The cost of going to space varies widely depending on the type of flight and provider:
- Suborbital flights (a few minutes of weightlessness just above the Karman line) currently cost between about $200,000 and $450,000 per seat. For example, Virgin Galactic charges around $450,000, and Blue Origin tickets have ranged from about $200,000 to $1 million or more depending on the passenger's profile and auction prices
- Orbital flights to destinations like the International Space Station (ISS) are much more expensive, typically around $50 million to $55 million per seat. SpaceX missions with Axiom Space charge about $55 million per seat, while Russia's Roscosmos has charged around $35 million per seat for ISS trips
- More ambitious missions , such as commercial flights around the Moon planned by SpaceX, are estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars per seat
- The first-ever Blue Origin ticket sold at auction fetched $28 million, but typical prices for Blue Origin suborbital flights are believed to be in the six-figure range, with deposits around $150,000
While prices remain very high today, experts predict that increased competition and technological advances could reduce suborbital flight costs to around $100,000 per seat by 2030, making space tourism more accessible to wealthy enthusiasts
. In summary, going to space today costs anywhere from roughly $200,000 for a brief suborbital trip to tens of millions of dollars for orbital missions, with prices expected to gradually decrease over the next decade as the industry matures
