On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 18:47:12 +0200, in a place far, far away,
"BitBanger" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

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?

Do you believe that you're the first person who's ever made these
objections, or asked such questions, in this newsgroup? That having
been finally blessed with your wisdom after all these years of
discussing this, we're going to hit ourselves on the forehead and say,
"Gosh! BitBanger is right! We need to do some market research!"

It should be possible to calculate the
financial viabillity of such an endeavor.

It not only should be, but is possible, and many people have done it.

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.

And that's a problem why?