Space Adventures, one of the space industry's leading companies, had to cancel its scheduled launch with SpaceX after not receiving any applications for the extremely expensive journey.
Stacey Tearne, the company's spokesperson, told SpaceNews:
"The mission was marketed to a large number of our prospective customers, but ultimately the mix of price, timing and experience wasn't right at that particular time and our contract with SpaceX expired. We hope to revisit the offering in the future."
The development comes as a big surprise following the success of the Inspiration4 mission, which sent four amateur astronauts for a three-day ride in Earth's orbit onboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
Although the happening received major media coverage around the world, the journey involved significant difficulties including, toilet problems, sickness onboard and a substantial cost, with tickets priced anywhere between $20 and $35 million each. Such factors indicate the incredibly tiny target audience of space tourism.
Space Adventures was established in the early 2000s but hasn't sent any tourists to space since 2009. Other companies have plans of space tourism journeys in place such as, Axiom Space which is to launch a four-crew space journey in 2022.
Space Adventures does however have one scheduled journey planned in December, with Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawac to be launched to the International Space Station onboard a Russian Soyuz capsule.
[Based on reporting by: Futurism]
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