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The SpaceX Starship, the most powerful and advanced rocket and capsule ever designed on this planet, could spark an explosion in space tourism and supercharge Space Race II. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
While SpaceX sketched out only scant details of its masterplan to expand spaceflight for independent astronauts in its IPO prospectus, a world-leading space scholar says its Starship super-capsule holds the potential to generate a pool of \u201ctens of millions\u201d of space tourists at the right price point.<\/p>\n
Across the IPO presentation, SpaceX\u2019s leaders outlined blueprints for fantastical flights of the future, stretching from rocket-powered \u201cpoint-to-point\u201d Starship jaunts between New York and Paris, or L.A. and Tokyo, in under 40 minutes, to chartered missions circling the planet.<\/p>\n
Many of these intercontinental city-to-city flights might also be considered space treks, because the Starship is likely to fly above the internationally recognized boundary of space at 100 kilometers above the Earth, says Brian Hurley, founder of the globally influential think tank New Space Economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the flight crossed the 100-kilometer K\u00e1rm\u00e1n line,\u201d Hurley told me in an interview, all of its passengers and pilots would be recognized worldwide as astronauts. <\/p>\n
SpaceX commander-in-chief Elon Musk says flying on the Starship on intercontinental flights will be like riding on “an ICBM traveling at Mach 25 that lands.\u201d Shown here is the first American ICBM surreally exhibited at the Coney Island amusement park in New York City during the dawn of the first Space Race and Cold War I. (Photo by Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
These suborbital flights, echoing the trajectory of the first star American astronaut to fly into space during the dawn of the superpower Space Race I, would similarly transform these modern-day voyagers into new constellations of spacefarers joining the egalitarian Space Race II.<\/p>\n
\u201cStarship point-to-point is ultra-fast suborbital transport, on long routes it may cross 100 kilometers,\u201d speeding across the final frontier into space, says Hurley, who chronicles the rising independent space powers worldwide and their technological breakthroughs. <\/p>\n
So far, SpaceX founder Elon Musk and President Gwynne Shotwell have only issued amorphous hints on projected fares for these transnational Starship treks, predicting they could ultimately cost less than first-class tickets for jet flights between the same two cities.<\/p>\n
That would be just a fraction of the rates charged by the current twin titans of suborbital spaceflights, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, which price each ticket aboard their spacecraft at hundreds of thousands of dollars, Hurley says.<\/p>\n
Test flight of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, which has sped independent spacefarers above the 100-kilometer “border” of space. (Photo by Mark Greenberg\/Virgin Galactic\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
In a fascinating chronicle on the suborbital space tourism sector, and its alternative futures, that his think tank published, scholar Hurley says: \u201cThe price of a suborbital ticket is the single most discussed barrier to market expansion.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAt current prices of $200,000 to $600,000 or more, the addressable market is limited to ultra-high-net-worth individuals.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAs of mid-2025,\u201d he adds, \u201cthere are approximately 510,810 ultra-high-net-worth individuals globally, defined as those with a net worth exceeding $30 million.\u201d<\/p>\n
But if a new upstart contender, like SpaceX, were to introduce fantastically slashed prices for suborbital sojourns, he predicts, that could lead to the rapid and radical democratization of spaceflight.<\/p>\n
“A 90% reduction to the $40,000-$60,000 range would place a suborbital flight in the same cost category as a luxury cruise, a business-class international trip, or a high-end bucket-list vacation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe addressable population [of prospective flyers],\u201d Hurley says, \u201cexpands enormously, potentially to tens of millions of affluent consumers globally.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSpaceX\u2019s Starship, with its potential for carrying many more passengers per flight, could theoretically approach this range.\u201d<\/p>\n
SpaceX\u2019s commanders state in their share offering manifesto: \u201cWe plan to develop ultra-fast long-haul point-to-point Earth transport using Starship, enabling passengers and cargo to travel between major cities in a fraction of current transit times, revolutionizing global logistics and passenger travel with unprecedented speed and efficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n
SpaceX aims for its Starship to speed adventurers across the continents on rocket-powered treks lasting less than one hour. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cWith meaningful advances in space technology,\u201d they add, \u201cwe expect increasing interest in human space travel as it becomes easier and more common to access space.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition to the markets we serve today, we believe we are poised to catalyze transformative breakthroughs and create entirely new markets.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cOver time each of these markets could eventually represent multi-trillion-dollar economic opportunities.\u201d <\/p>\n
While Starship could initially be deployed for city-to-city excursions and planet-circling space expeditions, the longer-range target is for routine \u201cpassenger and cargo transportation to the Moon and Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a preview of Starship flights set to crisscross the continents, Elon Musk said in a post on the messaging platform Twitter (now X): \u201cMost flights would only be 15 to 20 mins. It\u2019s basically an ICBM traveling at Mach 25 that lands<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n These flights, with their remarkable G-force of acceleration on take-off, he added, would resemble \u201cDisney\u2019s Space Mountain roller coaster.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWould feel similar to Space Mountain in a lot of ways, but you\u2019d exit on another continent<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n SpaceX is already counting down to collaborating with NASA to convert some of its colossal Starship capsules, which are designed to host 100 spacefarers each, into space stations that would ring the globe and provide alternative spaceflight destinations when the International Space Station<\/a> is decommissioned in the 2030s.<\/p>\n Starship orbital stations could provide alternative destinations for Allied and independent astronauts when the International Space Station is decommissioned in the 2030s. (Photo by NASA\/Space Frontiers\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Getty Images<\/p>\n Along with a half-dozen other leading-edge American space outfits including Blue Origin, Axiom Space and Starlab Space<\/a>, SpaceX has signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA to develop orbital outposts that could host NASA and Allied astronauts through the next decades.<\/p>\n Under this agreement, NASA envisions SpaceX deploying \u201cStarship as a transportation and in-space low Earth orbit destination.”<\/p>\n Even as it test-flies its twin-stage Starship, the most powerful and advanced rocket and human-rated capsule ever designed on this planet, SpaceX has built a Titan-size Starfactory set to produce and perfect 1000 Starships every year, partly to launch the 10,000 ships that Musk has proclaimed will be deployed to speed one million inter-world nomads to Mars<\/a> by the mid-century.<\/p>\n Brian Hurley predicts, meanwhile, that as more independent astronauts from around the world begin occupying the orbital rings closest to Earth, SpaceX could move to connect up small flotillas of Starships into larger interlinked clusters. <\/p>\n \u201cDocking Starships together could eventually create something that resembles an orbital village,\u201d he told me. <\/p>\n