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Space Tourism?
Cave_Monster wonders: "With the successful return to earth by Gregory Olson, the US businessman who allegedly paid around £11m for his trip, what are people's thoughts on continuing with this trend? It is definately favourable towards generating extra funds for space programs, and with Mr. Olson preferring to be labeled as a 'flight participant' rather than a tourist, it definately begs the question as to how much input can these paying people have in space research? Experiments that he participated in included further investigation into how the human body deals with weightlessness and the possible causes to lower back pain and nausea, yet are these activities simply carried out so as to 'entertain' or is there real scientific purpose behind them? With the next 'tourist' expected to be Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto, should paying people have a real scientific background or is money simply enough?"
i mean what's the point if you are not a climber or a geologist. But they got the money to burn and want the "label" of having been there. More power to them - and same for these "flight participants" regardless if they just float around or do some little "fun" experiments. Perhaps in the future we would have these floating hotels in space and we would get up there via Charlie's Glass elevator.
If letting a space tourist go up can attract media attention, then that's great. Its even nice that the customer pays the organization to create good marketing for the organization.
Besides, I'd bet the economics of space flight are such that the cost of filling an empty seat aren't that high. The average cost of putting a pound into orbit may be extremely high, but the cost of adding another pound of person and supplies is probably not bad. It's like the airlines -- if you're going to fly anyway, why not fill every seat.
Creating the idea that space is accessible to an increasing number of people -- not just a few astronauts that spent their life in the program -- is the key to the future of space funding.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Archaeologists need more money than they can come up with from governments and colleges for their digs, so they solicit contributions from people who get their Jones from wanting to be archaeologists. These contributors get to go along, camp with the real scientists, get briefings from the head guys, and such. They do not, however, under any circumstance, get to actually dig, which embitters some of them.
Selling rides to rich people is not a new thing, it seems.
..I'm an astroNOT. Don't get me wrong, I get jazzed talking about the possibilites for the future of space travel, space tourism among them. But no one should kid themselves into thinking that anyone that goes up in the shuttle is accomplishing alot of science - including the astronauts. Look at it this way, fly to NYC. Once there get into one of their lovely cabs. Instruct the cab driver to drive you by all the important landmarks; WTC site, Empire State Building, Central Park, etc. Have him stop on one corner so you can get out and grab a Nathan's. Now go back to the airport and go home. Did you learn alot about NYC? Did you get a feel for it? That my compatriots is what our space program is, a bunch of people that go round and round and then come home. And from what I hear the food isn't the greatest.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
I don't understand why anybody would ever think these people shouldn't be allowed up. It seems to me that this smacks of elitism, and I don't think that attitude has much of a place anywhere.
Also, if someone thinks participating in scientific experiments is fun (and I would likely think that about some experiments) then more power to them. I don't understand the question here either. Does the fact that someone paid money to go on a trip somehow invalidate the data?
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
So I think we're behind schedule--- we should have been sending rich people up there to die twenty years ago. If things had gone according to schedule Challenger's cargo bay would have been refitted for passengers by then and 30 people could have died that day in 1986.
I can think of no downside to space tourism. For one, the space program in question gets more money; money that would not be used for anything else terribly useful, anyway. This means that this particular space program now has to request less government or entrupreneurial funding, and they can get more done. Tourists "displacing" "scientists" isn't really a problem, either. Those scientists can't go up if their spaceship doesn't fly because of lack of funding, and there's very little research up in space that requires an actual "scientist" to be present. The effects of weightlessness can be tested just as readily on a layman as on a PhD, any data collected in space can be analyzed earthside, and we get to see how space affects people who aren't elite air force test pilots who bench 350, have perfect hair, and date supermodels.
Besides, where's the bad in sending a rich old dude off-planet?
I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
This in a world with only three TV stations and way fewer alternative modes of entertainment.
No freaking way space tourism can payback. Now if we're talking fractional-orbital flights to get you from New York to Tokyo in 15 minutes than space tourism becomes interesting, with the zero-G being a nice side benefit.
Just wondering how many years worth of carbon credits Mr Olson used in his little jaunt. Pity this isn't factored into the price. I would guess it is a few centuries of personal allowances.
I prefer NASA's terminology: Payload Specialist.