" wrote in
message ups.com...

snidely wrote:

No, no, Scott -- this is the core of what you have wrong. The public
doesn't care a fig about HERO-ASTRONAUTS unless there is a hint of
blood and gore (a bit like NASCAR). What VG, XCOR, Bigelow are selling
is PERSONAL SPACE TRAVEL, and quite a few more people are interested in
that.


Here's your problem: the public tends to identify more with astronauts
than bajillionaires. 99.99999% of the public will not only never go to
space, they'll never have the *option* of going to space. So while Joe
Billionaire spends his five million for a week on the LEO Hilton, Joe
Hero goes to the moon and represents The Best Of America.

Yet TV shows like The Osbornes, Survivor, Big Brother, The Bachelor, and
etc. get good ratings. When there is finally a LEO Hilton, how many reality
shows will set up shop in LEO? How many people who are bored watching an
astronaut perform an EVA would actually be interested in seeing a couple of
reality show contestants making out in zero gravity? Not to mention zero
gravity porn...

"Personal space travel" is decades away. "Rich guy space travel" is,
hopefully, just a few years away. It will capture the public for a
while, and then it will fade. Hopefully, the rich will keep flying and
paying so that it will actually become affordable for schmoes like the
most of us, but it'll be a while.

Yet some successful TV shows are little more than TV cameras following rich
people around. What makes these shows interesting isn't necessarily the
setting, but the way people interact. Zero gravity will put a bit of a
twist on how these sorts of people interact, and I'll bet someone with a
camera will be waiting to make a buck off filming non-astronauts in LEO.

Jeff
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