Microgravity in Space Tourism
- Paper number
IAC-06-E3.2.04
- Author
Ms. Amruta Mehta, International Space University (ISU), France
- Year
2006
- Abstract
This article provides a cost effectiveness, feasibility as well as legal and regulatory analysis for performing microgravity experiments on board Space Tourism flights. The focus is on suborbital flights since orbital flights and microgravity experiments performed on board are already very well documented. Besides, privately run commercial suborbital flights are more likely to fly by the end of this decade than their orbital counterparts. An analysis of current suborbital flight offers is performed (in terms of prices of suborbital trips, time in microgravity and weight allowed on board) in comparison with available facilities and costs on conventional platforms. Then considering the time and space constraints, a possible universe of feasible microgravity experiments is arrived at. Factors that come into play in order to make such a service possible are considered (political, ethical, scientific, regulatory, contamination, legal, safety, Intellectual Property) before analyzing the potential competitiveness of a suborbital microgravity service with other platforms.
- Abstract document