Space Tourism

The recent accident suffered by Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two was a major setback for commercial spaceflight/space tourism. One of two incidents in only a week's time involving commercial space companies, the other involving an Orbital Sciences rocket contracted by NASA to send supplies to the International Space Station. The SpaceShip Two incident occurred during a test flight of the company's launch system, including an aircraft known as White Knight Two, and the space vehicle, SpaceShip Two, which is carried to altitude and launched via the White Knight aircraft. The event happened shortly after the space vehicle separated from the carrier and ignited its rocket engine, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the second.

Virgin Galactic was originally founded in 2004, with the goal of creating a commercial spaceflight business involving both space tourism and scientific flight. It was the major leader in beginning the push for space tourism, and based its systems off of the successful testing done on Scaled Composites' SpaceShip One, the precursor for the craft involved in the recent accident.

FAR part 460 regulates human spaceflight, paving the way for progress in the field. These regulations are fairly straightforward in that they involve a lot of basic definitions and categorizations regarding spaceflight and its many special considerations. As for ICAO, there are not yet international statutes in place regarding civilian space flight, though the organization is involved in global discourse and development regarding the subject.

From the current state of affairs, it's clear that space tourism has to overcome a number of obstacles before becoming a major part of society in any way. Virgin Galactic must maintain their status as a leader in the field, and continue their flight test program in order to move forward toward offering commercial flights. Although the first flights by Virgin cost massive amounts of money and are as such reserved for rich thrill seekers and celebrities, they have the potential to pioneer the industry and move toward a more attainable space tourism market. Perhaps within a few decades there will be space tourism opportunities available to more than just the most wealthy.

In the space tourism industry, it seems in general that a highly technical background is desired for most job positions. Pilots, given the experimental and complex nature of the current programs, tend to be highly experienced test pilots, likely with an engineering background. Support staff and management come from a range of disciplines, but most are scientific, including physics and astrophysics, aerospace engineering, and systems engineering. The level of mathematic and analytical work involved makes the field highly focused on the technical and quantitative side of the aerospace workforce.

An article from HowStuffWorks regarding space tourism and its future: http://science.howstuffworks.com/space-tourism.htm