Do you want to spend a holiday in space? Dennis Tito, a businessman, has become the world's first “space tourist”. He went on a 10-day visit to the International Space Station. He paid 14 million pounds for his journey. A year later, Martin, a musician from an American band, wanted to do the same. He was only 22 years old and probably very rich too. He had to go for a lot of training to see whether he was fit enough to travel. He is still waiting for his holiday of a lifetime.
Many people believe that this is only the start of something new. We made interviews among teenagers from around the world and the following is what they said about space travel.
“It's a great idea. I hope space travel will be common in about 50 years' time. I'd really love to do it and I think Mr. Tito was very lucky.” (Kate from Australia)
“I would like to see our beautiful Earth from space. There are lots of secrets to explore in space and I would go into space if I could.” (Ben from China)
“I think space travel is really bad for the environment. Maybe in the future they will make a cleaner way of travelling but until they do, I don't want to go. We should look after our own planet first.”(Richard from Canada)
“It must be very boring and dangerous to sit in that small space shuttle(舱). I'd rather take a plane and go to another place on earth.” (Lisa from the UK)
So, as you can see, many of our teenagers had different opinions. Whether you like it or not, space travel is going to become an important thing in the future. We are looking forward to hearing your opinions.
