Readers' Forum from
the November 2002 Odyssey

Editor: Kris Cerone

Space Tourism: Rat Hole or Capitalism?

I must take issue with the President's Message (October 2002). The gist of it is that anyone interested in pursuing space tourism should instead spend their money on building an infrastructure, rather than pay for a flight. It states that everyone who has flown, or wishes to fly in the future, and that has the $20 Million price should not send the money down the Space Tourism Rat Hole.

First, let's get the basic facts straight. Throughout the article, the price of $25 Million per tourism flight is mentioned. In actuality, Dennis Tito paid closer to $12 Million, although the current rate is $20 Million. (I know, a million here, a million there, and it starts to add up to real money, but let's at least use the correct amounts whenever possible.)

Now, as to spending their money to form a company and bring down the cost of space tourism for the rest of us: Well, the main word in that last sentence was that it was "their" money. Being in a supposedly capitalist society, Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Lance Bass, Lori Garver, or even I, have a basic right to spend the money that we earn on any darn thing we want. If Dennis wants to buy a lifetime supply of Spam, ride a rocket into orbit and stay in space for a week, or just burn it, that's his right as an American.

The people who are spending this money on space tourism are helping to create an industry that we have waited far too long to materialize. Why must they band together and create a company to do it, why can't they be allowed to simply go and have a good time? The money they spend does not just disappear down a rat hole. It goes to help supply the Russian space economy with some much-needed cash to stay in business. It also goes to help bring the eventual cost down for the next level of people to make it into space.

Russia has already made major modifications to their Soyuz spacecraft to accommodate both larger and smaller people than before. Although supposedly mandated by NASA, this modification is an attempt by Russia to create a larger base of space tourists. The third seat in their new Soyuz TMA spacecraft no longer has any flight functions. This serves to allow a person to fly with much less training, thus bringing the cost of the flight dramatically lower, hopefully opening new markets.

Back in the 1920s, it was the people with the big bucks that flew the first transcontinental flights, providing the funding for the airlines to get off the ground for the rest of us. At that time, it took approximately $20,000 (in today's dollars) to fly across country. Without the people paying that price at the beginning, we would certainly not have the fares we do today. At the same time, was the public clamoring for these paying passengers to instead foot the bill to create the companies that did the flying? No, that was the job of someone else. If I want to fly to New York, do I need to create United Air Lines? No, I just want to fly. I just want to be a paying passenger, looking out the window, and taking snapshots of the scenery below.

Leave the rockets to the rocket scientists, and tourism to the tourists.

Larry Evans
President, Orange County Space Society

Copyright © 1998-2003 Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and Settlement. All Rights Reserved.