The age of commercial passenger space flight is upon us. Efforts by companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing and Virgin Galactic aim to put paying individuals in space. The International Space Station expects to receive its first private crew early next year during the Axiom Mission 1, with the three tourists paying a sum of $55 million each to stay at the space station for eight days.
Back in 2004, the United States Congress passed the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act, which doesn’t allow the Federal Aviation Administration to regulate the safety of people onboard space vehicles, unlike with planes. Instead, the law requires only the "informed consent" of onboard crew and passengers, prior to selling a ticket to said passengers.
In addition, anyone traveling on a commercial space flight must acknowledge that the U.S. government hasn’t certified the space launch or reentry vehicle as safe, that they know there is a risk of injury or death and must sign a waiver of liability. So, if anything bad happens, you’ve signed away your right to sue your tourism company. Or the U.S.A.
So an ailing astronaut would rely on telehealth advising, the training of the crew and any available supplies and manuals. But beyond hoping for a quick and safe ride back to planetside doctors, there's not much more that can be done. It’s also not too likely that space tourism companies will staff flights with doctors since most trips anticipated for the near future will only last a few minutes — not enough time to intervene if something unexpected happened.
Well, since almost all of them will be useless rich douchebags, I say we should probably start offering friends & family packages.😎
Flying to Space is like car racing, people know they're playing with their lives.