The first person to fly in another country’s spacecraft, and the first person to go to space who wasn’t from the US or Russia, was Vladimir Remek, a Czech Air Force pilot who visited the Salyut space station in 1978.
Now, 45 years later, we’re about to enter a new age of international human spaceflight, but it’s not led by state actors.
As it proceeds towards opening a commercial space station, US company Axiom has become the world’s space agency. It has flown two missions to the International Space Station that carried Canadian and Israeli space tourists and Saudi Arabian astronauts, respectively. The company’s next mission in early 2024 will fly astronauts from Italy and Sweden, plus the first Turkish space traveler. This week, Axiom signed a memorandum laying the groundwork for the first all-British space mission.
Remek went to space through the Interkosmos program, through which the USSR carried astronauts from socialist countries (and eventually France, Japan, and the UK) into space for scientific and publicity purposes. Much was made in the US of Remek’s flight coming a decade after Soviet tanks had crushed the Prague Spring. Not everyone acknowledged the irony. “Joint flights by astronauts of the Socialist countries are evidence of ever‐growing cooperation and friendship among the fraternal people,” his Soviet co-pilot said just before launch.
Flying tourists and astronauts from around the world can be a strength of the US space program, but it hasn’t always been a top priority. A US-USSR space rendezvous in 1976 was arguably the first international mission, but American spacecraft didn’t start carrying foreign passengers until 1983, when Ulf Merbold of West Germany flew on the Space Shuttle. The development of the ISS saw the US flying more foreign nationals, particularly from partners in the orbital lab. But with the retirement of the Shuttle in 2011, the number of new visitors slowed. Even today, there are questions about when European Space Agency astronauts will join NASA’s Artemis missions to the Moon, which rely on ESA contributions to the Orion spacecraft.
However, NASA decided to buy its post-Shuttle spacecraft as a service, hiring SpaceX and Boeing to develop crewed vehicles. SpaceX’s Dragon entered service in 2020 and has fulfilled the space agency’s hope of getting more done onboard the ISS thanks to the additional astronauts onboard. But it also represented an opportunity for companies like Axiom, which could purchase Dragons of their own and fly trips to the ISS, paying for their accommodations. Some feared this would lead to a flood of deep-pocketed adventurers, but thus far the typical Axiom passenger is sponsored by a foreign government.
While there’s still a limited amount of space for people onboard the ISS, a private option to get there is taking some pressure off NASA. More seats for foreign astronauts lets the US focus on flying its own astronauts. It also allows the agency to avoid potential controversies around passengers like the two astronauts from Saudi Arabia. And it offers some of the same prestige and soft power that the Soviets were seeking when they flew other countries’ astronauts into space—and perhaps even more, if foreign space agencies can have more control over the particulars of a private mission.
Today, Russia’s space program is struggling. While it flies the Soyuz about twice annually to the ISS, it doesn’t have the capacity to add many guests. India, meanwhile, just completed an important milestone on the path toward operating its own crewed space vehicle. But China, the true US rival in space, is now flying its Shenzou spacecraft to its own space station at a regular cadence, and signing up collaborators like Pakistan, Belarus, and Venezuela for planned Moon missions. Thus far, no foreigners have gone to space onboard a Chinese vehicle, but it won’t be long.
The US has a window to show that it can enhance its partners’ development as space faring nations, and the private sector will be a key venue for those activities. If Axiom, or rivals like Voyager Space and Vast can launch their own space stations in the years ahead, we could see even more diversity in people heading for the stars. Pakistan may have signed up with China’s Moon mission, but the first Pakistani to go to space, Namira Salim, did so onboard Virgin Galactic’s space plane earlier this month.
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IMAGERY INTERLUDE
Ingenuity, the helicopter accompanying NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover, took its 63rd flight on Oct. 19, flying more than half a kilometer. The flying scout operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has far exceeded its designers’ expectations. The copter’s pictures of the rover itself in the Martian landscape, like the one below (Percy is in the upper left), somehow make humanity’s robotic exploration of Mars easier to believe.
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SPACE DEBRIS
Vulcan for Christmas. United Launch Alliance says the long-awaited debut of its Vulcan rocket will take place on Dec. 24, with backup opportunities in the days to follow. The mission will carry Astrobotic’s Peregrine Moon lander on a mission contracted by NASA. For the sake of ULA’s team (and reporters looking to cover the maiden launch) let’s hope this is a complicated reverse jinx that results in an early January launch.
Varda for Australia. The space startup seeking to bring home samples of drugs fabricated in space will partner with an Australian test range in an effort to land samples from its next mission. But it still needs to win FAA permission for that, and to bring home pharmaceuticals from its first space factory. Meanwhile, Washington and Sydney are looking at a deal to let US rockets launch from land down under.
GPS is spoofed in Israel. Researchers say that Israel is interfering with GPS signals in an apparent effort to send missiles fired by Hezbollah off course, but the spoofing tactics could also harm civilians and aircraft that rely on those signals.
Amazon is in space. With the successful deployment of two Kuiper satellites earlier this month, Amazon became the first tech giant to operate computers in orbit around the planet. Why did it succeed when Google, Facebook, Apple and Bill Gates gave up? We have some theories.
Boeing gives up on fixed-price contracts. CEO Dave Calhoun says his firm is suffering after failing to deliver on fixed-price contracts, and hasn’t signed any new ones. NASA officials have praised the fixed-price model, but Boeing has lost more than $1 billion trying to build a crewed spacecraft for the agency.
SpaceX finalizes European launch contracts. Elon Musk’s company is stepping in to fly Galileo navigation satellites due to delays at Arianespace, the EU’s rocket maker of choice, and sanctions against Russia.
Last week: Reading the tea leaves at Jeff Bezos’ space company.
Last year: Inside a space business deal-making spree.
This was issue 200 of our newsletter. Hope your week is out of this world! Please send your take on the future of soft pwoer in space, tips, and informed opinions to [email protected].