Space tourism is becoming a new target for China as Deep Blue Aerospace, a company based in Jiangsu province, announced on October 24 its plan to send tourists into suborbital space from 2027. During the live broadcast, two tickets for the space tour launched by Deep Blue Aerospace were immediately booked by customers.
About 3 million people watched the broadcast on Deep Blue Aerospace's Taobao shopping platform. It was the first time a Chinese company had publicly offered space tourism tickets. The identities of the two passengers were not disclosed.
For a ticket price of 1.5 million yuan (about 210,000 USD), passengers will get "more than a brief zero gravity experience"
For that price, customers will get “more than just a brief experience of weightlessness,” Deep Blue Aerospace said. “They will experience the vastness and mystery of space and witness the majestic landscapes beyond Earth. This will be a multi-sensory, comprehensive, and unforgettable space travel experience of a lifetime,” the company said.
Deep Blue Aerospace also introduced an image of its suborbital flight system - a reusable rocket-spaceship combination similar to the New Shepard of the US company Blue Origin.
Space tourism becomes a trend of exploitation of tourism services.
New Shepard has so far made eight human suborbital flights, most recently on August 29. The spacecraft can carry six passengers. They will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the blue Earth against the dark background of space during the 10-12 minute flight from takeoff to landing. Deep Blue Aerospace’s suborbital flights may be similar.
Deep Blue Aerospace said the spacecraft will launch on the company's Nebula-1 reusable rocket. The spacecraft will fly at a maximum altitude of 100-150 km, which will take passengers past the Kármán Line and into the edge of space. The suborbital flight will last about 12 minutes, during which passengers will experience at least 5 minutes of weightlessness.
The ticket price for each flight is expected to be around 1.5 million yuan (5.3 billion VND). Buyers must pay a deposit of 50,000 yuan (180 million VND) when booking tickets. The flight will pass through the atmosphere to reach the edge of space, although it will not enter orbit. At least 5 passengers on this trip will experience the feeling of weightlessness.
As soon as the first space travel tickets were released to the market, a ticket hunting fever broke out.
If tourists buy a tour through Taobao, the ticket price drops to 1 million yuan (3.5 billion VND). The condition for tourists to buy the tour is to have a good physical foundation and be between 18 and 60 years old. Before the trip, each candidate must undergo a strict health test.
Deep Blue Aerospace aims to join a small group of companies around the world offering what is considered the next frontier of adventure travel – expensive trips where passengers are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to cross the boundary about 100km above the Earth’s surface into space.
The spacecraft-rocket complex will also undergo dozens of tests by 2026 to ensure safety and reliability," said a representative of Deep Blue Aerospace.
Deep Blue Aerospace’s ticket price is less than half the cost of a suborbital flight by US company Virgin Galactic. Virgin Galactic is one of two companies that have successfully launched paying passengers into suborbital space, along with Blue Origin. While Blue Origin has not yet revealed ticket prices, Virgin Galactic recently priced tickets at $450,000 for a roughly 90-minute trip to the edge of space.
Companies around the world are now racing to send tourists into space, and travel enthusiasts can find a trip at a cheaper cost than before. In 2021, SpaceX made its first flight, taking 4 tourists into space and returning safely. Each passenger had to pay up to 55 million USD for this trip. Up to now, the price of entering space has become more competitive so that more people can access it. A representative of the US company Space Perspective affirmed that a trip into space is no longer just for billionaires.
