Space Tourism
Space Tourism |
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| "A day will come when beings
who are now latent in our thoughts...shall stand upon this Earth as one
stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands to the
starts."
-H. G. Wells
Many people would like to travel into space, and many would like to go the moon. But most people will probably just want to go to space for a little while. To become an astronaut takes many years of schooling and training. That's where space tourism comes in! If you were a space tourist where would you go and how long would you stay? Click here to check out what "Your vacation on the Moon" might be like, brought to you by the Artemis Society. |
 Leaders
of some emerging launch vehicles and tourist companies envision a next
generation passenger vehicle where you would fly into space in a passenger
cabin much like
the first class section of an airplane.
Some trips might take you into low earth orbit and some trips may take you to the moon. Permanent space hotels will cost more to build and travel to, but would offer a better quality experience. By building hotels in space or on the moon, you could take more people, sell more tickets and thenimmediately return to Earth to pick up more people. A hotel would offer more features and offer longer durations. Hotels would offer more comfort and privacy, as well as such things like zero or 1/6th gravity sports.
To make large, economical and safe space hotels in orbit or on the moon, we would need a lot of asteroidal and/or lunar material to make structural materials, outfit the interiors (tables, chairs, etc.), build shielding from space radiation and micrometeorites, and large, thick windows for great views. Giant, flat, polished mirrors from asteroid nickel or lunar aluminum could be used to protect large windows fromdirect exposure to micrometeorites. Agricultural areas would be needed to reduce expensive food imports, water, oxygen, a large solar power plant (or other energy source). As these are all of the same things that we will need for a permanent lunar base, the producers of space hotel components may be the creators of the first factories, homes and communities in space and on the moon. |
 And
there will always be some people who will want to buy a one-way ticket!
How would you feel about moving permanently to the moon? According
to the Space Tourism
Initiative, a survey completed by the National Aerospace Laboratory
(NAL) in 1995, in North America (U.S. and Canada) of 1020
households concluded that overall, 60% of those surveyed were interested
in traveling to space for a vacation.
45.6% indicate they would pay three month's salary for such a trip, 18.2% would pay six months salary, and 10.65% would pay a year's salary. Two-thirds of those wishing to visit space said they would do so several times. Click here to participate in a Space Tourism survey! Here is another survey to decide how much you would pay to take such a trip.
The PERMANENT organization currently invites submissions of ideas, designs and artwork regarding space hotels made from asteroidal and/or lunar materials. The Artemis Society is promoting tourism to the Moon, they propose building a lunar base and a transport vehicle from low Earth orbit to the Moon. Space Future's Tourism Page has some more general material on space tourism. |
 The
Space
Transportation Association (STA) represents the interests of organizations
and people who are engaged in developing, building, operating, and using
space transportation vehicles, systems, and services to provide reliable,
economical, safe, and routine access to space for private users and government,
civil, and military users.
The STA's Space Travel and Tourism site has more specific tourism related information. The Space Tourism Initiative has some more interesting resources. Kelly Space & Technology, Inc. has a team designing a potential tourism vehicle. NASA's report on General Public Space Travel and Tourism can be read here. The report's summary states: "This study concludes that serious national attention should now be given to activities that would enable the expansion of today's terrestrial space tourism businesses, and the creation of in-space travel and tourism businesses. Indeed, it concludes that, in time, it should become a very important part of our Country's overall commercial and civil space business-program structure. For it offers new personal and business opportunities that would capitalize upon our great and continuing human spaceflight public expenditures and make additional use of our reservoir of space professionals, facilities and institutions." The X-PrizeThe X-Prize is a competition for a vehicle that would make access to Earth orbit more affordable. Some of the companies vying for the $10 million dollar prize are seriously considering space tourism. The X Prize Foundation hopes that their X Prize will stimulate the development of commercial space tourism by awarding the $10 million prize to the first private team to build and fly a reusable spaceship capable of carrying three individuals on a sub-orbital flight.
The prize is reminiscent of the $25,000 prize that Charles Lindbergh won for being the first to cross the Atlantic in his plane, The Spirit of St. Louis. It was devised with the same principal in mind as an inspiration for exploration. |
| Tour
2 Space's Third Millenium Aerospace, Inc., has design concepts for
the X-Van
and the SpaceVan.
Their X-Van is their X-prize entry.
AeroAstro has been selected as prime contractor under the direction of Vela Technology. AeroAstro is a company founded in 1988 which has developed suborbital rockets, satellites and components of satellites. One of their strengths is their PA-X engine, a liquid oxygen-kerosene low cost engine. Thespace tourism vehicle will be called the Vela Cruiser. Click here to watch a video of the spacecraft. |
| Rotary
Rocket hopes to launch to low Earth orbit all kinds of payloads at
greatly reduced costs. While not specifically
looking at tourism, they could substantially reduce the cost for people
to get into space. Click
here to watch a video of the Rotary Rocket in action.
Much of the development of current launch vehicles is fuelled by the demand for launch rockets to place satellites into orbit. Competing investors are taking advantage of the latest in technology for next generation, cheaper launch vehicles. Check out some more images of X-prize contenders. Buzz Aldrin, former Apollo astronaut has some ideas about lunar tourism as does Budget Suites of America's millionaire David Bigelow. Bigelow hopes to build a lunar cruise ship. Visit the Bigelow Aerospace Company for more information. Visit Discovery.com to read about space tourism, reusable rockets, orbital industries, space hotels and burials in space! Teleprescence Trips Telerobotic virtual experiences on the moon are another idea whose time may be coming. The LunarCorp lunar rover would be an amusement park arcade experience for lunar rover teleoperators. According to their website, "LunaCorp [will provide a] series of lunar adventures based on intelligent robots. Unlike previous robots that only sent narrow-band science data back to Earth, these robots will deliver live video and wide-open interactivity to the public. The excitement of real-time lunar exploration will be exclusive features of participating Web sites, television networks and large science centers that offer hands-on access via remote control." |
| LunaCorp's lunar robots will have a vision
system that sees everything above and around them. Back on Earth, the image
will surround visitors to science centers and planetariums.
The Robotics Institute from Carnegie Mellon is designing the rovers to have their own navigation abilities. If any driving command is unsafe, the rovers will have the authority to ignore Earth signals until a safe directive is given. |
The rovers will be intelligent and aware
of their surroundings so they can protect themselves from unsafe Earth
commands. This also means they can chat about their situation with people
on the home planet. This access to real-time space exploration would also
occur via the internet. The rovers will be able to handle dozens of telephone
and e-mail conversations simultaneously providing Earthlings with a real
exploration adventure. For more on this project visit the Carnegie
Mellon site.
Japanese Space TourismAccording to the Space Policy Institute and the International Institute of Tourism Studies at The George Washington University, the first market research on the demand for space tourism was conducted in Japan in 1993. This survey of 3030 Japanese of all ages revealed that 70% of those under age 60 and more than 80% of those under age 40 stated they would "like to visit space at least once in their lifetime". Some 70% of these said they would "pay up to three months salary for a trip to outer space".Shimizu Space Systems, a Japanese corporation has been studying space and lunar tourism. Their plans include building a lunar base using concrete made from lunar resources called 'lunarcrete'. They worked with McDonnell Douglas Aerospace on a reference design lunar base called the First Lunar Outpost (that has been rejected by NASA). Shimizu is planning to build inflatable buildings complete with tennis courts and golf courses. For an article by CNN click here. |
| Shimuzu has also developed a lunar soil simulant made of basaltic lava from Japan. It is similar to soils returned from the Apollo 11 and Apollo 14 missions in its properties and composition. | 
Inflatable Habitat |
| They have researched growing plants including wheat, soybeans, potatoes, peanuts, spinach, komatsuna and tomatoes. Shimuzu has also completed a 'Lunar Gravity Test of theFluidized Bed Reactor' for producing oxygen. The Lunar Oxygen Plant extracts oxygen and iron from ilmenite. |
Japanese advertisement for space tourism |
Shimuzu is planning an orbiting 64-room space hotel by 2020 in addition to their hotel on the Moon's surface. For images of their space hotel and lunar base click here. Another Japanese company, Nishimatu Construction Company has plans for a Moon resort called Escargot City. This refers to the shape of the ten 10-story inflatable towers shaped like snails' shells they plan to build. Another Japanese company, Obayashi, is working on a project to create a self-sufficient lunar community of 10,000 people which would be supplied by vast vegetable farms on the moon. Spacetopia is a Japanese travel company planning to specialise in space tourism services as they become available. |
| For an article about whether
the moon should or will be used for mining or tourism (or both!) visit
this
article at Space.com.
Engineer Gregory Bennett, founder of the new Houston-based Lunar Development Corporation envisions walking tours of Apollo landing sites, with tourists protected by pressurized clear plastic walkways. British architect Peter Inston has proposed a lunar complex for Hilton International, Inc. bigger than the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The Lunar Hilton would be a 5,000-room domed structure, powered by solar energy and supplied with drinking water from lunar ice. It would have restaurants, a church and even a beach. Food would come from farms on the moon's surface and the ice discovered at the moon's poles could be used for water. Moon buses would transport guests on low-gravity excursions outside the hotel. They would first have to get used to wearing special boots because of the lack of gravity on the Moon. The Hilton has discussed with NASA how to transport passengers and build materials on the moon. Two major obstacles are the high cost of space travel and the dangers involved in it. Space tourist Dennis Tito signed an agreement with the Russian Space Agency waiving any claims due to accident that might occur on his trip to the International Space Station. Would you go? Click here for a quiz on Space Tourism!
Questions to think about:
Next... Moon
Base Alpha
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Recently
billionaire 
Motion
platforms will relay movements of the rover as it crosses the lunar surface.
"Visitors
may think they are in a Star Trek virtual reality "HoloDeck," but the experience
will be real."
Before
being selected as a rover driver, the operators must first prove their
skills on computer simulators. They will learn to compensate for the 3
to 5 second communications delay between giving a driving command and seeing
the rover respond. Only the most skilled, and safest drivers, will be selected
to drive the lunar rover.
