Hey, this is Ethan Chew. I visited Dallas Makerspace in November 2015 and recently moved into the DFW area.
I now work for a commercial aerospace firm, EXOS Aerospace in Caddo Mills, TX.
I was curious on the following; we are looking to sell payload flight slots on our suborbital rockets for 2 minutes of microgravity and space exposure (maximum altitude past 100km above sea level).
I would like to poll the Maker community and see what is a reasonable price point you would pay as Makers (Hobbyist and Professional Inventor/Developer) to fly a 1U payload (10x10x11.35cm and 1.33 kg) on a suborbital flight.
As a hobbyist, probably in the realm of $100-$300. As a professional, probably somewhere between $1000-$2000. But again, I have no other point of reference, other than the novelty of paying less than $300 to send something suborbital (space exposure/microgravity) and have it come back to Earth.
I would expect a $1000-$1500, but would expect that the liability of a failed launch would be shared at that price point. Meaning I would be responsible for the cost of my payload, but that you’ll would be responsible for the cost of the launch.
If you’ll expect the launch to be paid for, even if it fails, then I would expect a lower cost since my risk would be greater. If you were willing to guarantee the payload as well I would expect the cost to be much higher since your risk would be greater.
I would love to have a human space flight, but I think we’re a long ways away from commercial space tourism (Virgin Galactic). But for a payload, I don’t really have a need for that.
Zero G offers “vomit comet” style flights (shared with others) for about $5K per person. You can get the whole plane to yourself (with up to 33 friends) for a spendy $165K.
From their site:
“ZERO-G offers unprecedented access to space environments for advanced research at a price that will fit your budget. $4,950 + 5% tax: Weightless flight to include 15 parabolic maneuvers creating 20-30 seconds of weightlessness each.”