Cost To Go To Mars Is No Longer Astronomical, Says NASA Scientist
If space tourism starts budding in India, then there will definitely be an Indian competitor to SpaceX, said Amitabha Ghosh.
Axiom 4 launch and other space flight missions are endeavours towards making the world a bigger place that only a few countries, including India will be privy to exploring, said Amitabha Ghosh, a scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, known for his work on Mars missions.
"Just think maybe 500 years back, the continents were being discovered. So there were few countries that did this, which went forward and discovered these continents so the world became a bigger place. So, now we are again at that corner when human space flight will make our world a bigger place very soon, maybe in 20 years, and India would be one of them. That's what is so very exciting and significant," he said.
Space tourism will soon become a $1 trillion industry with businessmen like Elon Musk having reduced the cost of going to space, he said. "We are at the cusp of space tourism happening. If you think of commercial space flight, it happened in the early 1900s and very few people were in the business. People did not think it to be feasible but now we are in a stage where Elon Musk's company has reduced the cost of space flight by 95%. "
Cost to go to mars is no longer astronomical, it's probably the cost of $100,000-200,000, which one can afford in a lifetime, Ghosh said.
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He addressed the fact that people are at crossroads about space tourism itself and highlighted the fact that all these space missions being executed are carried out by government organisations or "tax fare funded facilities" like ISRO and NASA.
"...At some point the private sector has to come in and they are coming in and so you have businessmen like Jeff Bezos, and those like Elon Musk trying to lower the cost of space travel. We are looking at a very different journey and maybe even a new sector opening up which will be space tourism."
Commenting on whether there will be an Indian private equivalent to SpaceX he remarked that if the markets for space tourism starts budding in India, then there will definitely be an Indian competitor to SpaceX.
