Countdown to liftoff for space holidays. You may be catching the next shuttle to Mir sooner than you think.
Buzz Aldrin believes you'll have a shot at a space vacation within 10 yearsââ,¬"but a game-show winner and an NBA superstar will ride into orbit first.
In the more than three decades since Aldrin's moon walk, funding has waned, NASA has done the impossible by making manned space exploration seem dull, and shuttle launches are a footnote on the nightly news. The stately, spinning space hotel of 2001: A Space Odyssey remains a remote cinematic fantasy.
But if NASA isn't going to put you in space, private enterprise is ready to take the controls. Adventure travel is big business: The well-heeled gladly plunk down US$10,375 to soar US75,000 feet above Moscow in a MiG fighter jet and US$65,000 to scale Everest. A few entrepreneurs suspect they'll pay even more for a once-in-a-lifetime ride to zero G.
For the first time since the early 1970s it's looking possible, even likely, that space will become a vacation destination. The Rochester Institute of Technology is offering the nation's first course in space tourism. Maverick entrepreneur Richard Branson claims Virgin Galactic Airways will offer short tourist flights into space within seven years (the company is nothing more than a URL for now). And in December, Hilton will host a symposium to consider the feasibility of an orbiting or moon hotel.
Aldrin's ShareSpace Foundation seeks to stimulate private-sector space activity and give ordinary citizens the opportunity to go into space. His outline calls for a Space Shuttle replacement to be developed for launch by 2012. Built and leased by a private company, it would have room for "NASA crew and cargo, plus crew and 80 to 100 passengers for tourism." Aldrin thinks passengers will be willing to pay between US$100,000 and US$1 million for a low-Earth-orbit flight.
Before you start pitching seats, you need to generate interest. "I've been espousing a journalist in space within a year or less, and then a game-show winner, and then a celebrity," Aldrin says. In his new novel The Return (Forge, 2000), a fictional work outlining Aldrin's real-world ideas, he none-too-subtly refers to that celebrity as an NBA star with the initials MJ.
And if you're not lucky enough to be a game-show winner or global megastar? The first paying space tourists will probably be people like Chirinjeev Kathuria, who made a fortune as a telecommunications and Internet entrepreneur.
"When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut," Kathuria says. "I was fascinated by space." So fascinated, in fact, that he's invested millions in MirCorp, a private venture that's leased Russia's Mir Space Station to open it for commercial business.
While MirCorp is primarily business oriented (medical research, satellite repair, and even movie production), Kathuria allows that an elite strata of society will pay big bucks to go into space. "This is one thing people who've done well in the Internet, media, and telecom want to do in their lifetime."
Kathuria plans to take one of the first flights to Mirââ,¬"but for the rest of us "citizen explorers," a stay will cost about US$20 million.
For shallower pockets, Space Adventures is taking reservations for space flights. Over 140 people have paid all or part of the US$98,000 price for a blink-and-it's-over suborbital shot that will jet passengers to an altitude of 100 kilometers, where they'll experience five minutes of weightlessness and staggering views of Earth before gliding back down. Eric Anderson, Space Adventures' president and CEO, projects the first flight by 2005; he's working with six independent corporations that are developing various reusable launch vehicles.
What about safety? "The Space Shuttle is 25 years old," Anderson says. "Its computers have less power than my Palm Pilot, and it's an extremely complex system." In contrast, next-gen space vehicles will be smaller, smarter, and more reliable. And all will satisfy FAA testing before takeoff.
Anyway, a little risk probably won't deter passengers: One-fifth of those who summit Everest never return, but every year more sign up to try.
