In April, the era of space tourism reached a new milestone: the Axiom 1 mission was launched, in which the four crew members would spend a few days on the International Space Station. Three of those crew members are billionaires whose “boarding passes” were very, very expensive. If you thought that everything was going to be seeing spectacular views and floating through the rooms of the ISS, you were in for a surprise.
Hey, I’ve paid 55 million dollars. Larry Connor, Eytan Stibbe and Mark Pathy (in the image, with HoloLens inside the ISS) are the three lucky billionaires who were able to participate in that space mission. All of them paid that amount to be able to be part of this trip that had the objective of taking them to the ISS and that they be there for eight nights, although in the end the period was extended to 15 days due to unfavorable weather for the return.
Pleasure trip, nothing. Michael López-Alegría the commander of the Ax-1 mission, explained that his “schedule was very aggressive, especially early in the mission. The pace was hectic at the start.” It is true that the crew knew that they had to carry out various experiments during their stay on the ISS, but they probably imagined that with what they had paid for the ticket, the pace would be smooth and bearable. Nothing of that.
Experiments and more experiments. Larry Connor, one of the crew members, explained that “we were very aggressive with the planning, especially the first couple of days.” He gave an example of an experiment that was supposed to take two and a half hours to complete based on pre-flight training: they ended up taking five hours to do it.
Please help. The four NASA and ESA Crew-3 astronauts who were already on the ISS were a great help for the Axiom 1 mission — López-Alegría had nothing but praise for them — but his own work schedule was affected. “The arrival of the Axiom staff appears to have had a larger than expected impact on the daily workload of the International Space Station’s professional crew,” explained NASA’s Susan Helms at a later meeting.
Axiom will relax the pace in the future. Those responsible for Axiom have taken good note of this burden suffered by these space tourists. Michael Suffredini, president and CEO of Axiom Space, explained that there have been “lessons learned” from conversations with NASA and SpaceX, and that “over time, we will reduce what the crew has to do.” The company is already preparing to launch a second crew: it has sold three seats, including one for an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates.
longer stays. One of the options to relax the rhythm is to lengthen the stays. López-Alegría recognized that “it was a blessing to have that extra time” when the stay was extended due to those unfavorable conditions for the return. “I think we were so focused on research and outreach in the first 8 or 10 days in orbit that we needed the extra time to complete the experience by having time to look out the window, to connect with friends and family, and to just enjoy the feeling”.
