (COTS) demonstration program, which was created to spur the development of systems that could transport cargo commercially to the ISS. The addition of a few more milestones eventually boosted the total contract value to up to $396 million. SpaceX was selected for the program along with Rocketplane Kistler (RpK), but RpK's contract was terminated with only partial payment after the company failed to meet the required milestones.

Multiple companies participated in the COTS program in its early stages, in funded or unfunded contracts. In 2008, NASA awarded two contracts for commercial-resupply services. SpaceX received a contract for 12 flights (worth $1.6 billion), and Orbital Sciences Corp. ( now Orbital ATK ) received a contract for eight flights (worth $1.9 billion). 

Better rockets: Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy

The workhorse rocket of the SpaceX fleet is the Falcon 9 , and one of its features is reusability. Falcon 9 hefts much more cargo than Falcon 1: 28,991 lbs. (13,150 kilograms) to low Earth orbit, compared to Falcon 1's capacity of 1,480 lbs. (670 kg). 

The first Falcon 9 booster landing took place on Dec. 21, 2015, and SpaceX now strives to make its boosters retrievable as a matter of course. They generally land on a robotic drone ship nearby the launch pad. Many of the Falcon 9 boosters have been used multiple times, to reduce launching costs.

A more powerful rocket, known as Falcon Heavy , made its debut on Feb. 6, 2018, meeting almost all of its major milestones. Falcon Heavy successfully flew to orbit, carrying a Tesla Roadster (an electric car made by Tesla, another company owned by Musk) and a spacesuited mannequin nicknamed Starman. SpaceX ran a live stream of the launch and the Roadster's first few hours in space, which attracted attention from all over the world.

The two rocket boosters landed successfully near Kennedy Space Center, as expected, but the core stage hit the ocean at 300 mph (480 km/h), which was too fast, and it didn't survive the impact. Falcon Heavy then performed an engine burn in space that is expected to bring the Roadster at least as far as Mars' orbit. 

April 2019 saw a setback for SpaceX when a test of the crewed Dragon spacecraft, intended to bring NASA astronauts to space, experienced a malfunction while on the ground. This created a smoke plume visible for miles around Cape Canaveral, Florida. The incident set back the company's timeline for bringing people to the International Space Station. That said, the company has recovered and has been bringing people to orbit with few issues since the debut crewed mission in 2020.

SpaceX Dragon: Cargo missions to ISS

The next and most crucial milestone for SpaceX was space station delivery. Dragon , riding a Falcon 9 rocket, delivered its first cargo to the space station in May 2012 under a test flight for the COTS program. The launch was delayed for a few days because of an engine problem, but the rocket lifted off safely on the next try. 

Spaceflight observers commended SpaceX's ability to send a cargo spacecraft to the ISS. Private spaceflight hadn't even been considered when the space station was developed in the 1980s and 1990s.

SpaceX fulfilled the first of its regular commercial flights to the space station in October 2012. That flight achieved most of its objectives, but it experienced a partial rocket failure during launch. The failure ended up stranding a satellite, Orbcomm-OG2, in an abnormally low orbit, which led to the mission's failure. 

That said, the first version of the Dragon spacecraft ran 20 flights to the space station through 2020, with all but one of them (CRS-7, in June 2015) arriving successfully. CRS-7 was lost due to a rocket anomaly and SpaceX made redesigns before the next, successful launch on April 8, 2016, which brought the inflatable Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) to space. 

A new version of Dragon's cargo variant began flying in December 2020 and has executed all five of its planned missions successfully to date, as of mid-2022. 

SpaceX developed several prototypes ahead of flying the Crew Dragon to space. One set, called DragonFly, performed a pad abort test at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Facility (now Cape Canaveral Space Force Facility), as well as tethered hover tests at the SpaceX Rocket Development and Test Facility in McGregor, Texas.

The company also used a pressure vessel qualification module and an environmental control and life support system module to test out key systems ahead of spaceflight. The first Crew Dragon to fly into space completed Crew Demo-1, which flew to the ISS on an uncrewed test on March 2, 2019, and splashed down successfully after eight days in space. That flown Crew Dragon spacecraft was unexpectedly destroyed after the flight during a separate set of tests to evaluate the abort system.

SpaceX launched its first crewed test flight, Demo-2, on May 30, 2020, safely delivering astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS. On the company's newly built Endeavour SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, the two men returned safely to Earth on Aug. 2, 2020.

On Nov. 15, 2020, the first successful operational flight, Crew-2, used a Falcon 9 rocket to safely launch four astronauts to the ISS aboard a Crew Dragon craft that the astronauts had named "Resilience," in honor of ongoing efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As of this writing, SpaceX has sent four crews of astronauts (NASA and international astronauts) to the ISS aboard Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2, Crew-3, and Crew-4. One more mission, Crew-5, is planned for 2022 and there is room in the current contract to order more missions as required for space station needs.

Helping SpaceX's case has been ongoing issues in developing the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, but Boeing plans to run a second, uncrewed test flight in 2022 with aims to launch astronauts in 2023 if the test goes to plan.

In pictures: Amazing launch photos of SpaceX's Crew-4 mission

Starship is the centerpiece of Musk's eventual plans to head to Mars. While the spacecraft remains in early testing, it is NASA's choice of lander to send Artemis astronauts to the moon no earlier than 2025. (NASA's selection had to overcome legal protests by Blue Origin after the agency pivoted to a sole-source contract over multiple vendors, citing a lack of money, but another solicitation was pledged in 2022.)

The testing program began with a smaller vehicle known as Starhopper, which performed a series of tethered and untethered flight tests in 2019 and 2020. Then SpaceX began testing a series of Starship vehicles in high-altitude flights, starting with a cautious hop test of SN5 in August 2020. One of the program's greatest challenges was executing flip maneuvers in mid-air, which led to the demise of several Starships before SN15 achieved a soft landing on May 5, 2021.

Starship is designed to launch to orbit and deep space aboard Super Heavy, the 230-foot (70-meter) tall booster that holds roughly 3.6 tons of liquid oxygen and methane in its propellant tanks. Like all of SpaceX's boosters, Super Heavy is planned to be reusable. It will feature four grid fins to assist in controlling the booster's descent. 

The fully stacked Super Heavy and Starship were put together on a launchpad for the first time in August 2021, standing 395 feet (120 meters) tall. That's more than 30 feet (9 m) taller than NASA's massive Saturn V moon rocket. 

This Starship-Super Heavy version is set to perform an orbital test in 2022, pending a delayed environmental review of the Federal Aviation Administration of SpaceX's launch facilities in Boca Chica, Texas. The public response to the review added more data points than FAA was anticipating, lengthening the process.

Commercial: Axiom Space, Inspiration4, Polaris Program, dearMoon

SpaceX's success in running Crew Dragon missions to the space station attracted missions from other companies, which use similar spacecraft to run high-Earth orbit missions, ISS missions and in one case, a crewed moon mission.

The first Crew Dragon spacecraft used by non-professionals was the one that flew Inspiration4 into space. Four people rode to orbit on a mission to raise money and awareness for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. The crew used a variant of Crew Dragon with a large cupola window, flown in place of a docking mechanism as they didn't need to reach the ISS.

The success of Inspiration4 inspired Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who had paid for the four seats, to begin his own private space program. Called the Polaris Program, it will run a series of missions for charity and for research purposes in space. Isaacman is expected to participate in all three missions. The first mission, Polaris Dawn, is scheduled to fly in late 2022.

Another company, Axiom Space , plans to run a long series of research-oriented missions to the ISS using SpaceX Crew Dragons. The debut of the series was Ax-1, a 10-day mission in April 2022. Axiom's manifest calls for the company to launch a research module to ISS that will also allow for a film studio.

Moon missions appear to be in play for further in the future. In 2018, Musk announced that Yusaku Maezawa, an artist and billionaire founder of the Japanese e-commerce giant Zozo, and a handful of artists will launch the trip around the moon in the 2020s. SpaceX did not disclose how much Maezawa paid for that trip. The mission is called dearMoon and Maezawa is seeking crewmates for the trip who have an artistic bent.

Starlink expansion and controversy

In 2019, Musk and SpaceX ignited controversy in the field of astronomy over the company's plans to place a constellation of 12,000 small satellites in orbit around the Earth in order to provide reliable internet access to remote places. So far, only 60 of these Starlink satellites have launched but they have already left unsightly trails in astronomers' telescope observations of the night sky. Many researchers fear that an increased number of satellites will cause problems for vital data-collecting enterprises.

SpaceX has been testing out a special coating on the next round of Starlink satellites that could help make them less reflective and, therefore, less obtrusive in the night sky. That said, astronomers continue to sound alarms about the potential of intrusions in telescopic images. Wide-field imaging, and imaging at dawn and dusk, appear to be particularly affected by satellite streaks.

While SpaceX has been in conversation with the astronomical community, studies continue to show the impact of Starlink on observations. For example, a 2022 research paper in the Astrophysical Journal showed the wide-field Zwicky Transient Facility's images are becoming more affected with time, as SpaceX deploys more satellites.

NASA also raised concerns about Starlink in 2022, noting a proposal to place 30,000 more Starlink internet satellites into orbit will not only affect ground observations but may also interfere with launch windows due to the number of satellites passing overhead. Increasing space debris collision risk was also noted by the agency, although SpaceX says it has automation to reduce the risk as much as possible.

SpaceX's plans for the future, Mars and more

– SpaceX Starship: Key milestones for the world's most powerful rocket

– Every SpaceX Starship explosion and what Elon Musk and team learned from them (video)

– The history of rockets

SpaceX has customers from the private sector, military and nongovernmental entities, which pay the company to launch cargo into space. Although SpaceX makes its money from launch services, the company is also focused on developing technology for future space exploration. 

And Musk's dreams of flying to Mars are undimmed. In 2011, he told delegates at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) in San Diego that he planned to take people to Mars in 10 to 15 years. Three years later, at the International Space Development Conference, he said the reusable rocket stage would be a step in getting to the Red Planet.

"The reason SpaceX was created was to accelerate the development of rocket technology, all for the goal of establishing a self-sustaining, permanent base on Mars," Musk said at the time. "And I think we're making some progress in that direction — not as fast as I'd like."

In 2016, Musk unveiled his technological plan for Martian transport, which is a part of his plan to create a self-sustaining Red Planet colony in the next 50 to 100 years. The Interplanetary Transport System, as the rocket is called, is essentially a larger version of the Falcon 9. The spaceship, however, will be quite a bit larger than the Dragon, as it is slated to carry at least 100 people per flight. (The crewed version of the Dragon for the ISS is expected to carry four people, on average.) 

Musk followed up his announcement in 2017 by publishing a paper describing a future Red Planet city of a million people and providing more details about how the ITS would transport cargo and people.

Musk updated his Mars plans in September 2017 in an address in Australia. He didn't mention the ITS during the talk; instead, he talked about a system called the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR). The spaceship that BFR will carry will be 157.5 feet (48 meters) tall and have 40 cabins for passengers, likely with a capacity of 100 people.

Musk once again unveiled an update to his Mars plans, in September 2019, renaming the first BFR to Starship Mk1 and switching its outer coating from expensive carbon fiber to stainless steel. Photos of the shiny, sci-fi-looking craft being assembled at SpaceX's South Texas facilities, near the village of Boca Chica, circulated on the internet.

Related: No more BFR: SpaceX changing name of Mars-colonizing rocket, spaceship

Starship continues to feature in Musk's Mars plans. In a February 2022 update, Musk said it may be possible to reach a launch rate of one Starship vehicle every six to eight hours, and one Super Heavy rocket every hour, on missions that would send up to 150 tons of payload to orbit. Such a high launch rate is expected to bring down costs, Musk said, making Mars settlements more financially feasible.

You can follow SpaceX on Twitter . Watch videos of SpaceX's successful and failed launches on the company's YouTube channel . Check out NASA's SpaceX blog for the latest news on collaborations between the two entities. Read about the series of collaborations to stay up to speed.  

Bibliography

Federal Aviation Administration. "SpaceX Starship Super Heavy Project at the Boca Chica Launch Site." 2022, March 25. https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_starship/

Government Accountability Office. "Decision Matter of: Blue Origin Federation, LLC; Dynetics, Inc.-A Leidos Company." 2021, July 30. https://www.gao.gov/assets/b-419783.pdf

Mroz, Przemek et. al. "Impact of the SpaceX Starlink Satellites on the Zwicky Transient Facility Survey Observations." The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 924, Number 2. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ac470a . 2022 Jan. 14.

SpaceX. "Starlink." 2022. https://www.starlink.com/

SpaceX. "SpaceX." 2022. https://www.spacex.com/

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Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, " Why Am I Taller ?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace

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Recent projections, delegate tracker, pennsylvania primaries 2024: lee and fitzpatrick survive, matchups set for november, why spacex's starship rocket matters even after self-destruction.

The rocket could lower the costs of sending cargo into space.

About three minutes after SpaceX's Starship rocket launched Thursday morning, the boosters failed to separate, and it was forced to self-destruct.

Despite not going according to plan, SpaceX said it was still a successful first part of the mission, and CEO Elon Musk congratulated the team .

When Starship is eventually perfected, here's why the world's largest rocket will be so extraordinary:

MORE: SpaceX planning 2nd launch attempt of Starship rocket Thursday

Starship is designed to carry passengers to the moon and Mars as part of NASA's Artemis program, and eventually will take 100 people on long-duration, interplanetary flights.

In fact, Starship will be so cost-effective, it will eventually be able to deliver about 100 tons of cargo to any planet in the solar system, such as Mars, for as little as $50 million.

For comparison, the Space Shuttle, a reusable spacecraft system that NASA retired in 2011, cost $1.5 billion to lift only about one-quarter of what Starship will, and only into low Earth orbit.

Additionally, Starship will be reusable, meaning rapid turnaround and relaunch cycles. Eventually, multiple versions of the spacecraft could put 1 million tons of cargo into space in a year.

At that rate, launch costs would decrease roughly 100 times from what they are now and could even result in daily launches. That would mean launch costs could be driven down to about $23 a pound, making cost no longer a significant barrier of getting to space.

MORE: Japanese billionaire Maezawa selects 8 to join SpaceX moon trip

In the past, science has been limited to what can be flown into space because of launch size and weight restrictions. The massive size and power of Starship will make humans visiting the moon and Mars not only possible but financially sustainable, even for those who aren't among the very rich.

This could eventually lead to space tourism, with people paying money to visit hotels in space for the same cost as a plane ticket to Europe. Space experiments will be so inexpensive that a high school science class could design, build and send to space its own experiments.

The ability of Starship to take heavy loads, inexpensively, into space will open up not just the ability to colonize other planets, but it will create new opportunities for communications and Earth observation by taking tens of thousands of satellites into space for minimal cost. The number and types of satellites in orbit will no longer be limited by launch costs or the cargo bay of the rocket, often a big deterrent.

For those back on Earth, it will mean access to services like hyper-localized weather prediction, or crop health and yield affected by disease or drought before it becomes a problem. And video communication will be available anywhere on Earth for almost no cost.

On a macro level, this could also result in better earthquake prediction, air traffic control completely done from space, and navigation aids much better than today's GPS.

However, many of these ambitions are still several years away, so why does Starship matter now?

Because space is hard and requires failure to reach success. Today's launch will pave the way to eventual success that creates one of the most important scientific advances in the history of human civilization.

As Dr. Jennifer Heldmann, a research scientist at NASA, noted , "The SpaceX Starship system fundamentally changes the paradigm for NASA science, technology development and testing, and human exploration of space."

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WATCH: SpaceX to launch Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

SpaceX crews are planning to launch a Falcon 9 rocket on Monday.

▶ STREAM THE LAUNCH LIVE

The launch is aiming to send another batch of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit.

Crews and planning to launch at 6:40 p.m. from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Watch: NASA, SpaceX Crew-7 successfully splashes down off Florida’s coast

SpaceX says the launch will send the newest version of its mini-Starlink satellites.

If the launch is delayed for any reason, SpaceX has backup launch opportunities until 10:40 p.m.

Watch: SpaceX successfully launches 3rd Starship, world’s most powerful rocket

About 8 minutes after liftoff, the first-stage booster of the rocket will land on a SpaceX droneship in the Atlantic Ocean.

Channel 9 will monitor the planned launch and provide updates on Eyewitness News.

Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.

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SpaceX notches 300th Falcon rocket booster landing after Tuesday liftoff from Cape Canaveral

Like a fiery dart approaching a bullseye, the Falcon 9 first-stage booster descended vertically toward its circular target zone atop the SpaceX drone ship Just Read the Instructions out on the Atlantic Ocean.

"Stage one landing leg deployed," a SpaceX crew member announced during the company webcast.

About four seconds later, the rocket stage touched down on the drone ship — marking SpaceX's 300th Falcon booster landing.

The booster's noteworthy return to terra firma made Tuesday's Starlink 6-53 one for the history books after a 6:17 p.m. EDT liftoff from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The rocket deployed 23 more broadband satellites into low-Earth orbit.

Cape Canaveral: Is there a launch today? Upcoming rocket launch schedule for SpaceX, ULA, NASA in Florida

SpaceX officials  postponed the mission's initial Monday night launch window while facing a windy, cloudy weather forecast . By contrast, the Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron pegged Tuesday's odds of "go for launch" weather at greater than 95%.

Tuesday's landmark Falcon 9 booster had previously launched Crew-6 ,  SES O3b mPOWER ,  USSF-124  and five Starlink missions. Crews targeted the drone ship landing 8 minutes and 31 seconds after liftoff.

Looking ahead, SpaceX is targeting back-to-back rocket launch attempts Saturday and Sunday from the Space Coast, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency navigational warnings indicate.

SpaceX has yet to announce these missions. But Saturday night, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket may launch Galileo satellites for the European Space Agency's global navigation system between 8:29 p.m. and 9:11 p.m.

Then Sunday, another Starlink launch window will open from 5:50 p.m. to 10:21 p.m.

For updates on both missions and the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit  floridatoday.com/space .

Rick Neale  is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories,  click here .) Contact Neale at [email protected] . Twitter/X:  @RickNeale1

Space is important to us and that's why we're working to bring you top coverage of the industry and Florida launches. Journalism like this takes time and resources. Please support it with a subscription here.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX nails 300th Falcon booster landing with Tuesday Starlink mission

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Back-to-back SpaceX rocket launches: List of Florida beaches, parks & best views to watch

A nyone up for back-to-back rocket launches this week? Two SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets will potentially lift off this week, carrying Starlink internet satellites.

Weather permitting, the rocket launches will be visible in the night sky above the Space Coast and the Treasure Coast on Wednesday, April 17 and Thursday, April 18.

Below is a calendar for upcoming rocket launches and how to watch the SpaceX rocket launches this week.

Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.

Is there a rocket launch in Florida today? Rocket launch calendar for Florida

Here's what we know about the rocket launch missions, mentioned in  FLORIDA TODAY's rocket launch calendar  for the month, which is updated frequently. (Check that link often for rocket launch times and dates because they are routinely subject to change for a variety of reasons.)

FLORIDA TODAY, a USA TODAY Network-Florida newspaper, provides interactive launch coverage at  floridatoday.com/space  with frequent updates on launches at least 90 minutes in advance, sometimes longer, depending on the mission.

For questions or comments, email  Space Reporter Rick Neale  at [email protected] or tweet him  @rickneale1  on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter.

'What is that?!' A SpaceX rocket that launched from Florida was spotted -- in Texas

Is SpaceX launching from Florida? Wednesday, April 17 and Thursday, April 18: SpaceX Starlink

Though SpaceX has not publicly confirmed this mission's existence, a National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency navigational warning indicates rocket launch windows will open Wednesday afternoon and Thursday night.

Here are some details about the upcoming SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches:

Wednesday, April 17:

• Mission:  A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a batch of Starlink internet satellites from the Space Coast.
• Launch window:  5:24 p.m. to 9:55 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 17.
• Trajectory:  Southeast.
• Local sonic boom:  No.
• Booster landing:  Drone ship on the Atlantic Ocean.
• Live coverage:  Starts 90 minutes before liftoff at  floridatoday.com/space .

Thursday, April 18:

• Launch window:  6:40 p.m. to 11:11 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 18.

Where to watch a SpaceX rocket launch from Space Coast of Florida

Here's what we know about the rocket launch missions, mentioned in  FLORIDA TODAY's rocket launch calendar  for the month, which is updated frequently. (Check that link often for rocket launch times and dates.)

Pretty much anywhere  in Brevard, you'll get a view of the rocket  launch. The best view to watch a rocket launch from the Space Coast is along the beach. However, visibility will depend on weather conditions and people should make sure not to block traffic or rights of way on bridges and to follow posted rules at beaches.

If you are viewing the launch along the Indian River in Titusville from Space View Park or Parrish Park, look east directly across the river.

If you are farther south along the Indian River, look northeast.

Playalinda Beach or Canaveral National Seashore is the closest spot to view liftoff because it is almost parallel to Launch Pad 39A. On the beach, look south along the coastline, (you can even see the pad from some spots).

Some hotspots to check out:

•  Jetty Park Beach and Pier , 400 Jetty Park Road,  Port Canaveral . Note, there's a charge to park.
•   Playalinda Beach , 1000 Playalinda Beach Road, Canaveral National Seashore. Note, there's a charge to park, and access to Canaveral National Seashore isn't always granted depending on capacity and time of day.
•   Max Brewer Bridge and Parrish Park , 1 A. Max Brewer Memorial Parkway, Titusville. Note, parking is available on both sides of Max Brewer Bridge.
•   Space View Park , 8 Broad St., Titusville
•  Sand Point Park , 10 E. Max Brewer Causeway, Titusville
•   Rotary Riverfront Park , 4141 S. Washington Ave., Titusville
• Alan Shepard Park , 299 E. Cocoa Beach Causeway, Cocoa Beach. Note, there could be parking costs.
•   Cocoa Beach Pier , 401 Meade Ave. Parking fee varies.
•   Lori Wilson Park , 1400 N. Atlantic Ave., Cocoa Beach. Lori Wilson Park has a dog park, by the way.
•   Sidney Fischer Park , 2200 N. Atlantic Ave., Cocoa Beach. Note, there could be parking costs.
•   Sebastian Inlet Park , 9700 S. State Road A1A, Melbourne Beach (there is a cost to enter)
•   Ambersands Beach Park , 12566 N. SR A1A, Vero Beach (free parking)
•  South Beach Park , 1700 Ocean Drive, Vero Beach (free parking)
•  Merrill Barber Bridge in Vero Beach
• Alma Lee Loy Bridge in Vero Beach

Can I see a rocket from the Treasure Coast? Where can I see a launch in Indian River County, St. Lucie County and Martin County?

The best views to watch a rocket launch from neighboring Brevard County, aka the Space Coast, is along the beach.

Visibility in Indian River County,  St. Lucie County  and Martin County, all part of the Treasure Coast, will depend on weather conditions, and people should make sure not to block traffic or rights of way on bridges and to follow posted rules at beaches. Look due north. Here are some recommended spots, from closest to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center to farthest:

Pretty much anywhere in Brevard, you'll get a view of the rocket launch. That includes  Melbourne Beach , which borders Indian River County, or from Grant-Valkaria along the Indian River Lagoon.

•   Wabasso Beach Park , 1808 Wabasso Beach Road, Wabasso
•   South Beach Park , 1700 Ocean Drive, Vero Beach (free parking)
• Merrill Barber Bridge  in Vero Beach
•   Alma Lee Loy Bridge  in Vero Beach
•   Fort Pierce Inlet , 905 Shorewinds Drive
•   Blind Creek Beachside  North and South, South Ocean Drive or SR A1A on Hutchinson Island in Fort Pierce
•   Blue Heron Beach , 2101 Blue Heron Blvd., Fort Pierce
•   Frederick Douglass Memorial Park , 3600 S. Ocean Drive, Fort Pierce
•   Dollman Park Beachside , 9200 South Ocean Drive, Jensen Beach
•   Herman's Bay Beach , 7880 South Ocean Drive, Jensen Beach
•   John Brooks Park Beachside , 3300 S Ocean Drive, Fort Pierce
•   Middle Cove Beach , 4600 South Ocean Drive, Fort Pierce
•   Normandy Beach  in Jensen Beach
•   Pepper Park Beachside , 3302 N. SR A1A, Fort Pierce,
•   Walton Rocks Beach , which has a dog park, 6700 South Ocean Drive, Jensen Beach
•   Waveland Beach , 10350 S. Ocean Drive, Jensen Beach
•   House of Refuge and beach , 301 S.E. MacArthur Blvd., Stuart
•   State Road A1A causeway in Stuart

How about watching a rocket launch in Volusia County ?

Watching a rocket launch  or  waiting for that launch window  while at the beach is a pretty Florida thing to do.

In Volusia County, immediately north of Brevard County — home to Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station — you can get a great view of a SpaceX, NASA or United Launch Alliance rocket launch.

The  best views to watch a rocket launch from here  is along the beach. Look due south. Readers have also mentioned seeing a rocket launch from New Smyrna Beach, Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach. Here are some recommended spots:

•   South New Smyrna Beach  (Canaveral National Seashore), there may be parking costs. New Smyrna Beach features 17 miles of white sandy beaches. An electic and quaint beach town, despite its reputation as the "Shark Bite Capital of the World," New Smyrna Beach has always been a haven for surfers who come for the waves.

Dinner and a launch:  Perfect for a SpaceX or NASA rocket launch, best waterfront restaurants in Volusia County

•   Mary McLeod Bethune Beach Park , 6656 S. Atlantic Ave., New Smyrna Beach. Bethune Beach, which is 3.5 miles south of New Smyrna Beach and one mile north of the Apollo Beach entrance to Canaveral National Seashore Park, has restrooms, picnic pavilions, showers and nearly 800 feet of beachfront sidewalk,  according to Volusia County's site . The nearby riverside park area is across South Atlantic Avenue with tennis courts, pickle ball courts, basketball and volleyball courts, playground, fishing pier and restrooms. The river by the park can be a great viewing spot for manatees, dolphins and pelicans.
•   Apollo Beach  at  Canaveral National Seashore  (south of New Smyrna Beach). Canaveral National Seashore runs along Florida's East Coast in Volusia County and Brevard County. To access Apollo Beach, take Interstate 95 to exit 249, then travel east until it turns into State Road A1A. Follow SR A1A south to the park entrance.
•   Oak Hill riverfront  is the  southernmost city in South Volusia County .
•   Sunrise Park , 275 River Road, Oak Hill
•   Goodrich's Seafood and Oyster House  back deck, 253 River Road, Oak Hill
•   Seminole Rest national historic site , 211 River Road, Oak Hill
•   Riverbreeze Park , 250 H.H. Burch Road, Oak Hill
•   Mary Dewees Park , 178 N. Gaines St., Oak Hill. Facilities include a rental building, playground, baseball field, basketball courts, tennis courts, outdoor restrooms, pavilions, picnic areas and grills.
•   Nancy Cummings Park , 232 Cummings St., Oak Hill. Facilities include playground, baseball field, basketball courts, outdoor pavilion and restrooms.
•   Jimmie Vann Sunrise Park , 275 River Road, Oak Hill. This location has about 350 feet of beautifully restored shoreline, according to the city of Oak Hill online. Facilities include pavilion, picnic tables and kayak launching facilities.
•   A.C. Delbert Dewees Municipal Pier , 243 River Road, Oak Hill. Facilities include a 520-foot observation pier with two covered decks and seating, the city of Oak Hill site states.
•   Bird Observation Pier  on River Road across from A.C. Delbert Municipal Pier (see above). Facilities include a 100-foot observation pier.

Sangalang is a lead digital producer for USA TODAY Network-Florida. Follow her on  Twitter  or Instagram at  @byjensangalang . Support local journalism.  Consider subscribing to a Florida newspaper .

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Back-to-back SpaceX rocket launches: List of Florida beaches, parks & best views to watch

Some workers are choosing housing and student loan benefits over a retirement plan, and it says a lot about America's cost-of-living crisis

• Workers and companies are trying non-traditional job benefits to combat the rising cost of living.
• Housing assistance, student loan repayments, and commuting support are increasingly popular.
• Unconventional benefits could also entice remote workers back to the office.

As Americans deal with the rising cost of living , more companies and workers are rethinking the types of job benefits that are most important.

Recent surveys have shown that some workers prefer non-traditional job benefits such as housing assistance and help with commuting costs over things like extra vacation time. Additionally, companies are getting creative with their benefits packages so that can help both the business and the employees, such as matched contributions to help pay off student loans in place of retirement benefits and adoption assistance, said John Newcome, vice president and senior consultant at the benefits administration firm Kelly Benefits.

"Employees want a holistic approach to benefits that address their overall well-being, including work-life balance, mental health support, and financial guidance," Newcome told Business Insider. "Standard benefits, like medical, dental, or vision care, are typically included in most employee benefits plans. However, many employees now seek more specific benefits."

The most direct form of housing assistance can be in the form of rental or down payment assistance, which Newcome said more companies are starting to implement, especially among public entities, such as major universities, public school districts, and even the US federal government. However, there are other more creative ways to help with home ownership, he added.

For example, a company can guarantee a loan to help secure a lower interest rate for an employee or even share ownership of a house with the worker, which they can buy out over time.

Walmart is one example of a company offering housing assistance to employees . When qualified workers buy a new home or refinance a house, Walmart will help with the process and pay part of the closing costs.

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Elon Musk's tunneling company, Boring, announced plans in 2023 to build a 110-home subdivision for employees near the Austin suburb of Bastrop. The homes are expected to be offered as lease to own, with prices below market rate and close to facilities for Boring and other Musk-led businesses, Tesla and SpaceX.

Non-traditional perks can be chosen to help with more immediate needs

Other non-traditional perks on the rise include some voluntary benefits that can lower or eliminate living expenses, said Newcome. These include family planning benefits, such as help with fertility procedures or adoption costs, along with supplements to basic health insurance, including mental health support and even pet insurance.

Student loan repayment assistance is another benefit growing in popularity, said Newcome. In some cases, workers can choose this benefit and pause other benefits such as retirement contributions.

"With workers of all ages repaying student debt, student loan assistance should be a key consideration in the enhancement of employee benefit programs," Newcome said.

One way companies are offering student loan assistance is similar to a 401(k), in which the company makes matching contributions to the student loan each month based on how much the employee pays.

In cases where employees can choose between student loan help and retirement contributions, it can help keep the company and the workers from having to take on additional benefits costs.

To be sure, there can be downsides to accepting these perks. Many Americans are facing a retirement crisis without enough saved up for their post-work lives. Postponing retirement savings in favor of more immediate needs could just be trading one problem in and creating a bigger one later.

In addition, some of these perks, such as supplements to health insurance, might be offered as optional with an added cost. If taken, the employee faces potentially lower after-tax, take-home pay.

Non-traditional benefits could also convince workers to rethink remote work

Rethinking employee benefits could also be the key to enticing remote workers back to the office .

In a survey of 1,020 employers and workers about office perks, performed by the bonding and insurance company JW Surety Bonds and published in January, 47% of respondents said they would be willing to return to the office if housing benefits were offered. Additionally, 69% said they would be willing to change their job or career for employer-based housing benefits.

Additionally, 43% said they would take less vacation time in exchange for help with housing costs, and 30% said they would prefer housing assistance over a pay raise.

Similarly, providing employees with commuting assistance could be key to luring more workers back to the office in a post-pandemic world, according to a survey of 1,038 US adults and remote employees performed in February by the cloud communications company Ringover .

When asked which perks would convince them to give up remote work, the top response was "paid commute," with 83.2% of respondents picking that as an important incentive.

As the landscape of employee benefits evolves to meet the changing needs of the workforce, companies are becoming more innovative.

Watch: Nearly 50,000 tech workers have been laid off — but there's a hack to avoid layoffs

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