Introduction

Before addressing the topic of this chapter, it is important to agree on the definition of a space tourist and what exactly constitutes space. The description astronaut, cosmonaut, spationaut, and taikonaut are terms generally reserved for professional space travelers, trained by a human spaceflight program provided by a government space agency such as the Russian Federal Space Agency, NASA, or ESA, to serve as a crewmember of a spacecraft. Until the birth of the orbital space business in 2001, with the flight of Dennis Tito, professional space travelers were trained exclusively by government space agencies, but Tito’s flight created a new category of space traveler. Following his pioneering flight, Tito was described by the press as a commercial astronaut, a space tourist, a civilian astronaut, a pseudo-astronaut, a private space explorer, and a spaceflight participant, the latter of which is probably the most appropriate definition for those paying to travel into space. It is also the term agreed on by NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency to distinguish space travelers from professional astronauts. Since spaceflight participant is also the designation adopted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in its regulations governing commercial spaceflight, it is this term that will be used in this guide when referring to those paying for their trip into space.