Would You Book a $2M Spacewalk on Tripadvisor?
Spacewalks are Set To Become the Scuba Diving of Space Tourism
With its planned spacewalk, the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission is about to expand what's possible for civilian space travelers. The first-ever private extravehicular activity (EVA) is a significant advance in making commercial space travel more immersive, bridging the gap between space agency astronauts and private spacefarers.
By leading the first commercial spacewalk, Polaris Dawn is paving the way for the future of space tours and activities. Consider scuba diving as a terrestrial parallel, where specialized gear is necessary for oxygen and temperature control, allowing participants to safely explore new environments despite inherent risks. This article looks at how spacewalks have evolved and uses similarities with scuba diving to forecast their potential as a space tourism experience.
From a Daring Solo Endeavor to Habitat Assembly
Spacewalks, or EVAs, are not just technical feats but profound sensory experiences. To date, over 240 spacewalks have been performed by professional astronauts from around the world.
Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first to exit the shelter of a spacecraft, venturing out alone on March 18, 1965. He spent 12 minutes outside, tethered by a 5-meter-long cord, when a dangerous complication emerged. Leonov's suit had expanded and stiffened in the vacuum of space, making it impossible for him to re-enter the spacecraft through the narrow airlock.
Leonov took decisive action, manually venting oxygen from his suit to reduce the internal pressure, fully aware of the life-threatening danger of decompression sickness. Fortunately, his quick thinking paid off—the suit became flexible enough for him to squeeze back through the airlock to safety.
Spacewalks evolved from mere demos to critical operations that enabled the construction and maintenance of space stations. Anatoly Solovyev holds the record for the most spacewalks, with 16 EVAs totaling over 82 hours from 1988 to 1999. His work focused mainly on building and maintaining the Russian Mir space station, a precursor to the ISS.
NASA astronauts Susan Helms and Jim Voss, meanwhile, participated in the longest spacewalk to date—8 hours and 56 minutes on March 11, 2001—during the construction of the ISS. This grueling undertaking, which challenged the astronauts mentally and physically, was essential to install the ISS’s primary 28-foot laboratory.
The First Civilian Spacewalk
The Polaris Dawn spacewalk will be executed by commander Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis. Tethered to the spacecraft, they will perform the EVA while Scott Poteet and Anna Menon remain inside the Crew Dragon capsule for technical assistance. Although all are experienced in aviation and engineering, none have performed a spacewalk before, and only Isaacman has previous spaceflight experience. The lack of an airlock means that all four will be exposed to the hazards of space.
Another risk variable is that the SpaceX EVA suit has never been used in a spacewalk, making testing of the newly designed spacesuits a primary objective. These suits are not just critical safety features but are also designed to enhance mobility and functionality.
Special features include a helmet with a copper visor for sun protection, as well as impact-resistant and fog-resistant technology built into the helmet. The suits are made to be reusable with modular pieces that can be reconfigured for different astronauts.
The spacewalk is expected to last approximately two to three hours on day three of the five-day mission and will be viewable on the SpaceX YouTube channel.
How This Spacewalk Impacts Tourism
Scuba diving and spacewalks are similar in that both require participants to operate in hostile environments using pressurized suits—divers in wetsuits and astronauts in EVA suits—to protect against deep water pressure or the vacuum of space. Both also rely on life support systems: oxygen tanks for divers and built-in oxygen for astronauts.
Movement poses challenges in both, with divers managing buoyancy and astronauts navigating microgravity. Spacewalk training often uses neutral buoyancy pools, further linking the two. Both activities demand physical endurance, training, and constant situational awareness for safety.
A bit of conjecture is required to establish a spacewalk market price. Today, an all-inclusive trip to the ISS, including transportation and food, for a two-week stay, costs $55 million. Rounding off the numbers a bit, a Caribbean all-inclusive vacation comes in at about $5,500 per person. A two-tank dive in the Caribbean, including gear rental, averages about $200. Based on these ratios, ignoring for the moment actual operational costs, if spacewalks were commercially available today, they might be priced at around $2 million.
Would a billionaire tourist, already spending $55 million for an orbital stay on the ISS, pay an additional $2 million for the chance to perform a spacewalk? Almost certainly. It’s easy to envision a future at scale with reduced costs where groups of space tourists, tethered together with a guide, float outside a space station or a spaceport lounge.
The Polaris Dawn mission marks a pivotal moment in civilian space travel. The experience from this historic spacewalk could pave the way for leisure spacefarers to engage in an activity that was once reserved for highly trained astronauts. As space tourism evolves, spacewalks may become a common add-on excursion, enabling tourists to check "floating through space" off their bucket list.
