HIGH
Louis Brennan on space tourism
The euphoria surrounding the moon landings in the late 1960s generated enthusiasm for the commercial potential of space travel. Yet it took until 2001 for US businessman Dennis Tito to become the first space tourist. His example, and advances in engineering, have finally kick-started space tourism.
One of the biggest advances was made in 2004, when the Ansari X prize was won. The prize, for the first successful launch of a reusable manned spacecraft by a non-government organisation, was claimed by a joint venture between Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen and the aerospace company Scaled Composites. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has now teamed up with Scaled Composites to build a fleet of commercial spacecraft that will make space travel widely available for private citizens. Many other companies are also working on this.
Space Adventures, the US company that organised Tito’s trip, has since had six more customers for orbital spaceflights—at a reported cost of at least $20m each. Sub-orbital trips, which only breach the Earth’s atmosphere, would be cheaper. No such commercial trips have yet occurred, but Virgin Galactic, among other companies, aims to offer them within the next year or so and is selling tickets for $200,000. Obviously, space tourism is a highly expensive luxury product. Other factors such as the risk, the preparation required and the experience itself further limit the size of the market.
Yet this should change, as the evolution of the aviation industry demonstrates. Just as commercial air travel opened to the masses with the advent of low-cost business models, there will be a similar opportunity for space tourism. Its democratisation is already underway—Space Adventures, for instance, now sells zero-gravity experiences at the more affordable price of $4,950.
Sub-orbital space trips may become an alternative to long-haul flights for people merely wishing to travel across the world. They would cost much more than air travel, but their speed, combined with the experience of weightlessness and the panoramic views, should attract customers.
There is also the issue of fuel. Jet fuel, a hydrocarbon mix, is increasing in cost and some forecasts see this trend continuing—which is not the case with liquid oxygen, the main component of propellant fuel for space ships. This could over time drive the relative cost of space travel ever lower—one day it might be within reach of the average person.
Louis Brennan is the co-author, with Alessandra Vecchi, of “The Business of Space” (Palgrave Macmillan)
LOW
Tim Ecott goes diving
Long gone are the days when expeditions to Malta or the Red Sea were considered exotic to the intrepid scuba diver—these are now about as glamorous as a trip to Margate Sands. Cheap long-haul travel has left few corners of our watery globe inaccessible, and diving centres know their clientele expect the chance to get up close to animals and fish that Jacques Cousteau once scoured the seas in the hope of glimpsing.
Many divers seek to encounter creatures recently unknown, or previously feared. I have dived with hammerhead sharks, snorkelled with killer whales and been encircled by a school of a thousand barracuda. Like seeing lions in the Serengeti or gorillas in Rwanda, these experiences are not exactly commonplace, but they are attainable for those with sufficient passion (and funds).
Divers with an interest in the bizarre should head for the Lembeh Strait in Indonesia, where “muck diving” is a photographer’s dream. Hairy frog fish, blue-ringed octopuses, pygmy seahorses, and flamboyant cuttlefish are just some of the attractions. These creatures shun nearby coral reefs to make their home in the sandy bottom of the busy shipping channel between the islands of Lembeh and Sulawesi.
Other people get their thrills by getting into the water with the biggest, scariest marine creatures they can find. Shark diving is possible in many locations. Reef sharks—white-tips and black-tips, nurse and whale sharks—are a pleasure to watch underwater, and generally unthreatening. Experienced divers can head to Tiger Beach on Little Bahama Bank, between the Bahamas and Florida. Tiger sharks, hammerheads and lemon sharks are frequently seen there, although one diver was fatally bitten in 2008.
If those don’t seem threatening enough then sign up for an expedition to the Antarctic, where photographer and film-maker Göran Ehlme has pioneered diving with ferocious-looking leopard seals. Cold water enthusiasts can also dive in the Arctic in Russia’s White Sea, where there are bewitching soft corals, giant hermit crabs and fantastical clusters of sea anemones. At the Arctic Circle Dive Centre, you can even swim with beluga whales.
Finally, if you need a scuba tune-up before you hit the water why not go to Brussels, home to Nemo 33, the world’s deepest swimming pool. The crystal-clear pool is 33 metres deep and heated to 33 degrees centigrade—ideal for a refresher course, or as a place to learn without the hassle of a long-haul flight. Or fish, of course.
Tim Ecott is the author of “Neutral Buoyancy: Adventures in a Liquid World” (Penguin)
HOT
Benedict Allen in the desert
“The English have a great hunger for desolate places,” says Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia. “No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees.” It’s true— while the Bedouin plods with his camels from oasis to oasis, the English are drawn to the spaces in between. Something about the emptiness appeals, and to the English more than the Welsh, Scots or Irish. It may be because our portion of the planet has long been over-crowded. The desert offers a chance to be without distractions. Out there, perhaps, we might know ourselves.
Now, though, we are all over-crowded. Whether immersed in the gravelly Sahara, the ochre Kalahari or the mountainous dunes of the Namib, deserts provide us with an ever-more scarce commodity: isolation.
But whatever our impulse for venturing there, deserts leave an enduring impression on the traveller. They are the closest that we can get to walking on the Moon—and receiving a similar sense of our insignificance in the bigger scheme of things.
It was 15 years ago, but I still remember every day of my first desert journey, in the Namib, not least the moment I waved goodbye to my companions and walked off into the terrifying void. Yet as I adjusted to the rhythms of the journey into nowhere—double-checking water-bottles, hobbling and harnessing camels, finding shelter from the alternating cold and heat—my mind seemed to expand to fill the vacuum. I began to understand why great religious figures have sought out the wilderness. The relationship with the landscape is uninterrupted and everything is made vivid. The journey becomes a prayer, a meditation.
Two weeks into that trek, I came across a coiled snake. In other circumstances that lone creature might have seemed uninteresting, or a threat. But out there it seemed to be on my side, the side of the living. In the desert all life—a sprig of vegetation, a lizard—becomes a wonder. The preciousness of your own existence becomes clear.
Of course, we don’t all have time to go on lengthy hikes. The key, though, is finding time to be apart. Go to the desert, hire a camel and guide, or a four-wheel drive, but however you go, take time to sleep under the stars. For a few hours at least, nothing will separate you from yourself or infinity.
Benedict Allen is an explorer and author
COLDDavid Lascelles in the Antarctic
Travel to the Antarctic has improved since Scott’s day. Last February, four days after boarding a flight to Buenos Aires, I was standing on a seashore looking at a penguin, surrounded by snow and ice. The penguin stared fearlessly back, and waddled off to attend to more important business.
The transition was so quick that it felt unreal. Indeed, the biggest danger of going to the Antarctic is that you cannot actually believe you are there. It is only when the feeling of utter remoteness comes over you that you know you’re at the end of the earth, 1,000 miles from the nearest civilisation.
Cruises leave the tip of Latin America daily during the southern summer (October to March), but thanks to clever juggling by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, you’d never know it. Cruise liners get their slots and must move on before the next ship arrives. During our fortnight there we saw only two other boats.
The price is anything between £2,000 and £10,000. My son and I paid £2,500 each for a spacious two-berth cabin aboard MS Expedition, a converted Danish car ferry crewed by Ukrainians and run by a Canadian company. The accommodation was excellent, the food superb, and the crew and guides impressively knowledgeable. Our route was through the islands and fjörds of the Antarctic peninsula: much the most dramatic scenery on the continent, amazing ice-clad cliffs and jagged peaks.
You sleep aboard ship, but every day there are a couple of expeditions ashore. These are great fun: you don waterproof gear and zip across ice-strewn bays in motorised dinghies. One day it might be to see penguins and seals, the next to inspect glaciers and icebergs or climb a hill for the view. There are also research stations to visit, notably Port Lockroy which housed British scientists until it was abandoned in 1962. The station is frozen in time: there are still Penguin books at 1/6d and coronation pictures of the Queen.
What strikes you most of all is how alive Antarctica is. Flocks of penguins occupy any habitable promontory, every iceberg seems to have a seal on it, the boat is permanently surrounded by albatrosses, skuas and petrels, and every now and then a whale makes its presence known with a spout of water. But the wildlife is only there because it’s the breeding season. Come the autumn, they’ll all be back in the ocean.
The downside to visiting is the two-day crossing there and back, which is made dreadful by high winds. Yet it is also a divide between the 21st century and the timeless world beyond. Worth the pain, I thought.
David Lascelles is joint founder of the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation
Louis Brennan on space tourism
The euphoria surrounding the moon landings in the late 1960s generated enthusiasm for the commercial potential of space travel. Yet it took until 2001 for US businessman Dennis Tito to become the first space tourist. His example, and advances in engineering, have finally kick-started space tourism.
One of the biggest advances was made in 2004, when the Ansari X prize was won. The prize, for the first successful launch of a reusable manned spacecraft by a non-government organisation, was claimed by a joint venture between Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen and the aerospace company Scaled Composites. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has now teamed up with Scaled Composites to build a fleet of commercial spacecraft that will make space travel widely available for private citizens. Many other companies are also working on this.
Space Adventures, the US company that organised Tito’s trip, has since had six more customers for orbital spaceflights—at a reported cost of at least $20m each. Sub-orbital trips, which only breach the Earth’s atmosphere, would be cheaper. No such commercial trips have yet occurred, but Virgin Galactic, among other companies, aims to offer them within the next year or so and is selling tickets for $200,000. Obviously, space tourism is a highly expensive luxury product. Other factors such as the risk, the preparation required and the experience itself further limit the size of the market.
Yet this should change, as the evolution of the aviation industry demonstrates. Just as commercial air travel opened to the masses with the advent of low-cost business models, there will be a similar opportunity for space tourism. Its democratisation is already underway—Space Adventures, for instance, now sells zero-gravity experiences at the more affordable price of $4,950.
Sub-orbital space trips may become an alternative to long-haul flights for people merely wishing to travel across the world. They would cost much more than air travel, but their speed, combined with the experience of weightlessness and the panoramic views, should attract customers.
There is also the issue of fuel. Jet fuel, a hydrocarbon mix, is increasing in cost and some forecasts see this trend continuing—which is not the case with liquid oxygen, the main component of propellant fuel for space ships. This could over time drive the relative cost of space travel ever lower—one day it might be within reach of the average person.
Louis Brennan is the co-author, with Alessandra Vecchi, of “The Business of Space” (Palgrave Macmillan)
LOW
Tim Ecott goes diving
Long gone are the days when expeditions to Malta or the Red Sea were considered exotic to the intrepid scuba diver—these are now about as glamorous as a trip to Margate Sands. Cheap long-haul travel has left few corners of our watery globe inaccessible, and diving centres know their clientele expect the chance to get up close to animals and fish that Jacques Cousteau once scoured the seas in the hope of glimpsing.
Many divers seek to encounter creatures recently unknown, or previously feared. I have dived with hammerhead sharks, snorkelled with killer whales and been encircled by a school of a thousand barracuda. Like seeing lions in the Serengeti or gorillas in Rwanda, these experiences are not exactly commonplace, but they are attainable for those with sufficient passion (and funds).
Divers with an interest in the bizarre should head for the Lembeh Strait in Indonesia, where “muck diving” is a photographer’s dream. Hairy frog fish, blue-ringed octopuses, pygmy seahorses, and flamboyant cuttlefish are just some of the attractions. These creatures shun nearby coral reefs to make their home in the sandy bottom of the busy shipping channel between the islands of Lembeh and Sulawesi.
Other people get their thrills by getting into the water with the biggest, scariest marine creatures they can find. Shark diving is possible in many locations. Reef sharks—white-tips and black-tips, nurse and whale sharks—are a pleasure to watch underwater, and generally unthreatening. Experienced divers can head to Tiger Beach on Little Bahama Bank, between the Bahamas and Florida. Tiger sharks, hammerheads and lemon sharks are frequently seen there, although one diver was fatally bitten in 2008.
If those don’t seem threatening enough then sign up for an expedition to the Antarctic, where photographer and film-maker Göran Ehlme has pioneered diving with ferocious-looking leopard seals. Cold water enthusiasts can also dive in the Arctic in Russia’s White Sea, where there are bewitching soft corals, giant hermit crabs and fantastical clusters of sea anemones. At the Arctic Circle Dive Centre, you can even swim with beluga whales.
Finally, if you need a scuba tune-up before you hit the water why not go to Brussels, home to Nemo 33, the world’s deepest swimming pool. The crystal-clear pool is 33 metres deep and heated to 33 degrees centigrade—ideal for a refresher course, or as a place to learn without the hassle of a long-haul flight. Or fish, of course.
Tim Ecott is the author of “Neutral Buoyancy: Adventures in a Liquid World” (Penguin)
HOT
Benedict Allen in the desert
“The English have a great hunger for desolate places,” says Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia. “No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees.” It’s true— while the Bedouin plods with his camels from oasis to oasis, the English are drawn to the spaces in between. Something about the emptiness appeals, and to the English more than the Welsh, Scots or Irish. It may be because our portion of the planet has long been over-crowded. The desert offers a chance to be without distractions. Out there, perhaps, we might know ourselves.
Now, though, we are all over-crowded. Whether immersed in the gravelly Sahara, the ochre Kalahari or the mountainous dunes of the Namib, deserts provide us with an ever-more scarce commodity: isolation.
But whatever our impulse for venturing there, deserts leave an enduring impression on the traveller. They are the closest that we can get to walking on the Moon—and receiving a similar sense of our insignificance in the bigger scheme of things.
It was 15 years ago, but I still remember every day of my first desert journey, in the Namib, not least the moment I waved goodbye to my companions and walked off into the terrifying void. Yet as I adjusted to the rhythms of the journey into nowhere—double-checking water-bottles, hobbling and harnessing camels, finding shelter from the alternating cold and heat—my mind seemed to expand to fill the vacuum. I began to understand why great religious figures have sought out the wilderness. The relationship with the landscape is uninterrupted and everything is made vivid. The journey becomes a prayer, a meditation.
Two weeks into that trek, I came across a coiled snake. In other circumstances that lone creature might have seemed uninteresting, or a threat. But out there it seemed to be on my side, the side of the living. In the desert all life—a sprig of vegetation, a lizard—becomes a wonder. The preciousness of your own existence becomes clear.
Of course, we don’t all have time to go on lengthy hikes. The key, though, is finding time to be apart. Go to the desert, hire a camel and guide, or a four-wheel drive, but however you go, take time to sleep under the stars. For a few hours at least, nothing will separate you from yourself or infinity.
Benedict Allen is an explorer and author
COLDDavid Lascelles in the Antarctic
Travel to the Antarctic has improved since Scott’s day. Last February, four days after boarding a flight to Buenos Aires, I was standing on a seashore looking at a penguin, surrounded by snow and ice. The penguin stared fearlessly back, and waddled off to attend to more important business.
The transition was so quick that it felt unreal. Indeed, the biggest danger of going to the Antarctic is that you cannot actually believe you are there. It is only when the feeling of utter remoteness comes over you that you know you’re at the end of the earth, 1,000 miles from the nearest civilisation.
Cruises leave the tip of Latin America daily during the southern summer (October to March), but thanks to clever juggling by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, you’d never know it. Cruise liners get their slots and must move on before the next ship arrives. During our fortnight there we saw only two other boats.
The price is anything between £2,000 and £10,000. My son and I paid £2,500 each for a spacious two-berth cabin aboard MS Expedition, a converted Danish car ferry crewed by Ukrainians and run by a Canadian company. The accommodation was excellent, the food superb, and the crew and guides impressively knowledgeable. Our route was through the islands and fjörds of the Antarctic peninsula: much the most dramatic scenery on the continent, amazing ice-clad cliffs and jagged peaks.
You sleep aboard ship, but every day there are a couple of expeditions ashore. These are great fun: you don waterproof gear and zip across ice-strewn bays in motorised dinghies. One day it might be to see penguins and seals, the next to inspect glaciers and icebergs or climb a hill for the view. There are also research stations to visit, notably Port Lockroy which housed British scientists until it was abandoned in 1962. The station is frozen in time: there are still Penguin books at 1/6d and coronation pictures of the Queen.
What strikes you most of all is how alive Antarctica is. Flocks of penguins occupy any habitable promontory, every iceberg seems to have a seal on it, the boat is permanently surrounded by albatrosses, skuas and petrels, and every now and then a whale makes its presence known with a spout of water. But the wildlife is only there because it’s the breeding season. Come the autumn, they’ll all be back in the ocean.
The downside to visiting is the two-day crossing there and back, which is made dreadful by high winds. Yet it is also a divide between the 21st century and the timeless world beyond. Worth the pain, I thought.
David Lascelles is joint founder of the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation
