Joe Strout wrote in news:joe-
:

space tourism is about to take off in a
big way. By the time ISS is completed and the shuttle fleet retired, we
will at least have a suborbital tourism industry.

Why do you say this? If anything, it seems that orbital tourism on the
ISS, was doing much better than sub-orbital tourism, at least until the
Columbia broke up. You gotta give the Russians credit for that one. I
guess there are some advantages to having weak ethics and a desperation for
cash, because they sure led the curve on this idea.