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Every Space Tourism Package Available in 2021 Ranked: From $125K to $60 Million

From virgin galactic's suborbital ride to spacex's multi-day orbital voyage, we've rounded up every space tourism package available..

2021 is a historic year for commercial space travel. A record number of civilian orbital and suborbital missions launched successfully: Elon Musk ’s SpaceX launched four amateur astronauts into Earth’s orbit for the first time; a Russian film crew spent 12 days on the International Space Station shooting the world’s first movie in space; and two multi-billionaires flew to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere as the first passengers of their respective space companies to show the public that their new spacecrafts are safe and fun.

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As with everything in its early stages, space tourism today is unattainably expensive (although demand appears to be strong enough to keep existing companies in this market busy for several years). But eventually, as technology matures and more companies enter the industry, prices will hopefully go down. As a space tourism entrepreneur told Observer this summer, going to space in the future “will be more and more like going to Europe.”

Below, we’ve rounded up every space tourism package that is either available now or in the near future. We have listed them in the order of price and compared them by travel duration, maximum altitude, passenger cabin amenities, and value for money—if you can afford it, that is.

Space Perspective: “Hot Air Balloon” to Stratosphere

Price: $125,000 Flight altitude: 30 kilometers What you’ll get: A relaxing six-hour ride to the stratosphere in a balloon-borne pressurized capsule. Date available: 2024 Value for money:  ★★★★ (4/5 stars)

Founded by the team that launched Alan Eustace in 2014 for his Guinness World Record space jump , Florida-based Space Perspective in June began selling tickets of its yet-to-be-licensed “Spaceship Neptune” flights.

A pressurized capsule designed to carry up to eight passengers and one pilot will be slowly lifted by a hydrogen-filled balloon the size of a football field when fully inflated to 19 miles (30 kilometers) in the sky, about three times the altitude of commercial planes. The passenger cabin features a bar, a bathroom and huge windows specially designed for sightseeing.

The balloon will hover at its peak altitude for about two hours before slowly descending to a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, where passengers and will be picked up by a recovery ship.

Because the space balloon moves at only 12 miles per hour during ascent and descent, no special training is required before the ride. Space Perspective completed a test flight in June. The company expects to begin flying paying customers before the end of 2024.

Virgin Galactic: Suborbital Joy Ride

Ticket Price: $450,000 Flight altitude:  50 km What you’ll get: A 90-minute ride to 50 kilometers above sea level in a SpaceShipTwo spaceplane. A few minutes of zero-gravity experience during descent. Date available:  Now Value for money: ★★ (2/5 stars)

If you like a more thrilling space experience provided by a company with a little bit of a track record, Virgin Galactic (SPCE) ’s 90-minute suborbital flight might be your choice.

In July, the company’s founder, Richard Branson , became its first passenger and flew to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere in a VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo spaceplane along with two pilots and three Virgin Galactic employees.

A pioneer in the nascent space tourism industry, Virgin Galactic began selling seats in 2013 at $250,000 apiece. By the time it halted sales in 2014 (after a test flight failure), the company had collected deposits from more than 600 aspiring customers. Ticket sales resumed in August this year at a higher price of $450,000. Virgin Galactic said it has since received 100 reservations.

Each VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo can carry up to four passengers. Virgin Galactic expects to fly paying passengers three times a month in 2023. At its current reservation volume, it will take the company a number of years to clear its wait list. So, patience is your friend here.

Blue Origin: Quick Rocket Trip to the Kármán line

Ticket Price: Reportedly $28 million Flight altitude: 100 km What you’ll get: A 12-minute ride to the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space. Date available:  Now Value for money: ★ (1/5 stars)

Blue Origin offers a similar suborbital flight package to Virgin Galactic’s. The main difference is that Virgin flies passengers in a plane while Blue Origin launches amateur astronauts in a real rocket.

On July 20, a few days after Branson’s spaceflight, Jeff Bezos became the first customer of his own space company as well, blasting off to 107 kilometers in the sky in a New Shepard booster-capsule combo. The same spacecraft launched another crew of four passengers, including Star Trek actor William Shatner , on October 13.

Blue Origin began taking reservations in May. The exact ticket price is still a mystery. Bezos has said Blue Origin will price New Shepard flights similarly to its competitors, which led us to speculate that it would likely fall in the range of what Virgin Galactic charges. But, according to Tom Hanks , the ride would cost $28 million, which he said was the reason he turned down Bezos’ invitation to fly on the October mission. Hanks may have been joking, but $28 million was how much an auction winner paid to fly alongside Bezos in July. Of that total, $19 million was donated to various space organizations, Blue Origin said. If the remaining amount went to the company itself, it was still a hefty $9 million.

Blue Origin said it has raked in $100 million from private clients, but refused to disclose how many tickets have been sold.

SpaceX: Multi-Day Orbital Voyage

Ticket Price: Estimated $55 million Flight altitude: 574 km Date available:  Now What you’ll get: Three-day stay inside SpaceX’s Dragon capsule circling around Earth with three crew mates. Value for money: ★★★ (3/5 stars)

SpaceX has more experience launching humans into space than any other company in this roundup. Its civilian package, rightfully the most expensive of the bunch, provides the closest experience to true space exploration.

In September, four amateur astronauts blasted off into space in a modified SpaceX Dragon capsule, equipped with a 360-degree glass dome, and spent three days flying in Earth’s orbit. The crewed spacecraft shot up to an altitude of 357 miles, about 100 miles higher than the average orbital altitude of the International Space Station.

The trip was paid for by tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, who was also one of the passengers. SpaceX didn’t disclose the exact amount he paid. It was estimated in the $200 million ballpark, given that NASA pays about $55 million for each seat on SpaceX’s regular crewed missions to the ISS.

Axiom Space/SpaceX: Vacation on International Space Station 

Ticket Price: $55 million Flight altitude: 408 km Date available: 2022 What you’ll get: A 10-day trip to the International Space Station, including a weeklong stay in the orbital lab. Value for money: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)

Next year, another four-person, all-civilian mission is expected to launch with a SpaceX Dragon capsule, this time to actually dock at the International Space Station and let the crew live in the orbital lab for a week. (The Inspiration4 mission stayed in orbit only.)

The trip is marketed by Houston-based Axiom Space , a company led by former NASA official Michael Suffredini. Dubbed Ax-1, the mission will be piloted by former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría. Three passengers—Larry Connor, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe—have reportedly paid $55 million each for the remaining seats.

Axiom has three more flights planned in 2022 and 2023. Under NASA’s low Earth orbit commercialization policy, two ISS civilian missions no longer than 30 days are allowed per year. Axiom actually aims to eventually build a stand-alone space station to replace the aging ISS. The first major module is expected to launch in 2024.

Roscosmos: Customized Trip to International Space Station

Ticket Price: $50 million to $60 million Flight altitude: 408 km Date available: Now What you’ll get: A 12-day trip to the International Space Station. Value for money: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)

If you don’t feel like buying your first space trip from an inexperienced private company, Russia’s national space agency Roscosmos has a ISS getaway package very similar to what Axiom and SpaceX have to offer.

In October, Roscosmos sent an actress and a director to the ISS for a 12-day trip to shoot scenes for what will be the first movie filmed in space. On December 8, another civilian, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, known for having booked a SpaceX Starship flight around the moon in 2023, will travel to the ISS in a Russian Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft, set to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Maezawa will fly with his assistant, Yozo Hirano, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin. According to Space Adventures , a Virginia-based company currently working with Roscosmos on future commercial flights, a seat on an ISS-bound Soyuz spacecraft will cost in the range of $50 million to $60 million.

• SEE ALSO : 4 Management Lessons From JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s 2023 Shareholder Letter

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Virtual Tours for Your Commercial Property: Everything You Need to Know

By: Cody Schneider

Are you looking for a way to make your property stand out in the decision-making process?

At AQUILA we market hundreds of properties and are pivoting to help our clients stand out. We have found that one of the most effective ways to showcase properties is through virtual tours (also known as 360 tours). These virtual tours are especially important during COVID-19 as some in-person property tours have been limited.

Read Next: The Ultimate Guide to Commercial Real Estate Marketing

Creating a virtual tour for your property can help keep your property top of mind for prospects looking for new space. 

In this article, we explain:

• What types of properties can benefit from virtual tours
• Benefits of using virtual tours
• The difference between virtual tours and property tours
• How to produce virtual tours
• How much virtual tours cost to produce

What Type of Properties Can Benefit from Virtual Tours?

Generally, virtual tours are best for spaces that are camera-ready with fresh paint and carpet. This includes spec suites, whitebox space, move-in ready space, and sometimes shell space. A 360 photo shows every aspect of a space, so older second-gen spaces that need a lot of TI don’t always present well in this format. 

Read Next: Should You Build a Spec Suite at Your Office Building?

Virtual property tours work best for featuring individual suites or spaces. Trying to show multiple suites in one tour can be confusing and overwhelming for the user. Another option is to do a tour of the property as a whole – focusing on common areas and amenities, rather than suites.

A virtual tour can also work well for single-user, stand-alone buildings. 

If you are subleasing your space, a virtual tour can be a great way to get your space in front of prospects.

Benefits of Using Virtual Tours

Get your property on the short list.

When prospects are searching for new space, their tenant representation broker will conduct a market survey to show their client the options available in the market. The tenant will then narrow down this list into a “shortlist” that can consist of anywhere from 10 to 15 properties, which they will then go out and tour alongside their broker.

Because of COVID-19 and social distancing, tenants are being far more selective in which properties they choose to tour. For the most part touring hasn’t completely stopped, however instead of going out to a dozen properties, tenants are choosing only a select few in order to minimize their overall exposure and interactions. By allowing the tenant to see your space virtually, you may be more likely to make it onto their shortlist. This is because they already have had a chance to see the potential your property has.

Read Now: How to Tour Office Space Safely: Best Practices for Brokers and Tenants During and After COVID-19

Keep Your Property Top of Mind

A virtual tour is an easy and accessible way to keep your property top of mind for prospects. These tours allow them to “walk” the property and truly experience it without leaving their computer. These visuals will stick in their mind, making them more likely to end up on their shortlist.

This also means it will be fresh in their mind during the decision-making processes and can easily be referenced when deciding between properties. 

Easily Connect With Out-Of-Town Prospects

If you have out-of-town prospects, a virtual tour makes it easier for them to experience the property. Normally they would have to either rely on photographs or travel to see the property in person. Even if they can tour the property in person, the virtual tour can be helpful to reference later when they do not have access to the space. 

This can also be helpful if a tenant needs approval from out-of-town executives. 

This is especially valuable in a city like Austin where companies are often looking to relocate or expand from another city. 

Do Virtual Tours Replace Property Videos?

A virtual tour doesn’t replace a video tour . These types of media each serve different purposes.

Read Now: Why You Need to Use Video to Market Your Property During COVID-19

A property video is meant to grab a viewer’s interest and play into their emotions. This type of media is generally used early in the sales cycle to gain awareness about your property. It should tell a story about the space and show off the highlights. There are usually captions, a voice-over, or both, telling the story of the property and the opportunity and guiding the viewer’s experience.  

Virtual tours are a sales tool that come into play later in the sales cycle and help in the decision-making process. They can be sent during the shortlisting process or after an in-person tour to help the prospect remember different important aspects of a space. These are a more practical tool that can help the prospect make a decision. As opposed to the video, a virtual tour is led by the viewer and shows the space in its raw form, showing off both its best features and its flaws. 

Virtual tours can also serve as a substitute for a tour if the prospect is out of town or sick. 

Virtual tours and video tours are not meant to be used interchangeably, but they can be very powerful when used together in the sales process.

How to Produce a Virtual Tour

Before you get started.

Before you create a virtual tour, you need to be sure you have all the necessary equipment including:

• Virtual tour software
• 360 tripod with extension pole
• Smartphone or tablet
• Someone to facilitate the shoot

AQUILA PRO TIP

360 tour technology.

At AQUILA, we use a Ricoh Theta Z1 camera along with a Manfrotto Virtual Reality Kit that includes a 360 tripod. The software we use for your tours are Kuula.co and Ricoh Tours .

Best Practices

Make sure you schedule a time to photograph the space when no one is in the office and the office is tidy.

On the day of the shoot, always first walk the space and clear clutter. Make sure to open all blinds and doors, turn on all lights, and stage the space to make it look presentable.

Envision your tour and make a plan before you start shooting. Determine where you want to start and end the tour before you begin. It’s also important to make sure each photo transitions smoothly to the next. You need to make sure a door or entry point is visible in the shot to make the transitions flow.

How Much Does it Cost to Produce a Virtual Property Tour?

With virtual tours, you have two options: produce your tours in-house or outsource them. Next, we will break down the costs of each option. 

Cost to Produce In-House

Cost of camera.

The cameras used for virtual tours are called 360 cameras. The most popular camera brands include Matterport , Ricoh , and QooCam , and the price of these cameras can range anywhere from $400 to $4000. You will pay more for cameras that shoot higher-resolution images and have more capabilities.

Cost of Software

Similar to the camera, the software used to create virtual tours also varies. The prices range from $12 per month to $300 a month, depending on the number of features, ability to customize, and ease of use. The leading software in the industry are Ricoh and Matterport . Matterport is more expensive and time-consuming, however, it provides a Google Streetview-style navigation that many users are familiar with. It also provides a “doll house” view of the space. Ricoh, on the other hand, is easy to learn, quick to produce,  and less expensive. There are also other software options such as Kuula that allow more customization of graphics and the overall tour experience.

Time is valuable, but virtual tours do not take long to shoot. It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to two or more hours to photograph a tour, depending on how big the space is and what software you’re using. Ricoh Tours is by far the fastest program, and Matterport is typically the most time-consuming. 

For example, using the Ricoh Tours app in a small suite should only take about 20 to 30 minutes. On the other hand, a full floor or building can take several hours when using one of the other software.

Cost to Outsource

If you don’t want to shoot virtual tours in-house, you can hire an agency instead. These services are usually priced on a per square foot basis, similar to test fits. Some charge a base fee up to a certain size, then per square foot after that. The typical price we see is 10 to 25 cents per square foot.

If you hire a commercial leasing team, you may not have to worry about shooting it yourself or hiring an agency. Some brokerages offer this as an in-house service as a part of their marketing toolkit.

If you want to learn more about the power of virtual tours, schedule a consultation with AQUILA’s commercial leasing team today.

To continue learning about marketing your property check out these articles:

• Best Places to Advertise Your Commercial Property
• Best Branding Agencies for Commercial Real Estate Property
• Guide to Building an Effective Marketing Center for Your Commercial Property
• How to Market a Commercial Property: Essential Tools Your Leasing Firm Should Provide

Cody Schneider

As a senior associate on AQUILA’s leasing team, Cody is in the market daily - touring prospects, providing strategic insights, negotiating favorable deals, and maintaining strong relationships with both owners and tenants.

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Ramin Skibba

2021 Was the Year Space Tourism Opened Up. But for Whom?

In the early years of this century, executives at Virgin Galactic, founded by the irreverent Richard Branson, predicted that commercial flights to space for paying passengers were only a couple of years away. That turned out to be far too ambitious. Disaster struck the company twice in the next decade: In 2007 an explosion during pre-launch tests of SpaceShipTwo’s rocket systems killed three people. Then in 2014, a pilot was killed during a test flight when the space plane crashed in the Mojave desert.

Now, in 2021, everything looks different. On July 11, Branson and three crew members traveled to Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic’s human spaceflight headquarters in southern New Mexico, and clambered aboard VSS Unity , a much upgraded version of SpaceShipTwo. They blasted toward the edge of space , at an altitude of 54 miles above the Earth, allowing the passengers a panoramic view of the world as they excitedly floated in zero gravity for about four minutes of their hour-long journey.

Nine days later, Blue Origin’s founder, Jeff Bezos, and three others made a similar voyage aboard their New Shepard space vehicle, this time reaching an altitude of 63 miles, also staying aloft and weightless for a few minutes. And then in September, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the all-civilian Inspiration4 mission aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft. They reached an orbit just above the International Space Station’s, flying for about three days before their capsule safely splashed down off the coast of Florida.

After decades of research, development, trial, error, and hype, the dream of commercial spaceflight had finally gotten off the ground. While private passengers have previously hitched rides on NASA shuttles and Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the three billionaire titans of the industry have made it possible to book a trip to space and back on a private spacecraft. With plenty more flights from these companies (and others) on the horizon, space tourism has surely arrived. In fact, the industry is now launching so many people into space that in January the FAA will end its Commercial Space Astronaut Wings program, which was originally designed to promote the industry. (The agency will continue to recognize space travelers on its website.)

“I honestly think that we are at the dawn of an incredible inflection point in history for human spaceflight. I truly believe that seeing Earth from space is transformative and will ultimately help humanity and the Earth in unknown ways,” says Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor, who previously worked for NASA and who flew with Branson in July.

“Until this year, it’s predominantly been government-focused—NASA propelling astronauts to the space station. That's an achievement, but also a turning point where we’re noticing the effects of the democratization of space. You don’t need to be an astronaut to go to space,” says Danielle Bernstein, co-lead of the Aerospace Corporation’s Space Safety Institute.

But this access currently depends on the whims and largesse of a handful of billionaires. Despite some lofty rhetoric, the leaders of the industry still struggle to make the case that their rockets have more to offer than expensive trips for the rich and famous. “There’s a surface attempt to make them appear as commercial science vessels, but they’re much more like yachts or cruises,” says University of Chicago space historian Jordan Bimm.

Charlie Wood

Eric Ravenscraft

Caitlin Kelly

Others question the purpose of space tourism too. “These are technological achievements, there’s no doubt about that,” says Kathryn Denning, an anthropologist and space ethics researcher at York University in Toronto. But, she suggests, “their most significant achievement is the domination of the airwaves and television coverage.”

So far, tickets to the edge of space go for six figures—$200,000 or more—while booking an orbital expedition costs up to eight figures. A $200,000 price tag for a brief spaceflight tops the annual income of about 90 percent of Americans . It’s hard not to take note of that, especially at a time of climate crisis , a pandemic, and growing awareness of inequality. Each seat aboard a suborbital flight is like launching a home while there are more than half a million unhoused Americans, or like launching a family’s lifetime health care costs while tens of millions lack health care, or like launching college tuition when a majority of Americans don’t have access to higher education.

“Every time somebody flies for $250,000, while in that same country children aren’t eating and people are lined up along the borders, I have a hard time getting my head around it, to be honest,” Denning says.

But if the 20th-century aviation industry is any guide, while these flights will begin as luxuries, prices will drop, and access to space will broaden beyond ultra-rich people as the market opens up and technologies and infrastructure improve. “If you rewind to 100 years ago, it wasn’t your everyday person taking advantage of airlines that were just beginning to figure out how to fly routes around the world. But nowadays, for a very reasonable sum, anybody can hop on a plane, and they don’t think twice about it. It’s very safe. That’s probably the vision for space,” Bernstein says.

This also isn’t the first time that a handful of wealthy individuals have played an outsize role in US space activities. “It was actually billionaires like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller who funded the largest astronomical telescopes in the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was the Guggenheim family that was the primary source of funding for Robert Goddard, who was the first rocketry pioneer in the US,” says Alex MacDonald, chief economist at NASA.

And on the other hand, MacDonald points out, NASA has supported and invested in the burgeoning private space industry for decades, signing a variety of contracts for equipment and services, including with the once-fledgling SpaceX, which turns 20 next spring. NASA’s currently investing in Blue Origin and two other companies to develop designs for a commercial space station to follow the ISS. It’s part of a long-term plan to support the private sector in low Earth orbit, while reducing costs and freeing up more of the agency’s budget for long-distance exploration.

While the first six decades of spaceflight belonged to highly trained astronauts, now passengers can fly just for the spectacular view, or for fun, or for the challenge. And while the cost of a ticket is high, these early private flights did make room for a handful of people who would have never had the opportunity before. The commander of SpaceX’s Inspiration4 was Jared Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of the payment processing company Shift4Payments, and he funded the tickets that went to the three other travelers. Artist and scientist Sian Proctor won hers in a contest, Chris Sembroski got his ticket from a friend who won a lottery-like competition, and Hayley Arceneaux was offered her spot as an ambassador for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, an organization for which the mission raised $200 million—a charitable purpose that could become a model for some other private flights. Virgin Galactic announced on November 24 that Keisha Schahaff, a health and energy coach in Antigua, won two seats in a sweepstakes that raised $1.7 million for Space for Humanity, a Denver-based nonprofit that works to expand access to space with its Citizen Astronaut Program.

Passengers on other flights seem to have been chosen for their qualities as “goodwill ambassadors” for space travel. That includes pilot Wally Funk , who was one of the all-female Mercury 13 astronaut trainees in the 1960s, but wasn’t selected for a mission because of the sexism of her era, and William Shatner, aka Star Trek ’s Captain Kirk.

What people think of as an astronaut (or as a “spaceflight participant,” to use the FAA’s term ) has always been evolving. Early space exploration involved the military, in the context of the space race and the Cold War, and the first astronauts were mostly test pilots with “the right stuff.” After the successful Apollo program and moon landing, a greater emphasis on science led to sending more scientists. “As we go through those stages, it’s not an erasure of the previous one, but a layering on over them,” Bimm says. “Look at the Inspiration4 crew: While they’re civilians, they tried hard to look both like militarized astronauts, appearing in jets and flight suits , and as scientists, with performative science as part of their mission.” The crew collected their own biomedical data during their flight , but Bimm says it’s not clear how much that data will aid research on effects of low gravity on astronaut health, for example.

One of the most-touted benefits of sending people to space has always been that it’s awe-inspiring to do, generating feelings of optimism, wonder, and international cooperation. The sight of our little planet seen from far away moves many space fliers, as well, in what’s often called the “overview effect.” It’s a rare opportunity to witness how unique the Earth is, to see it without borders and in all of its vulnerability. Virgin Galactic’s Beth Moses calls it an “indescribable and magical experience.” And Shatner, who flew on Blue Origin’s second passenger flight in October, afterward called it a “ profound ” one that he hopes he’ll never recover from.

But some people question whether spaceflight is necessary to learn this existential and cosmological lesson. “I’m sure it’s beautiful to behold,” Denning says. But, she asks, “do you actually have to go to space to have an experience like that? And the answer for many thousands of years has been no. You can have a spiritual oneness with the Earth and a rise in enviro-consciousness without that.”

Similarly, Bimm doubts that space tourism inevitably spurs people to make the world a better place. “I worry that the very wealthy are going to start going to space, claiming they had the overview effect, and come back to Earth and use that claim of a ‘transformative experience’ to do pretty much anything they want,” he says. Bezos’ dubious project to move heavy industry into space, which he touted after his jaunt in July, is a prime example, Bimm says.

He also isn’t sold on the value of taking along passengers with compelling stories, like Shatner, Funk, Proctor, and Arceneaux, who is a cancer survivor and has a prosthetic body part. It almost serves as a deflection technique, Bimm says, since it distracts attention from the wealthy, lower-profile paying customers, as well as from Bezos’ and Musk’s problems on Earth, like complaints about the treatment of workers at Amazon and Tesla .

Fred Scharmen, author of the new book Space Forces , wonders how long these good feelings will last in an era of private flight. “That kind of feeling and vibe that the public agencies are able to tap into almost effortlessly—everybody loves NASA—it’ll be interesting to keep an eye on how long the private actors can invoke or connect to that kind of feeling of goodwill, hope, and overwhelmingly sublime awe that space travel inspires,” he says.

There are already signs that the private passenger space industry is beginning to expand beyond tourism, and it’s shaving down the price of getting there. The first mission of up-and-coming Houston-based company Axiom Space, dubbed Ax-1, will deliver four crew members to the ISS in February for an eight-day stay, where they’ll conduct research experiments involving the health impacts of space. “It is a pathfinder, pioneering mission for this new era of commercial human spaceflight to the ISS and in the future to commercial space stations. The long-term goal is to open up low Earth orbit to become its own marketplace,” says Michael López-Alegría, Ax-1’s commander, Axiom’s vice president of business development, and a former NASA astronaut. He anticipates a market that includes tourism and research as well as advertising and entertainment.

Axiom has also already signed NASA contracts to develop modules to attach to the ISS, which will later detach and become their own station . Other commercial space stations will become destinations as well, for astronauts, tourists, and a variety of businesses. There’s already a market for space wine , space beer , and movies filmed in space , Denning says.

A variety of other ventures will follow. That includes teardrop-shaped space balloons the size of football fields from the company Space Perspective, based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “Rather than going to space at high g's on a rocket, you’re going to space very gently and comfortably at 12 miles an hour,” says Jane Poynter, the company’s co-CEO. The balloons carry a pressurized capsule and eight passengers aloft, nearly 20 miles above the Earth’s surface. They’re planning their first crewed flight in 2023 and their first commercial one the following year, with tickets going for around $125,000. It’s also a relatively safe way to fly to the edge of space, rather than strapping oneself to a rocket, Poynter points out. (Blue Origin and SpaceX use traditional vertical-launch rockets that are automated, with the crew sitting in a capsule on top, while Virgin makes use of a piloted space plane.)

As the industry matures, ideas for improving it can develop as well. Ariel Ekblaw, founder and director of the MIT Space Exploration Initiative and author of the book Into the Anthropocosmos , believes there should be more transparency in the way space fliers are chosen, because people around the world pay attention to these flights and to their crew. And Bimm argues that companies should be transparent about something else: whether the crew's flight plan is just to hang out and enjoy the spectacular view, rather than gathering scientific data.

Right now, private flights seem to encompass multiple things at once: They’re science missions, ecotourism expeditions, and yacht trips led by famous space barons. “We have yet to see what the hybrid role of these missions are,” says Ekblaw. “We’re at a cusp of a public grand opening of space.”

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Let this astronaut show you around the International Space Station

Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen made a ‘keepsake’ tour video before returning to Earth.

By Andrew Paul | Published Apr 12, 2024 1:00 PM EDT

Andreas Mogensen returned to Earth in mid-March after a six-and-a-half month stint aboard the International Space Station . To mark his tenure as part of NASA’s Crew-7 mission, the Danish European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut has shared his souvenir from undock day—a guided video tour of the ISS.

It’s been a month now since I left the International @Space_Station . One of the very last things that I did on undock day, was film a tour of the Space Station. It is as much a keepsake for me as it is a way for me to share the wonder of the International Space Station with you.… pic.twitter.com/oFR0VXR06A — Andreas Mogensen (@Astro_Andreas) April 12, 2024

“It’s been a month now since I left the [ISS],” Mogensen posted to X early Friday morning. “… It is as much a keepsake for me as it is a way for me to share the wonder of the International Space Station with you. Whenever I will miss my time onboard ISS, and especially my crewmates, I will have this video to look at.”

Mogensen began his show-and-tell in the space station’s front end, above which a docked SpaceX Dragon craft awaited to take him home on March 12. On his left is the roughly 114-by-22-foot Columbus module—a science laboratory provided by the ESA back in 2008. Across from the lab is the smaller Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), nicknamed Kibō, which arrived not long after Columbus.

From there, Mogensen provides a first-person look at various other ISS facilities, including workstations, storage units, bathrooms, gym equipment, multiple docking nodes, and even the station kitchen. Of course, given the delicate environment, that module looks more like another lab than an actual place to cook meals—presumably because, well, no one is actually cooking anything up there.

But the most stunning area in the entire ISS is undoubtedly the cupola, which provides a 360-degree panoramic view of Earth, as well as a decent look at the space station’s overall size.

[Related: What a total eclipse looks like from the ISS .]

Speaking of which, Mogenen’s video also does a great job showcasing just how comparatively small the ISS really is, even after over 25 years of module and equipment additions. At 356-feet-long, it’s just one yard shy of the length of a football field, but any given module or transit space is only a few feet wide. Factor in the copious amounts of cargo, equipment, supplies, experiment materials, as well as the over 8-miles of cabling that wire its electrical systems, and it makes for pretty tight living conditions. Near the end of Mogensen’s tour, it only takes him a little over a minute to glide through most of the entire station back to his original starting point.

Of course, none of that undercuts one of humanity’s most monumental achievements in space exploration. Although the ISS is nearing the end of its tenure (it’s scheduled for decommission in 2031 ), Mogensen’s keepsake is a great document of what life is like aboard the habitat. But for those now looking for an even more detailed tour, there’s always NASA’s virtual walkthrough .

Andrew Paul is Popular Science's staff writer covering tech news. Previously, he was a regular contributor to The A.V. Club and Input, and has had recent work also featured by Rolling Stone, Fangoria, GQ, Slate, NBC, as well as McSweeney's Internet Tendency. He lives outside Indianapolis.

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Space Tourism: Can A Civilian Go To Space?

2021 has been a busy year for private space tourism: overall, more than 15 civilians took a trip to space during this year. In this article, you will learn more about the space tourism industry, its history, and the companies that are most likely to make you a space tourist.

What is space tourism?

Brief history of space tourism, space tourism companies, orbital and suborbital space flights, how much does it cost for a person to go to space, is space tourism worth it, can i become a space tourist, why is space tourism bad for the environment.

Space tourism is human space travel for recreational or leisure purposes . It’s divided into different types, including orbital, suborbital, and lunar space tourism.

However, there are broader definitions for space tourism. According to the Space Tourism Guide , space tourism is a commercial activity related to space that includes going to space as a tourist, watching a rocket launch, going stargazing, or traveling to a space-focused destination.

The first space tourist was Dennis Tito, an American multimillionaire, who spent nearly eight days onboard the International Space Station in April 2001. This trip cost him $20 million and made Tito the first private citizen who purchased his space ticket. Over the next eight years, six more private citizens followed Tito to the International Space Station to become space tourists.

As space tourism became a real thing, dozens of companies entered this industry hoping to capitalize on renewed public interest in space, including Blue Origin in 2000 and Virgin Galactic in 2004. In the 2000s, space tourists were limited to launches aboard Russian Soyuz aircraft and only could go to the ISS. However, everything changed when the other players started to grow up on the market. There are now a variety of destinations and companies for travels to space.

There are now six major space companies that are arranging or planning to arrange touristic flights to space:

• Virgin Galactic;
• Blue Origin;
• Axiom Space;
• Space Perspective.

While the first two are focused on suborbital flights, Axiom and Boeing are working on orbital missions. SpaceX, in its turn, is prioritizing lunar tourism in the future. For now, Elon Musk’s company has allowed its Crew Dragon spacecraft to be chartered for orbital flights, as it happened with the Inspiration4 3-day mission . Space Perspective is developing a different balloon-based system to carry customers to the stratosphere and is planning to start its commercial flights in 2024.

Orbital and suborbital flights are very different. Taking an orbital flight means staying in orbit; in other words, going around the planet continually at a very high speed to not fall back to the Earth. Such a trip takes several days, even a week or more. A suborbital flight in its turn is more like a space hop — you blast off, make a huge arc, and eventually fall back to the Earth, never making it into orbit. A flight duration, in this case, ranges from 2 to 3 hours.

Here is an example: a spaceflight takes you to an altitude of 100 km above the Earth. To enter into orbit — make an orbital flight — you would have to gain a speed of about 28,000 km per hour (17,400 mph) or more. But to reach the given altitude and fall back to the Earth — make a suborbital flight — you would have to fly at only 6,000 km per hour (3,700 mph). This flight takes less energy, less fuel; therefore, it is less expensive.

• Virgin Galactic: $250,000 for a 2-hour suborbital flight at an altitude of 80 km;
• Blue Origin: approximately $300,000 for 12 minutes suborbital flight at an altitude of 100 km;
• Axiom Space: $55 million for a 10-day orbital flight;
• Space Perspective: $125,000 for a 6-hour flight to the edge of space (32 km above the Earth).

The price depends, but remember that suborbital space flights are always cheaper.

What exactly do you expect from a journey to space? Besides the awesome impressions, here is what you can experience during such a trip:

• Weightlessness . Keep in mind that during a suborbital flight you’ll get only a couple of minutes in weightlessness, but it will be truly fascinating .
• Space sickness . The symptoms include cold sweating, malaise, loss of appetite, nausea, fatigue, and vomiting. Even experienced astronauts are not immune from it!
• G-force . 1G is the acceleration we feel due to the force of gravity; a usual g-force astronauts experience during a rocket launch is around 3gs. To understand how a g-force influences people , watch this video.

For now, the most significant barrier for space tourism is price. But air travel was also once expensive; a one-way ticket cost more than half the price of a new car . Most likely, the price for space travel will reduce overtime as well. For now, you need to be either quite wealthy or win in a competition, as did Sian Proctor, a member of Inspiration4 mission . But before spending thousands of dollars on space travel, here is one more fact you might want to consider.

Rocket launches are harmful to the environment in general. During the burning of rocket fuels, rocket engines release harmful gases and soot particles (also known as black carbon) into the upper atmosphere, resulting in ozone depletion. Think about this: in 2018 black-carbon-producing rockets emitted about the same amount of black carbon as the global aviation industry emits annually.

However, not all space companies use black carbon for fuel. Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket has a liquid hydrogen-fuelled engine: hydrogen doesn’t emit carbon but simply turns into water vapor when burning.

The main reason why space tourism could be harmful to the environment is its potential popularity. With the rising amount of rocket launches the carbon footprint will only increase — Virgin Galactic alone aims to launch 400 of these flights annually. Meanwhile, the soot released by 1,000 space tourism flights could warm Antarctica by nearly 1°C !

Would you want to become a space tourist? Let us know your opinion on social media and share the article with your friends, if you enjoyed it! Also, the Best Mobile App Awards 2021 is going on right now, and we would very much appreciate it if you would vote for our Sky Tonight app . Simply tap "Vote for this app" in the upper part of the screen. No registration is required!

commercial real estate VIRTUAL TOURS

Commercial real estate virtual tours are a powerful marketing tool for commercial real estate brokers . The technology keeps getting better and better. Our virtual tours offer a best in class user experience with state of the art 360 images. Put your customer in your space from anywhere in the world with an experience that is just like being there. These tours are powerful for Zoom calls or simply to send your property offering in an email.

Option 1 – We Produce Commercial Real Estate Virtual Tours for You

We capture super high resolution imagery and build you an interactive tour. This tour can include embedded marketing assets like videos, menus, photos, audio — whatever you desire. Below you can see an example from a CBRE project in Midtown Atlanta. We offer many special elements that can be added to these virtual tours like deal webpages, videos and live maps of the area. These virtual tours are very easy to use and look amazing on all devices.

Option 2 – Self Serve Virtual Tours

Watch This 90 Second Video

The power of a mini-site is baked right into your self serve virtual tours. This is yet another money saver as you reap the benefits of features like a live google map, deal overview and interactive site plan within our self serve virtual tour. You control the capturing of the images using our easy guide and simply upload the images to us via a special provided link. In return you will get links and embed codes for our high quality virtual tours produced by our in-house professional production team.

There is no limit to the size of our self serve virtual tours. It can be as big or small as your project demands all for a small flat rate plus a nominal hosting fee. See our full virtual tour portfolio .

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In this demanding and competitive market, it is critical to maximize your exposure when selling or leasing any Commercial Real Estate Property. With human attention spans at an average of 8 seconds, it’s imperative to capture a prospect’s attention immediately. In such a competitive field, you’ll need to be up to date with the latest Commercial Real Estate trends and marketing technology in order to effectively serve your clients

Ask any Real Estate Professional about the benefits of investing in commercial property and you’ll likely trigger speech on how such properties are a better investment than Residential Real Estate . Commercial property owners can’t get enough of the additional cash flow, the relatively open playing field, the abundant market for good, affordable property managers and the bigger payoff from Commercial Real Estate Sales.

As great as the reward might be for Commercial Real Estate Agents, the problem of acquiring new leads, building relationships, and creating a great first impression still remains. Our Commercial Real Estate Virtual Tours will capture interest and allow online prospects the opportunity to take a guided 360 Tour of your building without setting appointments or costly travel expenses. Business owners and investors looking to purchase Commercial Real Estate will be impressed by professional, high quality walk-through style 360 Virtual Tour imaging, high resolution HDR Property Photography , and Aerial Photography, making your Commercial Real Estate property stand out from the rest.

In addition to drastically increasing interest in your commercial Real Estate Property, a Commercial Real Estate Virtual Tour will also simplify your sales efforts. Because your building or office space is available to be viewed online 24/7, you can spend your efforts working with your most serious clients that are showing further interest. Our Commercial Real Estate Virtual Tours are an extremely powerful marketing tool that will assist you in closing big commercial real estate deals.

How We Can Help Your Commercial Real Estate Listing.

360° Virtual Tours

• Custom buttons within the Commercial Real Estate Virtual Tour can link any form of media that matches the feel and look of your commercial properties branding collateral.
• Commercial Real Estate Virtual Tour custom pop-up windows can display your floor plans, hot spots, social media icons, rates, availability, and much more.
• Commercial Real Estate 360 Tour slide shows can help highlight the various rooms that don’t require a full panoramic shot to be displayed.

Architectural Photography

• We have the Best Commercial Real Estate Photographers who are reliable, certified, trustworthy and deliver premium high resolution imaging.
• You and your company retain all the exclusive rights to any Commercial Real Estate Photography we shoot.
• Link high quality, high resolution Commercial Real Estate Images to your social media pages to increase your exposure and web presence.

Aerial Drone Photography

• Elevated Commercial Real Estate Aerial Photographs give perspective on scenic views that will add a pleasant aesthetic to your Commercial Real Estate property.
• Attach personalized walk-through Aerial Drone Videos to showcase all the aspects of your property that simple photos cannot.
• View the Commercial Real Estate property and the surrounding community from a bird’s eye view with our Aerial Photography Services.

Samples of Commercial Real Estate Virtual Tours

Commercial real estate photography service payoff quote, average cost per service.

The average cost for Commercial Real Estate Listing to receive a 360 Virtual Tour, Real Estate Photography, or Aerial Photography is roughly $1500 per service.

Average Sales to Payoff

The sale of one Commercial Listing pays a commission that is well over the cost of all of our services combined, therefore it will take on sale pay off your initial investment into Tours, Photos, and Aerials.

Average Days to Payoff

With one sale a Commercial Real Estate Agent makes a commission that well exceeds the cost of our services. The profit made is many times the initial investment into our  360 Tours, Real Estate Photos, and Drone Photography.

It will take 1 day to pay off your investment

Build Your Quote

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Commercial Real Estate Photography Service Process

You choose a date range that fits your schedule and we find the best time to get a 360 photographer out to shoot your property.

Our certified photographers arrive, set up the property, and capture all requested panoramic views, still photos, and aerial images.

Our skilled team of editors and programmers touch up your photos, stitch your 360 panoramas, and code/produce your 360 Tour.

Our project managers oversee the process from start to finish and ensure that each project is delivered on time and to your liking.

Turnaround time for a Project is 7-10 Days

See what Invision Studio can do for your Commercial Real Estate Listing

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE

3d tours for commercial real estate.

As many Commercial Real Estate agents know, traditional virtual tours aren’t that effective. They’re used more to satisfy the property manager than to impress the tenant. They’re often too hard to navigate and they’re not cost effective.

3D Virtual Tours are completely different. Not only are they much more intuitive and immersive but they’re actually virtual! Many people are already familiar with Google Maps so they understand how to navigate through a space.

Many agents are turning to video to show off a commercial property. Although videos are visually impressive and give a new perspective, they still lack the control that home buyers crave.

3D Virtual Tours are the ideal blend of function and beauty.

Property Managers will be happy that their property is being showcased with superior technology.

Tenants will be impressed with the visually rich experience.

You, the Agent, will differentiate your marketing plan from the rest.

View a 3D Virtual Tour of this office space below!

Ready for the Next Level? Book a 3D Tour Now!

One of the best things about a 3D Virtual Tour by Tour it Now (in addition to the amazing technology of course) is how easy it is to have your tour created! Our specialized tour photographers are conveniently located throughout Southern California. When you click the Book Now button below, you will be given the option to choose the area that you would like to book your tour in: Inland Empire, San Diego, Los Angeles County, or Orange County. Depending on the size of the property, the process is usually completed within a couple hours. See how easy it can be, and schedule your appointment today!

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DoD Releases 2024 DoD Commercial Space Integration Strategy

Today, the Department of Defense released the 2024 DoD Commercial Space Integration Strategy. In line with the National Security Strategy and the 2022 National Defense Strategy, this strategy seeks to align the Department’s efforts and drive more effective integration of commercial space solutions into national security space architectures.

This strategy identifies four top-level priorities that the Department will pursue to maximize the benefits of integrating commercial space solutions:

•  Ensure access to commercial solutions across the spectrum of conflict;
•  Achieve integration prior to crisis;
•  Establish the security conditions to integrate commercial space solutions; and
• Support the development of new commercial space solutions for use by the joint force.

The Department will adhere to four foundational principles in its strategy, balance, interoperability, resilience, and responsible conduct, to ensure that commercial solutions are integrated into national security space architecture.

To integrate commercial space solutions, the Department will work with commercial entities to mitigate risk as necessary and accept risk where appropriate. Such integration will help deny adversaries the benefits of attacks against national security space systems and contribute to a safe, secure, stable, and sustainable space domain.  

You can read a copy of the strategy here .

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Classic film lovers: See James Dean’s apartment and more on new TCM tour at Warner Bros.

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In 2021, the Warner Bros. Studio Tour created new interactive exhibits focused on the company’s recent history, unveiling areas dedicated to the DC Comics universe and the “Harry Potter” franchise.

This week, the popular Studio Tour in Burbank is doubling down on its more distant past.

Warner Bros. is now offering a Turner Classic Movies-branded version of its studio tour that will bring guests to previously off-limit areas of the lot, including vintage animation buildings, a mini rose garden and an apartment that once housed James Dean. The 90-minute tram portion of the jaunt — about 30 minutes longer than the studio’s standard tram excursion — will allow guides to go deeper into the history of the studio’s catalog to deliver factoids related to such films as “Casablanca,” “My Fair Lady,” “Rebel Without a Cause,” “Auntie Mame” and many more.

“We’re off the leash,” says Brad Taylor, a 15-year tour guide veteran with Warner Bros., noting that the TCM excursion will include time for guides to chat with visitors about their favorite films.

“We get to talk to the guests and really hang out with people who have the same passion that we do,” Taylor says. “I find that ‘classics’ guests are less about behind-the-scenes and more, ‘I can’t believe this is where we are.’ It’s just the look on their faces when they realize ‘Casablanca’ filmed here, or James Dean stood right here.”

The launch of the TCM tour arrives during the network’s 30th anniversary and close to 12 months after classic film fans were given a scare. In June, Warner Bros. announced that layoffs would hit TCM, including some of the network’s top executives, prompting concern from prestige directors such as Steven Spielberg, Paul Thomas Anderson and Martin Scorsese. After garnering national attention, key cuts were reversed and Warner Bros. sought to assure fans that TCM would continue to be handled with care.

Long live TCM! Our culture would be worse off without movies on TV

Without Turner Classic Movies and other channels for movies on TV, we’d lose the instructive pleasures of the happy accident, the unexpected discovery.

Aug. 1, 2023

TCM network hosts — Eddie Muller, Jacqueline Stewart, Ben Mankiewicz, Alicia Malone and Dave Karger — recorded new video segments for the outing. The tour will take guests into the lot’s Property House, an area not visited by the standard tour. Here, visitors can get glimpses of materials for a full set, including items for a complete Oval Office setting, but expect guides to highlight vintage items, such as a throne from the Errol Flynn pirate film “Captain Blood.”

Danny Kahn, vice president-general manager of the studio tour, says there have been numerous requests over the years from guests to delve a little deeper into the studio’s animation history. That’s why the TCM tour will for the first time take visitors to an area of the lot once known as “Termite Terrace,” which from 1955 to 1964, says Taylor, housed the animation department, a building with a sloped roof designed to capture sunlight. Animation legend Chuck Jones, says Kahn, had an office in the Termite Terrace area in the 1990s despite Warner’s moving animation production elsewhere.

Entertainment & Arts

How the Universal Studios tram tour defined the modern theme park

The most important theme park ride ever created? It may just be the Universal Studios tram tour, which dates to the silent film era. Once primarily a behind-the-scenes tour, the trek has evolved to define the modern theme park.

Aug. 3, 2023

Another unique tour locale is the exterior of the Dean apartment. When Dean resided there during filming of “East of Eden,” it was actually across the street from the lot, the apartment nesting above a pharmacy. But gradual studio expansion has led to the area now being on Warner Bros. property.

“That was an actual drugstore with apartments, and the studio rented it for him,” Kahn says. “I think it was to keep an eye on him and keep him on a short leash.”

The tour will also give tram riders a look at executive life at the studio, allowing them to briefly walk around a rose garden. The manicured spaces once held a tennis court as well as offices and personal screening rooms for the likes of studio mogul Jack Warner, with many of the structures dating to the 1920s. “It’s a really historic area of the lot that hasn’t really changed a lot in all these years,” says Kahn, noting the area is still in use by studio principals. “Jack Warner, when he ran the studio, privatized the first floor. That was a massage parlor that he had beneath his office.”

TCM Classic Films Tour

Where: The Warner Bros. Studio, 3400 Warner Blvd., Burbank 91505

When: Most days, 8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Cost: $95 for adults; $82 for children. A SoCal resident discount is available for $75

Info: (818) 977-8687 or wbstudiotour.com

Staples of the tour, such as a journey around the backlot city streets, a visit to the “Friends” set and cafe and recent additions highlighting the studio’s modern franchise films are included in the TCM trek, as is a pre-tour reception with beverages and pastries. All told, expect the tour to last about 3½ hours. A tour spokesperson says the first TCM-branded outing is scheduled for Wednesday, with trams expected to depart daily after that date. Adult tickets are $95, but there is a Southern California resident discount available for $75.

“It feels so good to have TCM here,” Kahn says. “People understand that the TCM brand is synonymous with classic film.”

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Nov. 16, 2023

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Todd Martens joined the Los Angeles Times in 2007 and covers a mix of interactive entertainment (video games) and pop music. Previously, Martens reported on the music business for Billboard Magazine. He has contributed to numerous books, including “The Big Lebowski: An Illustrated, Annotated History of the Greatest Cult Film of All Time.” He continues to torture himself by rooting for the Chicago Cubs and, while he likes dogs, he is more of a cat person.

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Visa fees for international artists to tour in the US shot up 250% in April. It could be devastating

Performing in the U.S. for international musicians just got a lot more complicated

NEW YORK -- Performing in the U.S. for international artists just got a lot more complicated.

On April 1, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services instituted a 250% visa fee increase for global musicians hoping to tour in the U.S.

Artists, advocacy groups and immigration lawyers are concerned it could have devastating effects on emerging talent worldwide and local music economies in the U.S.

If you're a musician from outside of the United States hoping to perform stateside and you filed visa paperwork before April 1, the cost per application was $460.

After that date? $1,615 to $1,655.

Bands and ensemble groups pay per performer. A standard rock band of four members went from paying $1,840 to around $6,460. And if you can't wait a few months for approval, add $2,805 per application for expedited processing.

If the application is not accepted, that money is not refunded — on top of losses from a canceled tour and missing out on “significant, potentially career-changing opportunities,” says Jen Jacobsen, executive director at The Artist Rights Alliance.

If a musician has support staff, a backing band or other employees to bring on the tour, these individuals need visas, too.

“Even if you’re Capitol Records and you have all the money in the world to throw at it, you still can’t get rid of U.S. bureaucracy,” says immigration attorney Gabriel Castro.

All international musicians require work authorization to perform in the U.S. There are few exemptions: Those are reserved for “showcases” through the Visa Waiver Program — like what is often used at South by Southwest, where international artists perform exclusively at official showcases, without pay and for exposure.

Currently, there are few hurdles for U.S. musicians looking to enter other countries for the specific purpose of earning money through live performances. According to Castro, American performers are able to enter most countries without a visa and under an exception to tourism rules.

Gareth Paisey, singer of the independent, seven-piece Welsh band Los Campesinos!, will tour in the U.S. this June. The band made sure to apply for visas before the April 1 cut off, a difference of paying $3,220 or $11,305 in fees. Next time they have to get a visa, he says they'll likely try to squeeze two tours in one year — the length of their particular visa — to make up the cost.

He says the application process requires providing an itinerary for the full year and supplemental evidence: press clippings to justify their status as “career musicians,” and testimonials from people of note — often from more famous musicians.

“Nobody gets into a band because they've got a passion for making cash flow forecasts," he says. “It's unfair to expect people who are brilliant at writing songs to also be brilliant at filling out a 20-page visa application.”

After Brexit, he says touring in Europe for U.K. acts has become more complicated, but the U.S. process is by far the most complex — both in terms of paperwork and what it represents for music moving forward.

“This idea that you need to be a career musician to get a visa, and visa fees are going up, increases the idea that music is a competition,” says Paisey. “And part of that competition is making as much money as you can — like that’s the only valid way to participate in the music industry.”

Two reasons: They hadn't in some time, and because immigration officials are scrutinizing the process more closely.

The last increase was in 2016, when fees grew from $325 to $460.

The U.S. government is "putting more and more burden on the application process,” says Castro of BAL Sports and Entertainment Practice, which specializes in visas for musicians, entertainers and athletes.

He says 20 years ago, applications were just two or three pages. Now, they're 15 or 20 pages.

“And those are just the forms before supporting evidence,” he says. “Now I’m submitting documents that are 200 pages, 300 pages long just to explain why this band should be traveling throughout the United States.”

Officials "might have done better to look at inefficiencies in the system to save money,” he says.

Paisey says he's heard that the increase will allow the USCIS to “get rid of the backlog... But is that because you’re going to employ more staff or is it probably because you’re going to get less applications?" he wonders, because it's going to benefit "people who can afford to go than rather than who wants to go or has the fan base to go.”

Castro says some of it is to account for “abuses in the system — to make sure that individuals that are coming here for certain activities actually have those activities in place," but the increased scrutiny is a lingering effect from Trump administration's immigration policies.

“The immigration process overall became more difficult for everyone. Whether you’re coming across the border, whether you’re coming here to perform at Madison Square Garden, whatever it is," he says. “That has changed the culture of U.S. immigrations agencies.”

Independent and emerging talent, as well as ensembles and groups.

“ Dua Lipa, the Rolling Stones, they're going to pay these fees. It's not even a rounding error. They could misplace $1,200 in their budgets and they wouldn’t even notice,” says Castro. “It's the indie rock bands, niche acts, jazz musicians from Japan who will be affected."

“Every dime counts. They have very small margins,” he adds.

“We’ve already got a problem with not enough musical acts breaking through to the next level,” Paisey says. “And this is going to stop them from getting that chance in the States.”

Touring in the U.S. is a pipe dream for many independent acts, he says, and it is in danger of “not even being a dream.”

Jacobsen points out that there will be ripple effects as well: Musicians, drivers, tour managers and beyond who would be hired to work with international talent will lose work, venues will lose fruitful bookings, festivals that focus on international talent will reduce in size, the costs of tickets could increase and so on.

She says these fee increases could affect U.S. music culture — “the richness of the music ecosystem in terms of diversity of genres.”

If lesser known, global genre artists cannot perform in the U.S., audiences will miss out on a critical cultural exchange. “We need the marketplace to be friendly and accessible to all those different types of musicians," she says.

“You're going to see a decrease in international acts coming to the United States,” says Castro. “And maybe it’s decreased frequency more than a decrease in the absolute number. We'll see less and less emerging artists.

“The harder you make it for them to come to the United States, the less you’re going to see them here.”

Local economies, too, will feel the result: “It's not just the mid-sized venue in Cleveland that will feel it, but the parking lot down the street, the restaurants and bars people go to before and after.”

And there could be long-term consequences that have yet to be seen. “There is an absolute concern that there would be a reciprocal effect," says Jacobson.

If the U.S. is making it increasingly difficult and expensive for musicians to come here, “Why wouldn't other countries do the same to our artists?”

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