Is Space Tourism a Victim of the War in Europe?

The space tourism and travel market has received significant attention in the media since last year’s groundbreaking suborbital flights from Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin. While the space tourism industry received  criticism for polluting the atmosphere and being an exclusive club, other missions such as SpaceX Inspiration-4 were praised with more enthusiasm around the world because of the $240M they raised for charity.  

Expectations are for more orbital and suborbital space tourism flights to follow this decade as reported by NSR’s Space Tourism & Travel Markets, 3rd Edition report, which forecasts $ 20.3 B in cumulative revenues by 2031, of which orbital travel is the largest portion. However, the turbulent political situation in Europe could lead to an end of the cooperation between the Western ISS partners and Russia and may disturb the collaboration landscape for orbital and beyond Earth orbit space tourism.

Will Success Survive Sanctions?

Passengers for orbital space tourism include three categories: tourists, commercial astronauts, and government astronauts. Most passengers planning to launch are government astronauts from space agencies. Last year was also a successful year for orbital tourism flights. The latter mission with Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa was a ride to the ISS on a Soyuz rocket, after brokerage firm Space Adventures announced they did not renew their contract with SpaceX for Crew Dragon. Interestingly, a third of the orbital tourism revenues in NSR’s view come from service providers and brokers such as Incredible Adventures, Space Adventures and Axiom Space. In fact, Axiom Space has its Ax-1 to Ax-4 missions planned on a SpaceX Falcon 9.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, western companies have been cutting ties with Russia. The U.S. and EU have imposed heavy and broad economic sanctions, such as a Russia’s ban from the SWIFT financial system. Because of these events, Russia removed 36 OneWeb satellites from their Soyuz rocket, and it is expected that no more European and American astronauts will fly on a Soyuz rocket to the ISS, at least anytime soon. For space broker firms, this will likely mean Space Adventures and Incredible Adventures collaboration with Russia will be halted until after the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is over. It is even questionable whether Russia will continue its crewed space missions in the near to long term due to lack of funding and the government in Russia diverting its economic efforts to the war in Ukraine.

SpaceX: A Monopoly on Orbital Launch

The only short-term alternative for government and commercial orbital spaceflight is the SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle, which bypasses the market opportunities for orbital flight brokers. In an ideal world, brokerage firms would simply sign new agreements with Chinese launch vehicle providers. But U.S. – China relations have been rocky for years and political relations between the two countries have not been much better compared to those with Russia.

In fact, China and Russia have been in discussions regarding future missions to the Moon together. They signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the development of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), in which they hope to engage the broader international space community, and in which they will share space flight components too.



In the medium term, launch service providers Boeing and Blue Origin will take away the SpaceX temporary monopoly in the orbital tourism supply market. Until then, EU and U.S. orbital flights will have to continue to launch on a Falcon 9 rocket. Service provider revenues generated by brokerage firms will be replaced by SpaceX revenues in the short-term. SpaceX might also consider increasing launch prices due to its position of being the only launch provider. However, this will only be for newly signed contracts, as contract prices are usually locked years in advance.



For U.S. commercial and government crewed flights, there will be no great changes in schedule and prices of their missions. NASA, Axiom Space and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman have already secured their contracts for flights in 2022 and 2023. But the European Space Agency has long been dependent on its Russian counterparts for crewed flights to the ISS.

Europe has been neutral about working with China for science and crewed space missions. CNSA and ESA have cooperated for scientific missions for over 20 years. There have also been joint astronaut and taikonaut training sessions in 2017, and talks about flying ESA astronauts to the Chinese space station post-2022.

China has also been doing unsurprisingly well with the construction of the Tiangong space station in LEO. They have also opened their commercial sector with many private companies now constructing suborbital planes and reusable orbital launch vehicles. Now that the ISS partners are further apart and there is remaining uncertainty around the commercial space stations, it is a good time for China to review its human spaceflight program to see when it can potentially host European astronauts in the Tiangong station.

Political Tensions Moving Beyond Earth Orbit

China and the European Space Agency have also been discussing potential cooperation for lunar and deep space activities. China and Russia previously expressed they would like to extend their cooperation on the International Lunar Research Station with the European Space Agency. However, now that the ISS partners appear to be going their separate ways in LEO, it also seems difficult to see all of them reuniting on the Moon.  For government lunar missions, this means more delays may occur in the Russian program, whilst the U.S. Artemis program will continue to move on with the remaining ISS partners.

For commercial astronaut missions and tourists beyond Earth orbit, existing flight plans with SpaceX will likely be left unchanged. The dearMoon mission with Yusaku Maezawa is still set for launch on a Starship rocket in 2023, and the Polaris Dawn mission with Jared Isaacman is also scheduled for later this year. More commercial astronaut and tourists are expected to fly beyond Earth orbit towards the end of this decade with Blue Origin and possibly Rocket Lab’s crew-rated Neutron.

Fortunately, suborbital space tourism on rockets, planes and balloons will not be as affected by this war as much as orbital tourism. Virgin Galactic has reopened its ticket sales in February and are on schedule for their crewed suborbital flights later this year.

In the meantime, Blue Origin expects to add another vehicle to its fleet while they are aiming to increase their number of passengers on the New Shepard. Japan’s Spaceplane provider PD Aerospace raised additional funding in January to develop its suborbital aircraft. And as for balloon- borne flights, these are likely to go ahead too with first flights scheduled for 2024 from either Space Perspective or World View.

The Bottom Line

Orbital and beyond Earth orbit space tourism will be affected the most and mainly for European and Russian government astronauts. Commercial astronauts and tourists will no longer be able to purchase tickets with brokerage firms doing business with Russia and until Boeing and Blue Origin’s vehicles are ready to launch. Until then, SpaceX will be the only launch provider in the market able to answer the demand while suborbital space tourism will continue to sell tickets across all supplier categories.

In the end, the war in Ukraine is certainly having an impact on space tourism and travel but not every segment will be affected equally.