Not only astronauts! Who can fly into space and how to get there for you personally

Astronaut

• Suitable for: young, persistent and not looking for easy ways.

Becoming an astronaut is the most obvious (and most difficult!) Option of all. To get a chance to get to the ISS as a full-fledged member of the crew, you need to wait for the start of the next selection of cosmonauts from Roscosmos. There is no regular schedule: they were looking for candidates in 2012, then only in 2017, and the last recruitment passed in 2019. Competition for open sets is high. In 2019, the specialists of the Cosmonaut Training Center received more than 2 thousand applications, as a result, only four people reached the training course.

The applicant needs an application and an impressive package of documents: dozens of medical certificates, a diploma of higher education, confirmation of no criminal record, and others. You will have to go through a face-to-face interview and a medical examination, and pass aptitude tests. If successful, you will be included in a two-year training program - however, it does not give exact guarantees that the flight of the dream will take place. You need to prove yourself as the most suitable candidate.

Dollar millionaire

• Suitable for: fabulously wealthy people who have $ 50 million in spare.

American entrepreneur and multimillionaire Dennis Titto became the first tourist who was sent into orbit by the main space tour operator - the company Space adventure. Titto flew to the ISS on April 28, 2001, stayed in space for almost 8 days, orbited the Earth 128 times and paid $ 20 million for this. Others can make such a flight. True, today it costs much more - about $ 50 million.

In recent years, private interest in commercial flights has grown dramatically. For example, in September, SpaceX launched four amateur astronauts into orbit in a Dragon capsule. The cost of the voucher is not disclosed, but it is known that the private flight was fully paid for by one of the tourists - billionaire Jared Isaacman.

To spend a few days at the station, in addition to an impressive bank account, a candidate will need good health and at least six months of preparation.

Patient tourist

• Suitable for: those who follow the "battle" between Branson and Bezos and know how to save money.

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are developing suborbital launches for tourists while the world waits with bated breath. At stake is actually a new milestone in space tourism - "budget". Such a flight is similar to the usual one in miniature: ascent to an altitude of 100 km, overload, weightlessness, exciting landscapes from the windows and descent of the ship to the ground. Everything will take 10-15 minutes and about $ 250-500 thousand.

The first test flights were made by Richard Branson, head of Virgin Galactic, and Jeff Bezos, head of Blue Origin, just 9 days apart in the summer. Both, fortunately, were successful. Competing companies have already received permits for manned launches, so full-fledged tourist flights await them ahead.

Actor

• Suitable for: performers of the main roles in films about space.

Until recently, "space" filmmakers had to get out. For example, the Apollo 13 film crew filmed footage of weightlessness in a modified Boeing that NASA had previously used to train astronauts. And for "Gravity", the decorators had to build a three-meter cube with LED lighting to make the footage of the heroine Sandra Bullock's exit into outer space as realistic as possible.

However, a revolution is coming in the world of big cinema. On October 5, filming of the Russian film "Challenge" will start, and they will take place directly on the ISS. Everyone, not just professionals, could participate in the space casting. The role of the discoverer fell to Yulia Peresild, who, together with director Klim Shipenko, is already completing preparations for a flight at the Baikonur cosmodrome. If the picture is successful, the precedent of filming in real space may become practice.

Scientist

• Suitable for: those with a PhD and a little patience.

While scientific experiments on the International Space Station are carried out by the astronauts themselves. However, this summer Roskosmos statedthat plans to send young scientists to the ISS. Just after the filming of the "Challenge" is over, the state corporation will begin training recruits who will be able to pass the selection for health and research industry.

Preparation for flights into orbit will be complete, but will take place as soon as possible. The crew will be controlled by a professional cosmonaut. Scientists will be able to take all the necessary instruments with them to the station and conduct scientific research in orbit.

Future colonizer of Mars

• Suitable for: followers of Elon Musk, who dream of changing the planet.

The ambitious billionaire Elon Musk has long hatched plans to colonize the red planet. In 2016, at the International Space Forum in Mexico, he presented an interplanetary transport system in which people can travel to Mars. He planned to collect a million colonialists and transport them using one rocket for several decades. In 2020, Musk's plans have changed slightly.

Now he's counting build a thousand rockets and populate Mars by 2050. No one knows for sure whether the head of SpaceX will succeed in realizing his daring dream and how dangerous the path of the first colonialists will be.

More recently, millions of enthusiasts who are just as burning with space were able to send their names and photos to the planet aboard the NASA Mars rover. So far, this is the only thread that connects humanity and Mars.