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Preface For generations, space exploration simply represented a wishful dream, until it finally became a reality in the 1950s space race between the United States and the former Soviet Union. The missions of NASA, such as the Apollo project, began to generate interest in space research and the idea of space tourism. Inspired by this change in society, Hollywood produc- ers started to create space-related science fiction movies that enhanced audiences’ visualisations and their desire to visit space. It was commonly thought that, within just a few decades, such a form of travel would be made available to the public. However, no suborbital space tourism occurred until 2018 when a Virgin Galactic crewed test vehicle, built for commercial passenger service, managed to safely reach the altitude where space begins, according to NASA’s specification (Virgin Galactic, 2020). Space hype was also accelerated by an almost science fiction-style live broadcast of a Tesla car with a human-like passenger on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket being launched into space (SpaceX, 2020). Duval and Hall (2015: 450) define space tourism as ‘the temporary movement of people for non-military reasons beyond the Earth’s atmosphere’. There are various different types of space tourism. They can be broken down into terrestrial space tourism such as Earth-based activities and cyberspace tourism; atmospheric and low-Earth orbit tourism; astrotourism, referring to experiences beyond Earth’s orbit; and lunar and Mars experiences (Carter et al., 2015; Cater, 2019). Currently, the Karman line defines the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, with the Federation Aeronautique Internationale specifying it as an altitude of 100 kilometres, while NASA defines it as 80 kilometres. This complicates regulatory measures as aircraft and spacecraft fall under different global treaties and demonstrates the negative impact of the currently almost non-existent global space legislation (FAI, 2018; NASA, 2019a). Only a handful of people have thus far visited space as paying tourists in orbital space flight, compared to about 550 professionals, mostly US astronauts. Dennis Tito became the first paying space tourist in 2001, travelling on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station. viii Preface ix He preferred, however, to be classified as an ‘independent researcher’ rather than a ‘space tourist’, as his week-long $20 million stay had involved six months of astronaut training and hours of physical exercise (Wall, 2011). Rapid developments in technology during the 21st century have accelerated predictions for the beginning of the future space tourism industry, and space tourism is likely to generate significant public enthusiasm for space exploration as soon as it becomes safe and affordable (Anderson, 2005). A new space race is on between private space tourism companies, such as Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX, all owned by powerful leaders, hoping to gain the status of being the world’s first fully operat- ing space tourism company. Initially, providers will offer space jumps to experience weightlessness and witness the curvature of Earth from space. SpaceX’s longer-term target is to eventually colonise Mars (SpaceX, 2019a). In 2019, NASA also joined the ‘race’ by announcing plans to open the International Space Station to tourists in 2020 as a means to gain more funding for other space exploration projects in the future (NASA, 2020b). The emergence of the new space economy, which provides a mixture of governmental and commercial space programmes, has the potential to create strong competition due to the diversity of contractors, offering the tools for exponential economic growth. It appears that the main goal of space tourism is to develop it to become accessible to the masses; however, the initial high cost will limit the pioneering stage to only healthy, wealthy travellers. When the space tourism industry matures, space trips could become similar to travel industry holiday packages for a range of lifestyles and budgets – the only difference being that they take place beyond Earth. Space tourism will become the latest addition to the tourism industry in an era when the human anthropogenic influence and modern mobility have been the primary causes of the destruction of the biosphere and currently dominate sustainability discourse (Spector et al., 2017). The principle of sustainable development should become relevant in planning the future space industry as the global climate change cri- sis makes a corporate environmental approach a necessity. Travelling beyond the biosphere has a significant impact on the Earth’s climate; the launching stage of space travel pollutes by creating emissions, dust and noise in the local area, and it has also been estimated that 1000 space launches produce the equivalent carbon footprint of an entire year of global aviation (Ross et al., 2010). Another prominent environmental problem connected with new space activities is the creation of space debris (Viikari, 2007). The question of sustainability also arises within space development, with potential implications for those who are excluded or otherwise left behind (Spector & Higham, 2019a). Offering another perspective, x Preface Carter et al. (2015: 457) claim that ‘space tourism presents an important philosophical challenge that can be harnessed for sustainability, forcing participants to consider their place in the universe, relationship to other beings, and especially concepts of time’. Cosmologist Stephen Hawking (2010) viewed extending out into space as our only chance of long-term survival, though Peeters (2018) has critiqued the interpretation of sustainable development as something to simply save Homo sapiens. There are also several ethical and legal questions around sustainability, such as at what costs (to human society) should the private space sector be allowed to pursue its goals, who has the right to determine ownership in space and what should the ethical responsibilities of private space entrepre- neurs be both on Earth and in outer space? Despite its relatively short existence, the commercial space tourism industry has already presented operational-level sustainability in a way that has not been seen in the traditional governmental-led space industry. For example, in 2018, SpaceX achieved the world’s first repeat flight of an orbital class rocket, presenting a historic milestone for full rocket reusability. Blue Origin plans to share the physical launch site at the once exclusively government-owned domain at Cape Canaveral. Also, at the governmental level, NASA has adopted a more sustainable approach to space flights in the Earth’s orbit by developing mitigation standards aimed at reducing orbital debris (Sustainability 101, 2020). Overall, one could speculate that space tourism in the future could contribute to Earth’s sustainable development by creating a new industry generating wealth and jobs, providing the technology required for low-cost access to space and hence enabling the use of solar system resources such as solar power, ultimately allowing humans to create space colonies as an insurance policy. However, it is suggested that more attention is required in order to ‘develop a coherent, long-term conceptualisation of modern mobility for sustainability’ (Spector et al., 2017). The Purpose of this Book Despite the fact that commercial space tourism began to emerge after the millennium and the full operational start of this economically lucra- tive industry is just around the corner, the academic discourse and other written literature on space tourism, and especially sustainable space tourism, are still scarce. In the future, more academic and scholarly input will be needed to understand the far-reaching impact of space tourism on the structures of society. This book aims to address this important gap, with the following objectives: (1) To provide comprehensive information on the current understanding of the space tourism industry. Preface xi (2) To explore the relations between space tourism and the discourse on sustainability and futures research. (3) To introduce tools for sustainable futures forecasting. (4) To assess the possible impacts of space tourism on the environment, economics and legislation, as well as the social surroundings. (5) To provide visions for the future of sustainable space tourism gath- ered from empirical research. The rationale is to provide readers from various backgrounds with a deeper understanding of space tourism and future sustainability discourse. This book aims to engage the general public interested in the idea of space; students of tourism, sustainability or futures studies; individual space tourist ‘hopefuls’; space tourism industry operators; and various policy regulators, in the hope that it will encourage more global dialogue and critical examination of aspects related to future sustainability – whether on the Earth or in space. The literature on space tourism has, in the past, mainly concentrated on exploring the phenomena of space from the angles of sci-fi fantasies, technical science developments or specialists’, such as astronauts’, experiences. Investigating new developments of the future, which do not yet even operate, is a challenging task. For this reason, the content of this book is partly based on the empirical findings of the author, collected during her world pioneering PhD research on sustainable space tourism. Some of the existing, however rare, academic literature

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