Most of us would have never imagined traveling to outer space in our lives, but these days, it’s looking ever more possible for the average Joe to go into orbit—or at least, an average Joe with bags of money.
This month, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic announced it is going public and is preparing to send its first customers into space within a year. More than 600 people have placed deposits topping $80 million in total thus far, while another 2,500 want to get in line. Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is also keen to send people into space, while Elon Musk announced last year that his company, SpaceX, has a customer lined up who will pay to fly around the moon. On top of that, NASA made a change in policy and said it would allow space tourists to visit the International Space Station as soon as next year.
At the moment it seems space, the final frontier “where no man has gone before”, may soon be full of humans casually passing by with cameras and intergalactic passports. If you’re keen to get in on the action, here’s everything you need to know to become a potential space explorer.
