July 01 2008 / by futuretalk
Category: Space Year: General Rating: 14 Hot
By Dick Pelletier
Space tourism has come a long way in a short time. The idea was
just a dream in the 1990s, but recently, tourists have shelled out
mega-bucks for a glimpse of the wild blue yonder. 
Though only the rich can afford space travel today, experts
predict prices will drop with new systems under development. Later
this year, Virgin Galactic’s returnable Space-Ship-Two hopes to
provide orbital round-trips for $200,000, and one-day, take
vacationers to the moon.
By 2030, the Space Elevator, a revolutionary system under
development now would climb up a nanotech-ribbon extending 62,000
miles from Earth to space and could transport passengers into the
wild blue yonder for as low as $20,000 initially, then prices could
drop to the $2,000-per-person range when multiple elevators become
available.
As more people become space travelers, they will need a place to
stay. Budget Suites of America owner Robert Bigelow has launched
the first phase of a human-rated habitat module dubbed Sundancer,
to an altitude of 250 nautical miles at an orbital inclination of
40 degrees. Once Sundancer is in position and verified safe,
Bigelow will add more sections creating a full-scale
lodging/industrial complex as early as the middle of next
decade.
Satellite Industry Association President Richard Dalbello says,
“Once hotel companies start to build and operate orbital
accommodations, they will be endlessly improving them and competing
to build more exotic facilities”. We will see hotels that provide
normal gravity for rooms, bars, and restaurants; and gravity-free
areas for recreation and sports activities. (cont.)
Space projects are already becoming lucrative. According to the
Space Foundation, global space activities generated $180 billion in
revenues last year, mostly from private satellite launches.
Futon Corp., an aerospace consulting firm, recently found that
human suborbital space tourism could become a multi-billion dollar
industry by 2020. The firm said that by then, more than 15,000
people a year, mostly vacationers, would take trips into space
staying at hotels and visiting attractions such as theme parks and
the International Space Station.
At a recent space conference in San Jose, entrepreneurs and
scientists floated a host of ideas for other space businesses
including shuttle services, moon colonization outfits, and asteroid
mining.
Space Foundation CEO Elliot Pulham
talked of mining a giant asteroid expected to pass close by in
2019. Scientists believe this space rock known as A-3554 is full of
valuable metals like nickel and platinum and could generate $20
trillion in revenues. Enthusiasts predict asteroid mining will
become the largest and most profitable industry in space by
mid-century.
Once travel to orbit becomes cheap, more people will visit
space. Some for vacations, others to visit friends and relatives in
space facilities; and, drawn by astronomical salaries, a few
diehards will choose to work in space. Jobs include manufacturing,
construction, mining, engineering, and hotel positions.
Will this “magical future” become reality? When yours truly was
in high school in the 1940s, I wished that one day I could fly in
an airplane, but wondered if it would ever really happen. Yet
within one generation, plane trips became routine; and today, more
than one billion people fly every year.
Where might space development lead civilization?
Positive-thinkers believe that by as early as the middle of the
next century, more humans could be living in space than on
Earth.
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