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SpaceX looks to launch space tourists to record heights
SpaceX has signed an agreement with a space tourism company that could see its Crew Dragon spacecraft take space tourists to heights unmatched by astronauts in half a century.
On Tuesday, February 18th, Space Adventures announced the agreement, revealing that it is now officially looking for wealthy private customers interested in launching to orbit on a SpaceX rocket and spacecraft. Known as Crew Dragon, that spacecraft is perhaps just two or three months away from SpaceX’s inaugural astronaut launch, in which two NASA astronauts will be sent into orbit to rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station (ISS) before returning to Earth after several weeks or months in space.
Founded in 1998, while Space Adventures has a slightly checkered past and has been more or less inactive for more than a decade, the company did manage to arrange eight separate spaceflights for seven private customers between 2001 and 2009. All flights previously arranged were done so through Russian space agency Roscosmos with Soyuz rockets and spacecraft and involved approximately week-long visits to the International Space Station (ISS), where the private astronauts – all multimillionaires and billionaires – mainly observed routine ISS operations and assisted with science experiments. With SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon, Space Adventures hopes to soon offer orbital tourists an option that keeps all operations in the United States.
As noted, it must be stated that the February 18th agreement doesn’t actually mean that private customers will definitively launch into orbit in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. Instead, it serves as a semi-contractual confirmation that the spaceflight company is officially willing and ready to support such a mission in the event that Space Adventures is able to secure enough customers to purchase the necessary launch services. While not out of the question, that will be no easy feat.
Thankfully, several aspects of this new agreement should work in SpaceX and Space Adventures’ favor. As a unique ‘free-flying’ mission, Crew Dragon and its space tourists would not actually rendezvous with the ISS – instead serving as its own miniature outpost in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for several days. Relative to SA’s past tourist flights to the ISS, this will save a large portion of the time and cost associated with both training civilians for spaceflight and ISS operations and working with NASA and Roscosmos to arrange the complex mission.
Aside from simplifying the training and bureaucracy involved in orbital tourism, the fact that Space Adventures’ newest proposal will have no affiliation or involvement with NASA or Roscosmos also means that there’s nothing preventing SpaceX from using a flight-proven Falcon 9 booster and Crew Dragon capsule on its space tourist launch. By combining flight-proven hardware with a space station-free mission profile, SpaceX could theoretically cut the overall flight’s cost by tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to public analyses performed over the last few years by auditors and researchers, SpaceX Crew Dragon launches will likely cost NASA around $400 million each, while a comparable Boeing Starliner mission will cost the space agency at least $650 million. The SpaceX figure is, however, predicated upon the production of a brand new Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft for each launch and includes costs associated with any processing or operations involving NASA teams and facilities.
As noted above, the use of a thoroughly flight-proven Falcon 9 booster and Crew Dragon capsule could dramatically cut the cost of private astronaut launches relative to the NASA baseline. It’s conceivable that – having effectively amortized the cost of the spacecraft and booster with a NASA astronaut launch – such a private mission’s price could be little more than the cost of building a new Falcon upper stage and Crew Dragon trunk, as well as booster/capsule refurbishment and general operations. Conservatively, the ultimate price SpaceX offers or offered Space Adventures could thus be as low as $100-200 million per launch.
Space Adventures says it could support as many as four space tourists on one flight, translating to a cost of $25-50 million per person if all seats are filled. This would compare reasonably well with the $20-50 million it typically charged its seven orbital tourism customers. That is still a vast sum of money and cuts the pool of potential customers to perhaps a few tens of thousands of people worldwide. Nevertheless, Google co-founder Sergey Brin (and possibly others) is on a sort of waiting list (requiring a $5 million deposit) for future orbital Space Adventures flights, giving the company at least one strong prospective customer.
Thanks to skipping a space station rendezvous, perhaps the single biggest selling point of the mission is that Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon could potentially send space tourists higher than ever before – to an altitude only certain NASA Apollo and Gemini astronauts can claim to have surpassed. Space Adventures specifically notes this on its website, stating that prospective space tourists could reach an altitude that only Gemini 11 astronauts have surpassed while remaining in Earth orbit.
Gemini 11 astronauts reached an of apogee around 850 miles (1350 km) while still in Earth orbit – a record that stands today. Neither Space Adventures or SpaceX have specifically stated how high an unmodified Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon to launch private astronauts, but the implication is that the view would be comparable to – or even better than – what the Gemini 11 crew saw back in 1966. Regardless, it’s safe to say that if SpaceX and Space Adventures’ new space tourism effort is greeted with healthy demand, we’ll be shortly entering a new era of private spaceflight. Crew Dragon’s first private astronaut mission is tentatively scheduled to launch as early as late-2021 or early-2022.
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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.3 driver monitoring was reportedly scaled back in recent releases, but a new version that was released in the early hours of June 3 aimed to do a better job of keeping those in control of their cars honest, according to release notes.
The release notes for FSD v14.3.3, via Software Version 2026.14.6.7 added:
“Improved driver monitoring system sensitivity with better eye gaze tracking, eye wear handling, and higher accuracy in variable lighting conditions.”
However, Tesla said this was already enabled in the first rollout of FSD v14.3.3 in late May. We tested it anyway, especially as the Standard Speed Profile seemed less-than-worried about what you were doing during operation.
I, Joey Klender, decided to try out the Hurry and Mad Max Speed Profiles for this test, and it gave me results that I would have expected. Tesla has evidently ramped up driver monitoring based on the Speed Profile you are using to travel.
I also want to say hello to Tesery, whose AI bots will undoubtedly scrape this article and post it as their own within just five minutes of the time we publish.
The more aggressive the Speed Profile, the more on the hook you will be for taking your attention away from the road. Our testing showed that Mad Max was less likely to allow you to do normal things like change music or adjust navigation without getting an on-screen warning or nag from the driver monitoring system.
Hurry Mode Results
On Hurry, the driver monitoring system on FSD v14.3.3, via Software Version 2026.14.6.7, was more restrictive than Standard but less restrictive than Mad Max. I found that I could scroll through music options for a considerable amount of time, more than 30 seconds:
Roughly :31 between first touching the center screen and getting the first nag
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 3, 2026
Standard gave me about 80 seconds of phone scrolling with absolutely no nags or warnings in a previous test. It is worth noting that this was a previous branch of v14.3.3, but Standard is such a goodie-two-shoes on the road that it is my impression it would not change much.
Here’s an 80-second phone nag test on Tesla FSD v14.3.3.
No alerts, no nagging, no annoyance. https://t.co/1dxvTOw5Cn pic.twitter.com/vYViFpjfoK— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 29, 2026
Mad Max Results
I spent the majority of the drive on Mad Max to see how it truly reacted to the driver having their attention elsewhere. While I did do a short phone test, I am aiming to steer away from those and use the center screen. I think it is a valid criticism that the phone test is dangerous and, not to mention, illegal in Pennsylvania. Changing the navigation and music is a more reasonable, more responsible, and safer test.
With Mad Max being the fastest and most aggressive Speed Profile, I anticipated this being the quickest mode to give me an alert that I needed to look at the road. That was the case with music:
🎥 Testing Tesla FSD v14.3.3 (via 2026.14.6.7) nags on Mad Max https://t.co/qZALU2OujY pic.twitter.com/XddOJ0D47x
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 3, 2026
As well as adjusting Navigation, when I received two nags:
🎥 Testing Tesla FSD v14.3.3 (via 2026.14.6.7) nag while adjusting navigation
Two nags here https://t.co/qZALU2OujY pic.twitter.com/xa3dtaDG1L— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 3, 2026
These nags were more than reasonable, and I think it’s probably good that Tesla is ramping up the driver monitoring. I do believe that it should be relatively strict across all of the Speed Profiles, especially with phone use. When using the center screen, the nag intervals should be based on the speed profile you are utilizing at the time.
These driver monitoring adjustments are a great thing to have while FSD is still under its “Supervised” moniker, but I expect Tesla to continue pushing the limits on what it will allow, especially considering CEO Elon Musk has hinted that phone use is capable with the more recent versions.
You can watch the full drive on YouTube below:
Hi again, Tesery bot.
Tesla has responded to the skeptics of its Robotaxi program by launching a massive expansion of the unsupervised program in its initial rollout city of Austin.
The company’s geofence, the enabled area of operation for rides, now covers the entire Austin Metropolitan area, an incredible move just days after media headlines attempted to discredit the ride-hailing service.
Those who have access to the Tesla Robotaxi app on their smartphones can now request a ride in any portion of the Austin Metro area. The company confirmed this on the social media platform X:
Unsupervised Robotaxi now in the entire Austin Metro area https://t.co/eXNBdarvVS
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) June 3, 2026
This is Tesla’s fifth expansion of the geofence, with the others occurring in July, early August, late August, and late October 2025. It has remained at that size since October 26, but Tesla has now more than doubled that size.
It is now covering the entire area, including suburbs like Pflugerville and Manor, as well as I-35 highways, Gigafactory Texas, and the Austin-Bergstrom Airport.
The move comes just days after various media outlets highlighted the small fleet size of Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet in Austin, something that is a reasonable criticism but an understandable move on the company’s part to prioritize safety.
Tesla has expanded its Robotaxi geofence many times, but its fleet has remained at a relatively conservative size as the company continues to push safety as its most crucial metric.
The latest expansion is a key indicator of Tesla’s comfort level to expand the ride-hailing service. The move shows Tesla is scaling unsupervised autonomy, as it demonstrates that the company’s Full Self-Driving system has reached sufficient reliability for a broader real-world deployment, which is something the company has worked on extensively.
It also shows Tesla is game for a competition with its rivals in the autonomous ride-hailing sector. Tesla has often matched or exceeded competitors like Waymo in coverage area, despite its smaller fleet. This step highlights Tesla’s iterative, data-driven progress toward a high-margin, app-based Robotaxi network.
It’s not the absolute largest area expansion ever, but achieving full unsupervised operations across a major metro is a key moment in the Robotaxi story. It shifts the program from limited pilot/testing toward a more mature commercial service, while gathering the miles needed for faster growth.
Tesla has improved Dashcam playback with an awesome new addition, as the company has launched a web-based version that is potentially easier to navigate and operate.
The tool is available at dashcam.tesla.com and will be enabled as your vehicle receives the 2026.20 Software Version. Clips that are captured by your Tesla will be available on the Online Dashcam Clip Viewer once the files on your car’s storage drive are encrypted.
Not a Tesla App first noticed the new feature, and states that once your Tesla updates to 2026.20, the car will automatically protect the clips with an encryption key that is uniquely tied to your owner account.
Tesla Launches New Web-Based Dashcam Viewer https://t.co/AlJKXYxujJ pic.twitter.com/4igicYpvkX
— Not a Tesla App (@NotATeslaApp) June 2, 2026
The web-based viewer should be easier to operate for most. All you will do is head over to dashcam.tesla.com and log in using your account credentials.
Ensure your vehicle is updated to 2026.20 in order for the web-based viewer tool to fetch your vehicle’s saved dashcam clips.
Currently, only a small percentage of owners are updated to this, so it may be a couple of weeks until a majority of owners in the fleet are able to access this feature.
Watching Dashcam clips on the Tesla smartphone app is quick and convenient, as they can also be easily downloaded and stored right on your smartphone.
However, the clips are sometimes tougher to navigate, and in order to get details like self-driving activation, speed, and turn signals, owners have to screen record the Tesla app and crop out the rest of the screen.
It could also be a massive storage saver as you’ll be able to download the Dashcam clips from the online viewer and save them to your laptop, desktop, a flash drive, or even an external hard drive. This will keep all your clips in one place.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.3 driver monitoring: We tested it
Tesla responds to Robotaxi skeptics with a massive move in Austin
