Facts for Prelims (FFP)
Source: IE
Context: Gopi Thotakura, an entrepreneur and pilot, is set to be the first Indian space tourist on the NS-25 mission by Blue Origin (an American Space startup, founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon).
Space tourism is a burgeoning sector allowing individuals to experience space travel for recreational or business purposes. It encompasses:
- Suborbital space flights (altitude of 100 km referred to as Karman Line)
- Orbital Space Flights (altitudes over 400 kilometres)
- Lunar space tourism (trips to the moon).
Challenges facing space tourism include its high cost, environmental concerns regarding rocket emissions, and safety issues. Despite these challenges, the space tourism market is growing rapidly, with increasing interest from both tourists and industry players.
About Kármán Line
It is the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, located approximately 100 kilometres (62 miles) above sea level. It is named after Hungarian-American engineer and physicist Theodore von Kármán, who first calculated the altitude where the atmosphere becomes too thin to support conventional aircraft flight.
