Joe Strout wrote in
:

In article ,
John Schutkeker wrote:

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?

Because the X-Prize will be won this year, almost certainly by
SpaceShipOne, with several other contenders probably acheiving the
same target within the next few years. While Scaled has said they
have no plans to commercialize SS1, I doubt that Paul Allen spent $20M
to develop a new kind of craft just to collect a $10M prize and a big
lawn ornament. And other contenders, such as Armadillo (IIRC), have
explicitly stated that suborbital tourism is their goal.

So, I expect we'll see routine suborbital tourist flights within five
years or so.

I agree with everything you've just said except the tourism part. You are
assuming a market that may or may not exist. Although there is clearly a
market for tourism on the ISS, those flights last days, and the visitor is
allowed to hang around on the most prestigious piece of hardware America
owns, with substantial room to move. A sub-orbital flight only lasts about
fifteen minutes, which is hardly enough time to interest the majority
of status seekers.

There will quite likely be a non-tourism market, like the one for the
"vomit comet." And someone else in the group kindly pointed out that SS1
could be used as a sounding rocket, which addresses my concern about
finding commercial uses that will have any substantial quantity of traffic.
But to make the leap from this to tourism is a groundless assumption.

Well, yes, because there hasn't been a suborbital tourist craft. Now
there's one going through careful, steady testing (just broke the
sound barrier a couple weeks ago), and others sure to follow.

And there will be a small number of people interested in making the ride,
but not enough to justify the unrecouped $10 million development cost.

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.

I do give them credit for that, and I don't agree with your "weak
ethics" crack. There's nothing unethical about making a profit in
space. The Russians are doing the right thing; it's the U.S. that's
standing in the way of progress there.

I never said that space tourism was unethical. I said that it grew out of
Russian's general tendency toward weak ethics, which is demonstrated in
other aspects of their society. I also agree that it's a good idea, but
the thought never occurred to us, because we weren't willing to consider
outrageous ideas like that.