Space Travel for Rich Tourists?

Remember when millionaire Dennis Tito spent a large sum of his personal fortune to spend a week on the Russian Space Station Mir? He started the trend of space tourism, which may soon be a major industry, catering to a very few individuals with a lot of money to spend.

Although Tito bought his rather expensive vacation from the Russian government, (after being turned down by NASA) future space tourists will buy rides from private companies. Most recently, software tycoon Charles Simonyi has purchased a $20 million vacation from Space Adventures, Ltd. After having completed several years of training at Star City, the head of Intentional Software is scheduled to fly to the international space station on April 7. Simonyi will be launched from Kazakhstan aboard Russian Soyuz launch TMA-10 rocket. He will spend two weeks in space, before returning on TMA-9 on April 20^th.

Simonyi's 20 million dollar vacation does not even include food. Instead, the software tycoon plans to bring food with him. A famous chef will prepare him six course meals, and pack them up in a space-friendly form. Rather than eating freeze dried meals out of a squeeze tube, Simonyi will dine in style.

Will space travel become a hobby of the wealthy? As the Wall Street Journal's wealth blog pointed out recently, advances in technology, once released to the public, often first become the province of the rich. Cars, computers, cell phones, and air travel, the blog pointed out, were all the stylish entertainment of for those who could pay for them. While it is unlikely that spaceflight will ever become commonplace, it is probable that a rather profitable industry will evolve around blasting millionaires into orbit.

Starting in a few years, Virgin Galactic plans to offer suborbital hops to people willing to pay a much cheaper $200,000. Although this would be a much cheaper option than the $20 million trips of Simonyi and Tito, (and would have the added advantage of not requiring several years of training) it would not be a true spaceflight, and it still would not be cheap. With each ticket costing the price of two college educations, it is unlikely that our grandparents will travel to space rather then to Atlantic City. Nonetheless, the number of people with way too much money to spend is sufficiently large to permit the existence of companies like Virgin Galactic and Space Adventures, Ltd.