Why in News? Gopi Thotakura is set to become the first Indian to become a space tourist on the NS-25 mission of Blue Origin, a company founded by Jeff Bezos.

What is Space Tourism? It seeks to provide tourists with the opportunity to become astronauts and experience space travel for recreational, leisure, or business purposes and is of two types: sub-orbital and orbital. The sub-orbital spacecraft takes passengers just beyond the Kármán line (boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space (~100 kilometers)) for a few minutes and then comes back to Earth. The NS-25 mission is a sub-orbital mission. The orbital space craft takes passengers much further than the Kármán line where they can spend from a couple of days to more than a week at an altitude of nearly 1.3 million feet. Space X’s Falcon 9 in 2021 took four passengers to an altitude of 160 km for three days.

What are the Challenges Involved? It is expensive and requires a passenger to spend at least a million dollars to reach outer space which is not feasible for everyone wishing to do space travel. As per several studies, it may lead to environmental damage as rockets emit gaseous and solid chemicals directly into the upper atmosphere. According to a 2022 study by University College London (UCL), the University of Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the soot emissions from rocket launches are far more effective at warming the atmosphere compared to other sources. Safety is another concern, despite having high safety standards, out of the total 676 people who flew into space, 19 died, as per a 2023 report by Astronomy Magazine i.e. approximately 3% of astronauts died during their space flight which is quite a high fatality rate.