Context: Entrepreneur and pilot Gopi Thotakura is set to become the first Indian to venture into space as a tourist on the NS-25 Mission (New Shepherd Mission) of Blue Origin — a company founded by Jeff Bezos.
- Thotakura has been selected as one of the six crew members for the mission, whose launch date is yet to be announced.
- If the mission is successful, Thotakura would be the second Indian to go into space. The first was Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma, who flew to the Salyut 7 space station on a Soviet spacecraft in 1984.
Space Tourism:
- Space tourism is essentially a section of the aviation sector which seeks to provide tourists with the opportunity to become astronauts and experience space travel for recreational, leisure, or business purposes.
- In recent years, space tourism has grown by leaps and bounds. In 2023, the space tourism market was valued at $848.28 million. It is expected to grow to $27,861.99 million by 2032.
- There are two main types of space tourism, sub-orbital and orbital.
Sub-orbital spaceflight:
- The sub-orbital spacecraft takes passengers just beyond the Kármán line.
- It lies nearly 100 kilometres above mean sea level and is considered to be the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.
- The passengers get to spend a few minutes in outer space and then come back to Earth. E.g., New Shepherd mission of Blue Origin
Orbital spaceflight:
- The orbital spacecraft takes passengers much further than the Kármán line.
- Usually, passengers can spend from a couple of days to more than a week at an altitude of nearly 1.3 million feet.
- E.g., In September 2021, Space X’s Falcon 9 took four passengers to an altitude of 160 km where they spent three days orbiting the Earth.
Challenges:
- Space tourism is expensive: A passenger generally has to pay at least a million dollars to reach outer space.
- Environmental concerns: Several studies have pointed out that space tourism may lead to environmental damage as rockets emit gaseous and solid chemicals directly into the upper atmosphere.
- A 2022 study done by researchers of University College London (UCL), the University of Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that the soot emissions from rocket launches are far more effective at warming the atmosphere compared to other sources.
- Safety: As of 2023, despite high safety standards, a total of 676 people have flown into space and 19 of them have died. (approximately 3% fatality rate which is quite high).
Karman Line:
- The Karman is an imaginary line that demarcates the earth’s atmosphere from outer space, located at 100 km (62 miles) above sea level.
- Named after aerospace pioneer Theodore von Kármán, the concept was established in the 1960s by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).
- An aircraft which crosses the Karman line is designated as a spaceflight. Anyone who crosses this line qualifies as an astronaut.
- Below the Kármán line, aerodynamic principles dominate flight. Above it, the laws of orbital mechanics become more important.
- At the Karman line, the atmosphere becomes incredibly thin. Traditional aircraft that rely on wings to generate lift by pushing against air cannot function effectively at such high altitudes.
- Over the Karman line, the spacecraft need their own propulsion systems to maintain trajectory and overcome the remaining atmospheric drag, though minimal.