Space Tourism

[PatrickHenry]

Personal space flight. It will surely arrive sometime.

Some folks are hard at work to make it sooner rather than later.

Will it be a commercial success? Would big, savvy investors back it as a business experiment? Could be...

If I could scrape the cash together (or win the lottery) I would like a trip into space. Wouldn't you?

There are quite a few companies developing the air/space craft.
Armadillo--- Armadillo Aerospace - Home
Jeff Bezos-- Blue Origin
Benson--- Benson Space Company
Bigelow--- Bigelow Aerospace
Richard Branson, Burt Rutan--- Virgin Galactic : HTML Site : INTRO

And many more.

Commercial space tourism...When will it happen?

[Matt W]

It already is, isn't it?

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | American space 'nerd' blasts off

A US software engineer has become the fifth space tourist after blasting off on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Billionaire Charles Simonyi, 58, who led development of Microsoft's Word, lifted off from the Baikonur space station in Kazakhstan at 1731 GMT. He is the 450th person to enter orbit and the $25m ride makes him, by his own admission, "the first nerd in space".

Bolding mine.

I'd say it's at the level an African safari was in the early years on the 20th century - the preserve of the extremely rich & well-connected. However, give it a hundred years and everybody with some spare cash & a yearn to see the Earth from space will be doing it...

[fushigi]

What a waste of $25m. Invest that, and in twenty years you'd be able to buy your own space ship.

Of course, the guy would be 78 by then; colostomy bags at excessive G-forces probably aren't all that comfy.

And then again, for him it's probably not an either/or situation. He probably has the cash to go now AND buy a space ship in 20 years.

[Matt W]

Mmm...with a description like 'billionaire', you'd certainly hope so....

[fushigi]

Not after he accomplishes his other goals:

• First nerd at 20,000 leagues
• First nerd president
• First nerd elected into the baseball Hall of Fame
• First nerd back from the dead
• First nerd to scale Everest
• First nerd to cross the Atlantic with a rocket pack

[5010]

Imagine if space travel was made gentle enough for super rich pregnant women to deliver in space. Would 0-g make it easier? Would the newborn be considered extraterrestrial? Would it be alien to all nations or inherit the citizenship of mom?

[fushigi]

I have to imagine the cosmic radiation would probably have some pretty wacky effects on the baby's development.
Here

Astronauts in orbit are exposed to cosmic radiation that is of sufficient frequency and intensity to cause effects on the central nervous system, such as the perception of flashes of light that have been reported since the days of Apollo. Radiation exposure represents one of the greatest risks to humans traveling on exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO).

And here

Astronauts who spend too much time aloft are believed to dramatically raise their risk of developing cancer, although they're not in immediate danger of suffering from radiation sickness.

[5010]

Good points, and even if birth happens in space, I am realizing that the question of citizenship is no different than a child born on international waters.

[fushigi]

Yeah, what is the law anyway? (Too lazy to look it up.)

[5010]

Found it. The US Naturalization Act of 1790 states "the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens".

[fushigi]

Guess that covers it.

Totally, utterly, way off topic, but does "children of citizens of the United States" mean as long as one parent is American the child can become a US citizen, or do both parents have to be?

[PatrickHenry]

Well let me thank everyone for trashing my thread....

[Jack]

If I could scrape the cash together (or win the lottery) I would like a trip into space. Wouldn't you?

The lottery's probably the only hope we geezers have of becoming space cowboys. But the 20 year olds here could see "reasonably" affordable space travel in their time. Their kids? I'd guess almost certainly.

Maybe we could start a trend like the Eskimos had, only 21st century style.

When we reach our 80s or 90s, we can opt to travel in a space craft on a one-way journey into deep space. We would run tests that can best be run by a human. We'd report back as long as we were able. We might die of exposure, starvation, dehydration or the ship could be destroyed. Any number of potential yet inevitable endings.

[fushigi]

Actually I think orbital retirement homes would be a great idea. One of the biggest health problems facing the elderly is poor circulation - this creates blood disorders, clotting, heart problems, all kinds of stuff. In zero G's, however, blood flow isn't a problem because your veins don't have to do any work to pump your blood back to your heart.

Furthermore, you don't have to worry about the dangerous effects of osteoporosis, or risk falls that can result in a broken hip or other injuries. I can even see future marketing: "500 G's gets you Zero G's of comfort".

[Slevin57]

I think were still kind of hung up on this.

We tend to reject things very harshly over a few accidents. (See: Nuclear Power)

I don't think people would be willing to go to space commercially. It would take a whole lot of successful flights for people to change their tune.

I think I'd rather go to Antarctica then to space. Their is plenty to enjoy on Earth without me traipsing around the galaxy in a tin can.

[Derach]

Something like 10% of the people who have ever attempted to go to space have died trying. Until that stat gets WAY lower, I don't see the feasibility of regular civilian space travel. When you consider that air travel within a couple of decades of its inception was far safer than space travel is nearly 50 yrs after the first human space shots. Certainly safety, and not affordability, will be the determining factor in the race for a profitable civilian space program.

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: Derach Something like 10% of the people who have ever attempted to go to space have died trying.

Where'd you get your statistics?

[Derach]

Patrick - I heard it first from Burt Rutan (X-prize winner) when interviewed in 2006 about the plausibility for commoplace civilian air travel ... It seemed an astonishing figure ... but when I thought about it, it started to make sense, especially regarding the large # of soviet cosmonauts killed early in the Russian sace program ... I'll see if I can find an alternate resource to back up the figure.


here's a stat from CBS

Editor's Note...
This list includes astronauts and cosmonauts who died in the line of duty, meaning they were active in their programs at the times of their deaths. Russian data may be incomplete. Corrections and additions welcome.


GENERAL STATISTICS

NASA Astronauts Killed in Space Flight.........13
Russian Cosmonauts Killed in Space Flight......4
Total Individuals in Space.....................437
Total Space Fatalities.........................18

IN-FLIGHT FATALITIES

Komarov, Vladimir........04/24/67; Soyuz 1 parachute fails during entry

Dobrovolsky, Georgy......06/29/71; Soyuz 11 depressurized during entry
Patsayev, Victor.........06/29/71; Soyuz 11 depressurized during entry
Volkov, Vladislav........06/29/71; Soyuz 11 depressurized during entry

Scobee, Francis "Dick"...01/28/86; SRB booster failure, mission STS-51L
Smith, Michael...........01/28/86; SRB booster failure, mission STS-51L
Resnik, Judith...........01/28/86; SRB booster failure, mission STS-51L
Onizuka, Ellison.........01/28/86; SRB booster failure, mission STS-51L
McNair, Ronald...........01/28/86; SRB booster failure, mission STS-51L
Jarvis, Gregory..........01/28/86; SRB booster failure, mission STS-51L
McAuliffe, Christa.......01/28/86; SRB booster failure, mission STS-51L

Rick Husband.............02/01/03: Re-entry breakup; WLE penetration
William McCool...........02/01/03: Re-entry breakup; WLE penetration
David Brown..............02/01/03: Re-entry breakup; WLE penetration
Kalpana Chawla...........02/01/03: Re-entry breakup; WLE penetration
Michael Anderson.........02/01/03: Re-entry breakup; WLE penetration
Laurel Clark.............02/01/03: Re-entry breakup; WLE penetration
Ilan Ramon...............02/01/03: Re-entry breakup; WLE penetration

OTHER ACTIVE-DUTY FATALITIES

Freeman, Theodore........10/31/64; T-38 jet crash in Houston

Bassett, Charles.........02/28/66; T-38 jet crash in St. Louis
See, Elliott.............02/28/66; T-38 jet crash in St. Louis

Grissom, Virgil "Gus"....01/27/67; Apollo 1 launch pad fire
White, Edward............01/27/67; Apollo 1 launch pad fire
Chaffee, Roger...........01/27/67; Apollo 1 launch pad fire

Givens, Edward...........06/06/67; Houston car crash
Williams, Clifton........10/15/67; airplane crash near Tallahassee, Fla.
Robert Lawrence..........06/??/67; F-104 crash (MOL Air Force astronaut)
Gagariin, Yuri...........03/27/68; MiG jet trainer crash near Star City
Belyayev, Pavel..........01/10/70; died during surgery
Thorne, Stephen..........05/24/86; private plane crash near Houston
Levchenko, Anatoly.......08/06/88; inoperable brain tumor
Shchukin, Alexander......08/18/88; experimental plane crash
Griggs, David............06/17/89; plane crash
Carter, Manley "Sonny"...05/04/91; commuter plane crash in Georgia
Veach, Charles Lacy......10/03/95; cancer
Robertson, Patricia......05/24/01; private plane crash near Houston

that's a total of 36 out of 437 total in space that were killed during active duty ... and the non-flight related deaths like those of Grissum, White and Chaffee are only US deaths, not the countless Soviet deaths that were non-flight related (like explosions on the launch pad, of which there were several). I'm sure adding 10 soviet active duty, non-flight related deaths is a reasonably conservative estimate. So the 10% figure is probably fairly accurate taken all active duty deaths into account. Space travel is still a very dangerous endeavor, despite our advances in technology.

[Derach]

ps - wickepedia claims '5% of all people who have been in space' have died directly trying to do it, not including ground crew deaths or 'accidents not reported by the Soviet Union' ... again, of which there are certainly a few. This is still too high a # to risk regular civilian traffic to (imagine if 1 in every 20 airplanes crashed!?)

Space disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[fushigi]

A reasonable concern, but there are two flaws in your argument.

First, that's 5% of ASTRONAUTS, not 5% of launches. Most astronauts make multiple launches, as the wiki article you linked to points out.

Furthermore, did you notice that only one of the space shuttle explosions has occurred since 1986? Most of the accidents and fatalities took place in the 1960s; we've learned a lot about safety since then.

Still, like I said, safety's a concern. But not as much as you may imagine.