"There is no real commercial space tourism company in China. I hope that China's commercial space tourism companies will gradually develop and lay the foundation for the Chinese people to have the opportunity to buy a travel ticket to the moon as soon as possible." On October 31, at the second Silk Road Commercial Aerospace conference, Wu Ji, former director of the National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and researcher of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said.
Virgin Galactic, which has just been listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has a space flight ticket price of about US $250000 (about RMB 1.76 million) and a flight time of 90 minutes. 603 people from 60 countries and regions have paid a deposit of nearly US $80 million to reserve seats.
Musk's SpaceX said last September that Japanese billionaire youzuo Maezawa would become its first space passenger. Maezawa plans to invite 6 to 8 artists to travel free of charge, but the details of the cost of the trip have not been disclosed.
Wu Ji said that at present, the cost of space tourism is too high. If calculated at $10000 a kilogram, a 70 kilogram tourist wants to go to heaven, it will cost about $700000. "At present, the return price is not included."
Lunar tourism needs to break through the landing technology and solve the problem of high-speed communication. 'if the mobile phone wechat used on the earth can also be used on the moon, it is the best.' In addition, all flight fuel extracted from the lunar surface will be the best choice. " If you want to survive for a long time, oxygen must be brought up from the earth. "
Wu Ji believes that the market volume of commercial aerospace is increasing, which brings confidence to the industry. But he also said that the cost of space tourism must be reduced. The reduction of the cost first depends on technological breakthroughs, that is, breakthroughs in take-off and landing technologies. " As long as humans enter space, the maintenance cost is not very high. "
"The last time man left the moon was in 1972." Since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, there has been no manned lunar landing in the world. " Human beings are not only species on earth, but also species in the solar system. We should speed up the pace of entering the solar system. "
He said that the main purpose of traditional aerospace is to serve politics. Whether it is national defense or major exploration and scientific projects, they are all invested by the government and have a very strong political attribute. However, a breakthrough appeared in the late 1970s, and the emergence of the first batch of international communication satellites led to the development of commercial aerospace. In the 1990s, satellites were gradually standardized, and college students began to enter the field of commercial aerospace.
"Aerospace is neutral and can be used for both national defense politics and commerce. It has been blocked in the political field for decades. So far, how can we break through the blockade? " Wu Ji believes that the first is to rely on the opening up of the government, the second is to rely on a large number of cheap commercial components, especially to develop their own technology, and the third is to open up new markets and find development ideas in new markets.
Since 2015, China has gradually opened up relevant policies in the field of aerospace, which brings very good prospects for opening up commercial space tourism in the future. " We hope that new Aerospace will have greater development. Aiming at commercial aerospace, aiming at new technologies and expanding the market is one direction of our future development. "