Next stop: space? Chinese firm aims for suborbital tourist trips by 2025
- CAS Space founder says passengers could pay upwards of US$285,000 for a flight to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere
- It commercial operations should be in full swing in 2027, he says
China may be able to send its first paying passengers on suborbital trips to the edge of space as early as 2025, according to a top rocket scientist.
Yang Yiqiang, who was the general director of the Long March 11 rocket project in 2018 and founder of a government-backed company to explore commercial use of rockets, said commercial space tourism would be in “full bloom” in 2027.
“With the refinement of the business model, China is expected to start suborbital travel in 2025, which costs around 2-3 million yuan (US$285,00-US$427,000),” state-run Global Times quoted Yang as saying on Saturday.
Yang, the founder of commercial space launch enterprise CAS Space, said up to seven tourists would be able to fly at a time to an altitude of more than 100km (62 miles).
He said suborbital travel was more technically mature compared to other types of space travel and was suitable for most people.
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The 10-minute journey would take passengers up above the Kármán line, the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, and give them a few minutes of weightlessness.