$20M Space Tourist Trains for Launch

U.S. space tourist Gregory Olsen joined a Russian cosmonaut and an American astronaut for training outside Moscow on Friday in preparation for their Oct. 1 launch to the international space station.

Asked if the price of the trip was worth it, Olsen, a 60-year-old scientist who is paying the Russian space agency $20 million, replied: "I'll let you know when I come back."

$20 million, wow! Olsen will be the third paying passenger to visit the space station and says he looks forward to "the joy of being in space, weightlessness and so on".

I personally believe the space tourism industry will never take off (excuse the pun) simply due to the fact that we are still at the beginning of our space adventures. We only got to the moon fourty years ago. For people to trust and for the industry to become affordable we will need to experience many more visits into space and make sure we actually know what we're doing.

Originally posted by phixion
I personally believe the space tourism industry will never take off (excuse the pun) simply due to the fact that we are still at the beginning of our space adventures. We only got to the moon fourty years ago. For people to trust and for the industry to become affordable we will need to experience many more visits into space and make sure we actually know what we're doing.

People said the same thing about Air Travel, now it is resonably priced so almost anyone can fly. The Space Industry will be the same way. There are lots of paralels between now and 80 years ago when Commercial Aviation was just getting started, it will happen because there are people who are willing to fork up the cast needed. If it's proven that the Sub-Orbital tourism and other various ventures are sustainable then more R&D is going to start flowing to these companies.

Remember the phrase "There is a market for maybe 6 computers in the world"

Yeah that was the first thing we learnt for Business Studies AS levels. Bill Gate's mission statement was "There will be a computer in every home in the world", everyone else claimed that there would only been a need for a couple of computers in the world.

I don't know what to think about the space industry, it seems so much more than aviation was, or PCs. We still have difficulty getting into space even when millions and millions of pounds are spent.

My theory is that Politics and Bureaucracy holds back Space Exploration.

We could be much farther ahead in space exploration if the effort was made. It wasn't so we gotta make do with what we have got. It leaves more for the Private ventures to achieve and innovate. NASA has given us quite a bit but now it must start partnering up and encoraging small start ups in their quest for the stars.

You are right though in that historically it takes us quite a while to get our heads around a new travel method, but I believe we are up to the task. Venture capitalists just want to have a reason to invest in these startups and all that takes is one profitable business model. Rutans model will succeed beyond his wildest dreams. I know a number of Boomers who are literally willing to mortgage their houses in order to go up into just Sub-Orbit, I'm gonna wait till the price comes down though