China plans to open up its new space station to “tourism” within the next decade, sparking a race the country is hoping to compete with private American space tourists like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson.
China launched its Tiangong space station in 2021 – its first long-term space station project – with the latest modules due to launch later this year.
The country’s announcement also came as China continues to produce new billionaires at an incredible rate – much faster than any other country on Earth.
While there were no specific details to determine what the future of space tourism in China would look like, officials said it was likely that people without formal astronaut training could be launched into orbit “relatively soon.”
Yang Liwei, who became China’s first astronaut in 2003, said tourists visiting Tiangong “are not driven by technology, but by demand.”
China is also believed to be working on a more tourist-friendly reusable spacecraft that can send up to seven astronauts into space at the same time.
The US is also focused on moving towards private commercial space tourism – rather than leaving it to the government – with Jeff Bezos trying to launch his own space station called Blue Origin into orbit.
Fellow billionaire Elon Musk is increasingly sending commercial astronauts into orbit and beyond through his SpaceX company.
China launched its Tiangong space station in 2021, launched its last modules this year, and now plans to open it to tourism within a decade. Artist’s impression
The first part of the Tiangong Modular Space Station was launched in April 2021, with the first crew arriving a few months later in July to install and prepare for the next module.
Tiangong, meaning “Palace in the Sky”, will eventually have three modules, including the Tianhe core module already in orbit and two laboratories.
It is designed to be fully modular like the International Space Station and its predecessor, the Soviet-era Mir space station, with modules added as needed.
It is not clear if visitors will stay in the Tianhe accommodation module along with three permanent crew members, or if a new module will be launched to accommodate tourists.
Regardless of how it works, China will have stiff competition, and not just from the ISS itself, which is due to be deorbited at the end of its life in 2031.
As many as five space stations are expected to be launched over the next decade, each funded and operated by commercial entities, including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
This comes amid news that China is producing new billionaires, especially female billionaires, much faster than any other country.
Chinese astronauts (left to right) Ye Guangfu, Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping launched on the Shenzhou 13 spacecraft in October.
The Bezos firm is at the center of a consortium building the Orbital Reef, which is described as a business park in low Earth orbit. It will have laboratories and places to live.
Axiom Space has arguably the most advanced space station designs and plans to dock the module to the ISS in 2024 – the first space tourism module.
Chinese space station modules
– Tianhe: main module. Launched April 29, 2021
– Wentian: Experimental Module I. Scheduled to launch in 2022.
– Mengtian: experimental module II. Launch scheduled for 2022
– Xuntian: space telescope module. Planned launch in 2024 into a joint orbit with the Chinese space station.
Yang’s comments complement those of Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s manned spaceflight program, who said the Shenzhou spacecraft could be used to bring paying passengers to Tiangong in the future.
This suggests that China is trying to break into a market that is expected to be lucrative for billionaires looking to take a once-in-a-lifetime vacation in Tiangong.
The T-shaped space station will need six more missions throughout this year to be fully operational, including two cargo missions and two crewed missions.
These two crew missions are expected to be the first in which the outgoing and incoming crews will be seen at the station at the same time.
This would mean that there are six astronauts on Tiangong, a test run for future situations where paying passengers may dock at the station in the future.
Flight options to Tiangong are currently limited to Shenzhou, a crewed spacecraft that launches on a Long March 2F rocket from Jiuguan in the Gobi Desert.
But China is also working on developing other options.
Reports say the Chinese space agency is developing a reusable rocket specifically designed for manned spaceflight, modeled on US space shuttles.
Shenzhou can carry three astronauts at once, while a new generation of ships being developed by China can carry up to seven astronauts – more than the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
A number of concepts for future commercial space stations have been proposed, including the massive Orbital Reef “space business park” developed by a consortium led by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin (pictured).
CAS Space, a commercial subsidiary of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), is also reportedly developing a space plane dubbed a “rocket with wings” for orbital flight by 2030.
It appears that technology is not the problem, as Liwei suggested, as various ways to reach orbit are being developed, both commercial and government-supported.
Which will help preserve wealth at home, as the nation’s growing army of billionaires will be able to go into space without turning to the US or Russia.
CHINA INTENDS TO COMPLETE TIANGUN BY THE END OF 2022
China plans to complete construction of its Tiangong space station by the end of the year and will send two modules, Wentian and Wengtian, on two Long March 5B rockets.
The launches are among 60 China plans to launch into space this year, beating its own record of 55 launches set last year and 48 launches from US soil.
However, launches from the US could far exceed the total number of Chinese launches, as only SpaceX has a goal of sending a rocket into space every week.
The China National Space Administration will send two Tiangong modules into space in the coming months, though no exact date has been given.
They will be docked with the Tianhe main module, which launched last April, and will be put into place using a large robotic arm attached to the station.
As of 2022, there are more billionaires in China – 1133, and in the USA – only 716.
Compared to last year, that’s more, although the US still ranks first in the production of billionaires and companies with far more international influence, according to Axios.
Together, China and the US contributed to 55 percent of the “famous” billionaires worldwide over the past year, according to Hurun’s 2022 Global Rich List.
In addition, New York is no longer among the top three cities with the most billionaire residents after Shenzhen jumped the Big Apple to third place.
All three of the largest cities are now in China, with Beijing in first place with 144 billionaires, followed by Shanghai with 121 and Shenzhen with 113 billionaires, respectively.
American and Western billionaires are unlikely to be excluded from the Chinese operation, although it is not clear if Chinese billionaires will be allowed to visit the many new commercial space stations, as they are likely to be registered in the US.
There are restrictions imposed by the US government on interaction with China in space operations. Therefore, Chinese astronauts cannot visit the ISS.
China has ramped up its space program in recent years, including becoming only the third country to land a rover on the surface of Mars and the first to send a rover to the far side of the moon.
The country also became the first to return lunar rock samples to Earth for the first time since the end of the Apollo missions in the 1970s.
The program has also generated controversy. In October, China’s foreign ministry brushed aside reports that China had tested a hypersonic missile two months earlier, saying it was merely testing the reusability of the new spacecraft.
China is also reportedly developing a top-secret space plane.
All this at the national level, start-ups and firms in China are also working on space planes, constellations of satellites and launch vehicles.
THE FUTURE OF LOW EARTH ORBIT: FROM THE BLUE ORIGIN ORBITAL REEF “BUSINESS PARK” TO THE VOYAGER SPACE HOTEL
In the coming decades, people will visit space more often, and do so in luxury, thanks to a number of new space station concepts, including Blue Origin’s “business park” and the Voyager space hotel.
Axiom Space has the most advanced of the commercial stations and will initially launch as a module attached to the International Space Station in 2024 (pictured as it appears when completed).
More than 600 people have been in space since Yuri Gagarin made the first solo orbit around the planet on April 12, 1961, of which more than 250 have visited the International Space Station (ISS).
Unfortunately, the ISS is starting to age, so both the US and Russia are looking to replace it, and NASA is hoping the private sector will take over the responsibility of keeping humans in low Earth orbit.
A number of concepts for future commercial space stations have been proposed, including a huge “space business park” called Orbital Reef, developed by a consortium led by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
This “address in orbit” could be operational by 2027 and will be able to accommodate up to ten people at a time and will be used for both commercial and government use, including experiments, tourism and even cinema.
However, tourism is expected to be the main driver of commercial space, and with this in mind, the Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) has proposed the Voyager rotating station.
It will be a luxury space hotel capable of accommodating up to 400 people, as well as providing “pods” for researchers, governments and scientists – and doing so by creating artificial gravity.
Other ideas proposed for future space stations include hatch-connected floating laboratories and versions of various existing spacecraft such as Northrup Grumman’s Cygnus that could be linked together.
Many of the proposals could be launched by the end of this decade, when the ISS is expected to reach the end of its “safe life”, ending the government’s monopoly on low Earth orbit.