Would you rather take a voyage to the wreck of the Titanic or to the edge of space? A ticket for either happens to start at around $250,000, which makes the likelihood of experiencing either well out of reach for most of us mere mortals.
Oceangate Expeditions has announced its second annual trip to the Titanic’s final resting place. It will carry passengers, dubbed, ‘mission specialists,’ along with researchers, 12,500 ft beneath the North Atlantic Ocean to survey the vessel up close from inside the company’s submersible Titan.
The Titanic Expedition is conducted as a series of eight-day missions in May and June. Each seat now costs $250,000 – a $125,000 increase from last year.
The price tag and the escalating costs have also been reflected in trips to the edge of space. A ticket aboard the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo was also $250,000 until last August when it was hiked to $450,000.
Rather than set a ticket price, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin’s space venture auctioned off seats aboard its spacecraft, selling one for an astonishing $28 million that was occupied by a Dutch teenager with a very rich daddy.
To go beyond the edge of space costs even more. Three passengers to the International Space Station next year are paying $55 million each for their seats on a SpaceX rocket, bought through the company Axiom Space.
On the other hand, a company called Space Perspective plans to launch a pressurized capsule propelled by a high-performance space balloon. In a six-hour flight costing $125,000 per person, passengers in Spaceship Neptune and Neptune One will lift off from Space Coast Spaceport in Florida, though not until 2024.
Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.
Meh, the ship is crumbling away. Hardly worth the effort.
Passengers on a space craft? That could be interesting. Spending 6 months on a space station. Or making the journey to the moon? All insteresting.