Opinion
Mint Quick Edit | Space tourism: Can Isro beat Blue Origin?
Summary
- Katy Perry was in the spotlight for roaring off into space with five other women aboard a Blue Origin craft. As space tourism looks set to blast off, can Isro play this market’s fare-price disruptor?
In 1963, when the Soviet Union launched Valentina Tereshkova into space as the first woman to make such a visit, it was understood she was a trained astronaut (or cosmonaut). Now that Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin has taken an all-female crew on a sub-orbital space flight, the spotlight has been on its most famous member, Katy Perry, a pop singer.
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Alongside her, broadcaster Gayle King, journalist Lauren Sánchez, rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn were strapped in before they roared off and went past the Kármán line that marks space apart from Earth’s outer atmosphere.
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The craft they used was autonomous, with no pilot. Each passenger is thus better described as a space tourist than an astronaut. With celebrity travel acting as a self-evident endorsement, space tourism could well turn into a lucrative global market.
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India’s space agency Isro, which has ambitious exploratory plans and a successful commercial wing in Antrix, is also keen to exploit this new market’s potential. As reported, Isro expects to launch its services by 2030. If it also has less exorbitant fare prices, it’d mark a big moment for India.
