- Axiom Space offers space tickets with yearlong astronaut training priced around $70 million.
- The price is higher than Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, and is geared toward advancing science.
- Axiom's missions, including one set to launch Monday, visit the International Space Station for about two weeks of extensive research work.
Tickets to space aren't cheap — but Axiom Space is a company pricing its offerings at the decidedly high end of the industry.
Its tickets, which cost roughly $70 million, are steep compared to other human spaceflight options offered by space tourism companies. For context, Blue Origin requires a $150,000 refundable deposit for a ticket to space, and auctioned off a ticket for $28 million. Virgin Galactic tickets were previously priced at $600,000, and are expected to go up.
So why is Axiom's offering priced so much higher?
For starters, the destination is different. Unlike other human spaceflight missions, like Blue Origin's New Shepard trip, Axiom Space missions extend beyond an 11-minute experience, involving much more than a rocket trip into weightlessness and a quick return to Earth.
Instead, you'll visit the International Space Station.
CEO Tejpaul Bhatia told Business Insider that Axiom Space's private astronaut missions to the ISS last around two weeks.
Bhatia added that the $70 million price tag doesn't just cover a ticket to space, but a yearlong program to become a trained astronaut. The company told BI that Axiom Space's private astronauts undergo training that meets NASA standards, though it isn't quite as robust as what is required of NASA astronauts.
"It's a full-on enterprise," Bhatia, who hasn't taken a trip himself but told BI he's often referred to by others as an "astronaut whisperer." Private individuals who paid their way to space end up investing far more than just the ticket price, he added.
An Axiom Space spokesperson told BI that the trips are open to countries, space agencies, researchers, organizations, and individuals; however, they have to align with the company's mission and overall objectives. The exact price is determined on a case-by-case basis.
And unlike other companies offering human spaceflight, Axiom Space doesn't manufacture its own rockets or spaceships. It forms contracts with companies like SpaceX to send trained astronauts to space.
The company said that the missions also open opportunities for countries to access space beyond the partners of the ISS. Its coming mission, AX-4, launching a crewed mission on Monday, includes government contracts with India, Poland, and Hungary. At the government level, Bhatia said the ticket price is a "drop in the bucket" compared to what it would cost a country to build a space program to send humans.
"I'm talking like orders of magnitude less," Bhatia said.
The US spent about $25.8 billion on Project Apollo between 1960 and 1973. If you factor in inflation, that would come out to around $237 billion in today's dollars.
The company's human spaceflight program is just one part of its larger mission to build the world's first commercial space station to succeed the ISS, which has long served as a platform for international crews and scientific research, and is set to expire by 2030.
Dedicating a year to training
Bhatia said the roughly yearlong journey begins with the decision to go to space, a process that involves working with customers to develop the mission's criteria and firming up contractual considerations.
From there, astronauts typically start training eight months to a year before launch.
"They have to dedicate, effectively, that year of their life to training," Bhatia said.
Axiom Space partners with NASA, Space, ESA, JAXA, and others to conduct the training, which includes 700 to 1,000 hours of instruction in safety, health, ISS systems, and launch operations, a spokesperson told BI.
Once the mission is set in stone, the individuals begin initial onboarding and mission-specific training. That includes familiarization with mission objectives, safety protocols, and team-building. Then the astronauts undergo detailed training at SpaceX facilities, where they learn about the company's Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The training focuses on system operations, emergency procedures, and full-mission simulations, a spokesperson told BI.
The crew also goes through extensive training at NASA's Johnson Space Center on ISS operations, including payload management, microgravity adaptation, and emergency preparedness, the spokesperson added.
Prior to launch, Axiom Space astronauts have to receive approval from international partners to go forth on the mission. About two weeks before takeoff, the crew enters quarantine, a protocol that predates COVID. Bhatia added that starting a month before launch, the crew has to wear masks during any in-person interactions.
'Every minute' of the flight is accounted for
Despite spending as much as $70 million for a ticket to space, the experience is far from luxurious.
"It's a rugged experience," Bhatia said, adding that it's "not a comfortable place."
Bhatia said the crew typically spends about 14 days at the ISS, although sometimes it's less or more depending on the dynamics of spaceflight, including weather considerations. Those two weeks consist of a "very regimented routine," involving hard science and research, Bhatia said.
"Every minute is accounted for," the CEO said.
The mission also involves significant engagement with the public and media. Bhatia said crew members appear on prime-time news broadcasts live from the station.
While Bhatia said there can sometimes be technical difficulties or a transmission drop, for the most part, everything is planned.
"There's a lot of controlled systems there," Bhatia said and astronauts are prepared with the skills and knowledge needed for a successful mission.
The end of the trip ends with the Dragon Spacecraft making a "small splashdown" in water and a period where the crew adjusts back to gravity. Once they land, crew members are given extensive medical evaluations before post-mission activities begin.
Growing interest in private space exploration
Bhatia told BI that when he joined the space company as chief revenue officer four years ago, he shifted it toward government sales. Demand for the $70 million private ticket seems to be higher, he added. Bhatia said that the company has sold more private astronaut seats in that time, although they haven't flown yet.
"It's less about our ability to sell these tickets," Bhatia said. "It's about an evolution in the market."
That evolution is reflected in similar efforts by other companies, like Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, which recently made headlines for its first all-female crew, which included Katy Perry and Bezos' fiancée, Lauren Sánchez. When asked whether backlash toward that mission and commercial space travel in general might impact public support for high-cost missions like Axiom's, Bhatia said he wasn't concerned.
"They're not being influenced by those headlines," Bhatia said about the governments sending their citizens to space.
Bhatia said suborbital missions are "super cool" for a "space nut," and multiple factors likely contributed to the backlash, all of which he felt could have been spun in a positive way. He said criticism may have been driven by a response to the company behind the mission or the crew who attended the trip. The CEO also said that there tends to be an overarching mindset that people shouldn't spend money on space when there are problems on Earth.
"Space and Earth are not mutually exclusive, they never have been and never will be," Bhatia said, adding that humans are part of the universe and space is "our environment as well."
Asked about whether he plans to go to space soon, the CEO said he thinks eventually it will happen. For now, though, he said the focus is on getting others to fly.
"It's become more of a mission for me to figure it out for others," Bhatia said.
