On Monday, visuals of pop singer Katy Perry kissing the ground beamed across the world after she and five other women completed a brief foray into space on board a vessel from Blue Origin, the space company owned by the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos.

“It’s a 10 out of 10. That’s my review. Definitely go for it,” said the singer after she was safely back on Earth. Perry was part of Blue Origin’s all-women space mission, which included Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, journalist and TV host Gayle King, civil rights advocate Amanda Nguyen, film producer Kerianne Flynn, and entrepreneur and former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe.

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The 11-minute-long journey by Perry and her fellow passengers has prompted other thrillseekers to wonder — “When will it be my turn to go to space?”

As an increasing number of people seek to travel to the ‘final frontier’, we take a closer look if spaceflight is within reach for you any time soon.

Blue Origin’s all-women mission blasts off into space

On Monday (April 14), Blue Origin, the space company owned by Jeff Bezos, blasted off six women on board the New Shepard rocket more than 100 kilometres above Earth, crossing the internationally recognised boundary of space (known as the kármán line), and offering a few minutes of weightlessness before they descended.

Eleven minutes later, the six women — Katy Perry, Lauren Sanchez, Gayle King, Amanda Nguyen, Kerianne Flynn, and Aisha Bowe — returned to Earth, expressing their wonderment. “I can’t even believe what I saw,” marvelled Gayle King.

She later described the Kármán line as being “oddly quiet” and “peaceful”.

“You look down at the planet and you think, ‘That’s where we came from?’ To me, it’s such a reminder about how we need to do better — be better,” said King, adding that she’ll “never, ever, ever forget it.”

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Space tourism boom

With the success of this mission, Blue Origin has now taken 52 people past the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. Bezos was among the passengers on its first crewed mission in 2021.

In 2022, actor William Shatner — famous for playing Captain James T Kirk in Star Trek — participated in one of the flights. At the age of 90, he became the oldest person ever to journey into space. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has also launched space tourists previously, ranging from celebrities to billionaires.

These missions reflect the growing interest in space tourism — providing everyday people a chance to live out their astronaut dreams by sending them into space. In fact, in 1997, American space agency, Nasa published a report concluding that selling trips to space to private citizens could be worth billions of dollars. This was corroborated by a Japanese report that stated space tourism could be a $10 billion per year industry within two decades.

There are two main types of space tourism, sub-orbital and orbital. The sub-orbital spacecraft takes passengers just beyond the Kármán line. The passengers get to spend a few minutes in space and then come back to Earth. Meanwhile, orbital space tourism takes passengers much further than the Kármán line.

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As of today, there are three main players in the space tourism industry — Blue Origin, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

However, Blue Origin has seen more success with its space flights than Virgin Galactic. Since the beginning of the company in 2004, the Branson-led firm has flown only 37 people to space, including 23 paying customers on seven commercial flights.

That’s far less comparable to Bezos’ Blue Origin, which has launched 11 sub-orbital vessels, carrying 52 people up into space.

Cost of space flights

But if you have dreams of blasting off to orbit, you likely need to either have very deep pockets or a name that’s recognisable enough to get you invited as an honoured guest.

In the case of Blue Origin, while it doesn’t disclose the cost of a space flight, the website says applicants must pay a $150,000 (Rs 1.28 crore) refundable deposit. However, in the past, particularly in 2021, Blue Origin auctioned a seat for its maiden flight for $28 million (Rs 241 crore). Some passengers have also disclosed that they have paid from zero to nearly $30 million (Rs 258 crore) for a seat on a spacecraft.

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Blue Origin spokesperson Bill Kircos told CNN that “some passengers” on the April 14 flight flew “free of charge,” while others did not. The company declined to say who paid for their trip.

As Roman Chiporukha, cofounder of SpaceVIP, a platform that helps the wealthy book space trips, including Blue Origin’s, told The Observer, “It’s not about money; it’s about who you are, your social capital, whether you align with their launch purposes. It’s kind of a package deal.”

While Blue Origin doesn’t reveal its cost for a space flight, Virgin Galactic has sold a 90-minute ride to suborbital space for $450,000 (Rs 3.85 crore) per seat. Space Perspective charges $125,000 (Rs 1.07 crore) per person on a six-hour journey to the stratosphere in a balloon-borne pressurized capsule. Axiom Space, a Texas startup, has been marketing a 10-day trip to the International Space for $55 million.

Experts note that the cost of space travel will only reduce as more space companies enter the field and launches become more frequent. Koji Yamanaka, director of Japan’s space exploration centre, told The Financial Times, “The first phase will be millionaires or billionaires who want to go there, but the cost of flights will come down. Eventually, common people will go to the Moon as tourists, but I don’t know how long that will take.”

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The future of space tourism

While space tourism as of now remains a dream for most, it is expected to become a reality for the common man very soon. In fact, the industry, which was valued at $848.28 million in 2023, has grown to $1.3 billion in 2024. Moreover, a report by Research and Markets estimates that the global market for space tourism will touch $6.7 billion by 2030 — a 31.6 per cent growth rate.

There’s a long wait for this dream to be realised, and for now, it seems we have to contend with seeing other celebrities and astronauts crossing the final frontier.

With inputs from agencies