"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

"BitBanger" wrote in message
...

$50 million for a spaceship carrying 5-7 passengers into orbit and bring
them back safely? What a joke. There's no way someone will be able to
claim
that prize for a long time.

While what you say is true, what's to stop other people, companies,
governments, and etc. from donating more money to the prize? I'd
personally
like to see the US Government donate a few hundred million dollars each
year
to the pot. The longer the prize is unclaimed, the bigger the pot grows.

That doesn't change the fundemental problem that orbital flight is too
expensive at the moment. Subsidizing it with government money (even if it's
prize money) changes market mechanisms and will not lead to cheaper access
to space. In other words: if private enterprise can't finance it by itself,
it's probably not worth the effort. OTOH private enterpise has financed
billion+ dollar projects before. If private enterprise isn't interested it's
because there's not a clear perception of what the market 'up there' will
be. Space tourism? It's kind of iffy, because you'd have to be able to spend
$100.000+ for a stay in an orbital hotel. How many people are there in the
world who can afford that? How many of these would actually go? How many of
them would do it more than once? It should be possible to calculate the
financial viabillity of such an endeavor. If you compare, for example,
airplane tickets in the early 1920's and 1930's, these were hugely expensive
(about $30.000 in current dollars). Yet there were still quite a few wealthy
laggards willing to pay for it. So I have some hope that orbital tourism
will be viable, even though it will initially be only in reach for the very
affluent.