Space Adventures fails to find customer for Dragon orbital flight
Capitalism in space: A high orbital tourist flight on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule has been cancelled because the company organizing it, Space Adventures, apparently failed to find enough customers.
Company spokesperson Stacey Tearne confirmed to SpaceNews that the company had dropped plans for the mission. “The mission was marketed to a large number of our prospective customers, but ultimately the mix of price, timing and experience wasn’t right at that particular time and our contract with SpaceX expired,” she said. “We hope to revisit the offering in the future.”
This revises the list of scheduled of orbital tourist flight that began with SpaceX’s Inspiration4 flight in September.
- September 15, 2021: SpaceX’s Dragon capsule flew four private citizens on a three day orbital flight
- October 5-17, 2021: Two Russians fly to ISS for 12 days to shoot a movie
- December 2021: The Russians will fly billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant to ISS for 12 days
- January/February 2022: Axiom, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four tourists to ISS
- 2022-2024: Three more Axiom tourist flights on Dragon to ISS
- 2024: Axiom begins launching its own modules to ISS, starting construction of its own private space station
- c2024: SpaceX’s Starship takes Yusaku Maezawa and several others on a journey around the Moon.
Why Space Adventures could not get enough customers for their Dragon flight is unclear. It could be for many reasons outside of not enough demand. For example, SpaceX might have determined that the prospective customers were not physically capable for the flight. Maybe Space Adventures sold two or three tickets, but couldn’t fill the manifest before their SpaceX contract expired.
The cancellation however does suggest that the price per ticket might have to come down to garner business for orbital tourist space flights. Or those flights need to arrive at a space station where the passengers can spend more than two or three days.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Capitalism in space: A high orbital tourist flight on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule has been cancelled because the company organizing it, Space Adventures, apparently failed to find enough customers.
Company spokesperson Stacey Tearne confirmed to SpaceNews that the company had dropped plans for the mission. “The mission was marketed to a large number of our prospective customers, but ultimately the mix of price, timing and experience wasn’t right at that particular time and our contract with SpaceX expired,” she said. “We hope to revisit the offering in the future.”
This revises the list of scheduled of orbital tourist flight that began with SpaceX’s Inspiration4 flight in September.
- September 15, 2021: SpaceX’s Dragon capsule flew four private citizens on a three day orbital flight
- October 5-17, 2021: Two Russians fly to ISS for 12 days to shoot a movie
- December 2021: The Russians will fly billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant to ISS for 12 days
- January/February 2022: Axiom, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four tourists to ISS
- 2022-2024: Three more Axiom tourist flights on Dragon to ISS
- 2024: Axiom begins launching its own modules to ISS, starting construction of its own private space station
- c2024: SpaceX’s Starship takes Yusaku Maezawa and several others on a journey around the Moon.
Why Space Adventures could not get enough customers for their Dragon flight is unclear. It could be for many reasons outside of not enough demand. For example, SpaceX might have determined that the prospective customers were not physically capable for the flight. Maybe Space Adventures sold two or three tickets, but couldn’t fill the manifest before their SpaceX contract expired.
The cancellation however does suggest that the price per ticket might have to come down to garner business for orbital tourist space flights. Or those flights need to arrive at a space station where the passengers can spend more than two or three days.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Perhaps there simply exist more wealthy people interested in a BO or VG “bungee-jump” flight which requires fewer qualifications, less preparation, and greatly less of a time commitment than an actual spaceflight? Another important distinction is that SpaceX is expecting a tech-savvy philanthropist to organize and staff the trip, whereas BO and VG see that as their role in their business model.
It looks as though we became too excited over the demand for such free-flying orbital flights. The limits on the docking ports at ISS seem to limit the number of available desirable flights. — until there are independent commercial space stations.
I am very much disappointed that we have lost Bigelow Aerospace’s space habitats, which should have been available in the early part of this decade. We may have lost around half a decade of expansion into space due to this loss.
“I am very much disappointed that we have lost Bigelow Aerospace’s”
That’s the downside of capitalism, it’s Darwinian and more businesses fail than succeed. But also due to capitalism, Bigelow will be replaced by someone with a better idea and better timing
Col Beausabre wrote: “That’s the downside of capitalism, it’s Darwinian and more businesses fail than succeed.”
This is true, that more businesses fail than succeed under a Darwinian free market capitalist system, but this does not apply so much to Bigelow’s plight. The introduction of commercial manned spaceflight was controlled by government, so the free market form of capitalism for Bigelow’s space industry did not exist. The loss of Bigelow’s revenue from real estate was a direct result of government intervention in the economy: halting business operations, restricting travel, and giving rent holidays.
This was not Darwinian; it was government creating winners and losers, even if government had no idea who would win or lose, due to its actions. Government made poor decisions, because it only considered the kinds of results that they could see would happen and did not consider any results that they could not see, the predictable (and predicted) unintended consequences.
http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
So, really, this happened not because of capitalism but because of central control of the economy. It is less like Darwinism and more like the hand of a thoughtless, careless, and perhaps malicious god (Loki?).