Some time ago I had an online discussion with Rand Simberg about space
tourism.

I said that I believed that a suborbital space vehicle for tourist purposes
would
cost over $500 million and I had read nothing about anyone with deep pockets
really ready to finance it.

Rand said this was in progress and said the probable size was a 5 passenger
vehicle that would come in at a much lower price than what I estimated.

Just coincidentally, now Paul Allen and Branson seem to be proceeding toward
a 5 passenger plus a pilot tourist vehicle using Space Ship 1 as a
proto-type.
The estimated cost for producing I believe a system of 5 vehicles is about
$100 million.

Since Rand's report was so close to the current reality I have to believe
that he had early knowledge of what was going on but could not comment
in anything but general terms because of a non-disclosure agreement.

I have to give him credit for a high degree of credibility on this
particular point.

I will say that I don't believe they can do the proposed job for
$100 million, but even they run over a bit they still have quite a bit
of margin over my estimate.

In the past I estimated it would take about $100 million for someone to
win the X-Prize. I admit I was calling it high to get comments, and in
my mind was thinking about $50 million. I assumed that the X-Prize
couldn't be won by somebody new to the field for the $10 million of
the prize and that it would have to be one by someone who was planning
to do something else with the vehicle.

The estimates I have read on the cost of Space Ship 1 have run from
$20 to $30 million so on my $100 million estimate I was off by a factor
of 3.5 to 5. If the suborbital operational system comes in as predicted
by Branson then I will have been off by a factor of 5.

OK, my original estimate was based on what it has cost the government
to accomplish similar things. Len Cormier and George Herbert have
consistently claimed well engineered private projects could beat the
government costs by a factor of 5 to 10.

Note: Giving Rand Simberg credibility for some of his comments on
space tourism is not to be construed as giving him any credit for
validity of his political views and comments.

Mike Walsh