In focus: The rise of space travel
“After years of working on the approach, design and technical solutions, the concept is now palpable and will offer an extraordinarily immersive experience that will present our Earth and space to the most affluent of travellers.” Vincent Farret d’Astiès has lofty ambitions – and they’re finally becoming a reality.
The aerospace engineer is the founder of French venture Zephalto – the latest brand to enter the highly niche, highly lucrative space travel sector. Founded in 2016 and launched to market in April, Zephalto intends to become the first European-based consumer ‘space’ flight when it launches at the end of 2024.
A pressurised capsule lifted by a stratospheric balloon will take six explorers to an altitude of 15 miles above Earth during a six-hour round-trip from France. Not only will they reportedly get the chance to witness the Earth’s spherical curve, they will do so in utmost comfort, enjoying Michelin-standard meals and fine French wine.
Seats on the first flights have already been snapped up, but Zephalto is poised to launch pre-reservation slots for mid-2025 onwards, with ticket prices pitched at €120,000.
Getting off the ground
Zephalto won’t actually reach space – that officially starts at 60 miles above Earth, though some US organisations, including Nasa, accept 50. But the brand is a reminder that for an increasingly well-travelled set of wealthy individuals, off-planet experiences have become the latest travel thrill.
Consumer space travel has been trying to take off for more than two decades. Today, three key players have cornered the market.
Summer 2021 saw the start of the commercial space race, with Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic completing their first crewed spaceflights in the same month. Both billionaire-backed companies offer suborbital flights, with Virgin Galactic using two reusable rocket-powered spaceplanes, VSS Unity and VSS Imagine, to reach heights of 53 miles above sea level, and Blue Origin harnessing a reusable rocket, New Shepard, to fly above the 62‑mile mark.
Virgin Galactic completed its fifth suborbital flight in May – the last test before commencing its planned commercial service this month. But with more than 800 people on the waitlist, it could still be a long while before prospective space tourists have their dreams fulfilled.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, meanwhile, is in a league of its own. In September 2021, a three-day private space mission with four civilians completed several orbits around the Earth at an altitude of 363 miles. The company has four different vehicles for shipping humans and payloads to space, is exploring missions to both the moon and Mars, and, last month, unveiled plans to launch what is expected to be the world’s first commercial space station.
The excitement surrounding such brands has caused the wider space tourism market to skyrocket, and travellers can now tap into all manner of space‑related experiences, from ultra-luxury balloon trips like Zephalto to astronaut training camps.
New frontier
With a variety of product on the market and an incredibly high price tag – seats on Virgin Galactic are currently priced at $450,000, while a three-day jaunt to the International Space Station with SpaceX could set clients back $55 million – it’s no surprise consumers are turning to agents and operators to service their demands.
The UK’s first travel agency dedicated to space tourism, RocketBreaks, launched in June 2021, followed by Stellar Frontiers, a ‘space mission management company’ set up by Pelorus co-founder Geordie Mackay-Lewis.
In 2022, luxury travel agency network Virtuoso teamed up with Virgin Galactic to make a limited number of spaceflight seats available through Virtuoso advisors. More recently, Global Travel Collection (GTC), which has a network of more than 100 independent advisors in the UK, partnered with US-based carbon-neutral spaceflight company Space Perspective.
Similar to Zephalto, Space Perspective takes travellers to the edge of space in a climate-controlled, pressurised ‘spacecraft’ lifted into space by a giant, high-performance hydrogen balloon. Spaceship Neptune can seat eight passengers, and has a bar, bathroom and Wi-Fi. GTC has reserved three pods, as well as one seat on the inaugural mission in 2025, totalling 25 seats – of which 16 are already sold.
Space Perspective is also among RocketBreaks’ top-performing product, though the challenge is converting enquiries into bookings. “We have lots of people making noise about booking, but until they see it going up and working, people are reluctant to part with their cash, no matter how much they have,” says co-founder David Doughty.
RocketBreaks hopes to have its first client in space by the end of 2024. “We’re still about 18 months away [from viable commercial space travel] – 2027 to 2029 will be the growth years,” Doughty says.
A bright future
A bona fide space travel industry might be upon us, but experts are quick to stress that this is still an incredibly young market.
“A lot of companies get private funding, build a flashy website and show you a lot of CGI, but don’t have [any product yet],” Doughty says. “That’s why a space travel agent should exist because you can match the right person to the right experience, and set the expectations on timeframes.”
Rebecca Puttock, founder of independent agency Wanderlux, who helps facilitate specialist-led expeditions with astronauts as well as space camps at luxury hotels including Como Maalifushi, agrees. “There’s a danger behind over-promising and potentially under-delivering,” she says. “Lots of adjustments need to happen before clients can actually experience what they’ve always dreamt of.”
Still, it’s an incredibly hard proposition to ignore. Last year, Grand View Research valued the global space tourism market at $695 million. The report added that the industry – expected to expand at an annual growth rate of 40% from 2023 to 2030 – is growing “at a tremendous rate”.
In a promotional video for Virgin Galactic ahead of its recent spaceflight, pilot Nicola Pecile summarises: “We are just at the very beginning. You can only imagine where we will be in 100 years.”
Keep your feet on the ground
Not all space experiences require clients to get airborne. Amateur astronomers should visit Florida’s Space Coast, which is gearing up to host more than 80 rocket launches this year. Guests can enjoy a new attraction at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Visit Gateway (pictured), where they can walk among space‑flown vehicles, explore extraterrestrial habitats and take a flight on immersive ride Spaceport KSC. Another add-on experience, Fly With An Astronaut, sees fellow explorers join an astronaut on a guided tour of the Visitor Complex and behind the gates of the Kennedy Space Center.