---
title: "Want to Fly People to the Moon? Become a Commercial Astronaut."
description: "Private company Starfighters, Inc. has launched the first commercial astronaut training program. Currently it has just one customer, but hopes to expand. "
date: "2018-02-15"
modified: "2018-02-16"
authors:
  - name: "Claudia Geib"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/claudia"
url: "https://futurism.com/people-moon-commercial-astronaut"
categories:
  - "Astronomy"
  - "Moon"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "astronaut training"
  - "NASA"
  - "space tourism"
  - "starfighters"
---

# Want to Fly People to the Moon? Become a Commercial Astronaut.

![space tourism astronaut training starfighters nasa](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/37866308384_eaddaf8a57_k.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: \<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons/37866308384" target="\_blank"\>NASA\</a\>\</em\>*

With the [commercial space industry booming](<https://futurism.com/spacex-monopoly-competition>), it's highly likely that we'll see the first space tourists departing our atmosphere in just a few years. Private company Starfighters, Inc. is preparing for that inevitability with the first commercial astronaut training program. Currently it has just one customer — but hopes to expand soon.

*[VICE Motherboard](<https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5bga7/first-commercial-astronaut-training-program-nasa?utm_source=mbfb>)*[ reports](<https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5bga7/first-commercial-astronaut-training-program-nasa?utm_source=mbfb>) that the $20,000-per-flight program currently consists of training to fly Starfighters' fleet of F-104 jets, capable of executing 90 degree turns, flying at twice the speed of sound, and floating riders into microgravity on nose dives — not a bad way to simulate launching on a rocket. (Though Starfighters only gained [permission to train licensed pilots](<https://www.starfighters.net/pilot-training>) in September 2017, the F-104 are the same jets used to train Apollo-era astronauts.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4osuZs02IZg

“We don't think it's good for the industry if people don't go up without some knowledge of what they're going to encounter,” Rick Svetkoff, the CEO of Starfighters, [told *Motherboard*](<https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5bga7/first-commercial-astronaut-training-program-nasa?utm_source=mbfb>). “The last thing you'd want to do is see yourself climb onto a rocket with the expectation it's going to be so cool to go to space, and then to be sick all the way.”

After all, it's [not uncommon for weightlessness](<https://futurism.com/category/space>) to affect people new to the experience somewhat—shall we say—unpleasantly.

In the future, Starfighters plans to have a more thorough program, which will incorporate the same elements used to train professional astronauts. Svetkoff told *Motherboard* this will prepare space tourists for what they'll experience on a longer trip, including preparation for intense G forces and neutral buoyancy training for when gravity releases entirely. Before that can happen, however, Svetkoff will have to get the F-104s certified as Space Support Vehicles, a designation that's currently in process.

In 2007, [Starfighters signed a deal](<http://www.kvdvmarketing.com/news/nasa2.htm>) with NASA to help the agency develop commercial space flight, which gave them a permanent role at NASA and space in the former space shuttle landing facility. That means Starfighters Inc. will almost certainly play a role in training space tourists for NASA partner SpaceX, which hopes to shoot two tourists [off to the moon](<https://futurism.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-spacexs-trip-to-the-moon>) as early as late 2018. [Competitors BlueOrigin](<https://futurism.com/blue-origin-announces-theyll-take-tourists-to-space-by-april-2019>) and [Virgin Galactic](<https://futurism.com/get-ready-space-tourists-faa-issues-license-for-virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo>) have plans of their own to launch space tourism on a similar timeline. Training could help those tourists prepare for the sometimes surprising effects that space has on the body — and ensure that they [all survive the trip](<https://futurism.com/will-spacexs-moon-tourists-survive-the-trip-across-the-cosmos>).

## Author
Claudia is a science writer and editor based in Boston, Massachusetts. She's a science omnivore with a particular appetite for marine science and the environment.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/cm_geib>)