no sources or quotes needed, no need for a format, just simply reply to this thread, comments and questions are welcome.
please respond to this discussion post:
“Hello, class! This week we are discussing space tourism as we move forward through our exploration of space entrepreneurialism. Everyone wants to go to space, right? That’s why we’re in this program of study! We find space fascinating, and we want to understand some particular aspect of it completely. But to go to space? I think most of us would leap at the chance!
But when will we get there? Space tourism has faced a lot of challenges as it has evolved as an economically viable field. The first and most insurmountable problem has been launch costs. The reason that space was the purview of large nations for so many decades was how prohibitively expensive it is to launch a payload into outer space. For example, in 2001, it was suggested that for solar energy collectors to be launched into space, the launch cost per pound would have to drop from $10,000 per pound to $100 per pound (Hudgins, 2001). This kind of cost prohibit does not promote commercial ventures into space, much less space tourism ventures.
Another challenge space tourism has faced is unfair regulatory burden and competition from civil and military space pursuits (Hudgins, 2001). Hudgins argued these as separate points in 2001, but I see them as one and the same. The federal government was deeply protective of its monopoly on space, only realizing within the last thirty years or so that we needed to encourage the commercial space sector to be economically dominant. It has taken some time for government policy and regulation to swing into line with that view, but we are finally at that point. For example, after mothballing the Space Shuttle, NASA worked the Commercial Crew Program for commercial companies to bid on creating its replacement. SpaceX and Boeing were the winners, with their Dragon Capsule and Starliner Capsule respectively (Heiney, 2022).
We are now experiencing a renaissance for the commercial space industry, and space tourism in particular. For example, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company just launched six more space tourists last Saturday, 4 June 2022, which included four people who paid for their own pricey ticket and two who won contests for a ticket sponsored by organizations exterior to Blue Origin (Harwood, 2022). But the tickets are still exorbitantly expensive, so when does true space tourism become A Thing?
I’ll be honest (and cynical) when I say that I think it’s still decades away. Space is still the area for the large nations and a playground for the rich. There is no space tourism infrastructure yet: no stations to visit – other than the ISS – no routine space flights, no establish “vacation” spots, no space travel norms. I think space travel as a tourism industry for anything other than the wealthy is still a long way off until those things exist. I as an average citizen can book a cruise in the Caribbean any time I want, but I don’t foresee that happening in space for many years. Once the Artemis Program to the Moon has been firmly established, and maybe even after whatever human colony on Mars is successful, that’s when I think you’ll see space tourism as a true thing.”
