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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?"
It doesn't matter whether or not your intentions for space flight are for science or not. All you need is enough cash and noone will care.
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
If the space program can accomodate it and want the extra money, the extra passengers need contribute nothing more than money to the mission. If they meet the requirements of any other tasks in the mission, perhaps they should get a discount, or extra charges for the "extra fun". Whichever the mission planners can accomodate and negotiate. The exciting news is that we've reached a stage of space industry development where we have enough "discretionary resources" and minimized risks that we have the flexibility to engage in substantial nonessential mission components. Which means frivilous Moon trips are now in sight.
--
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Space travel is expensive. No space agency has all the money they need to accomplish their goals. We no longer have the public support we had in the 60's so private enterprise is required to help send us further. If the revenue from these tourists helps fund further space missions then it is justified.
Do we make sure anyone who wants to bankroll the first commercial car knows enough about cars' scientific purposes before we deign to allow him to use one?
Of course you should "let" rich people buy access that later funds democratization of the new technology.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Should paying people have a real scientific background or is money simply enough?
That should be up to whoever is behind the trip. Maybe if the tourists are completely useless, they'll have to pay more to make up for their dead weight. But we're not talking about buying your way into heaven or something. Sure, traveling to the moon was a big step for mankind, and it takes on mythic, almost religious significance for us for someone to go into space. But bottom line, it's just a new place we can go.
If you've got a rocket and I've got a sack of cash, why shouldn't we be able to make an arrangement? You can't do your science without funding anyway. There's no need to be elitist.
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.
I use SpellBound for Firefox. As for space tourists/flight participants, if they can positively contribute to experiments in a safe fashion they should be encouraged to help further defray the costs of their trip by working.
Face it, most of what people want to do is socialize. Science or other knowledge-acquiring endeavours are fringe activities for the small geek subpopulation. That being said, when technology becomes mass produced and sold to people in order to socialize, that lowers the cost and makes the science much cheaper to pursue.
I say make space travel mostly a entertainment/travel industry for now. As the general public finances it, there will be investment and competition by private industry. The cost of space travel will become so cheap that it will be feasible to manufacture in space, and also to throw a few experiments up there.
Forget about the science-and-engineering oriented utopia promised us by science fiction. As a general rule, people want bread and circus. It would be much more effecient to throw a few experiments on the bread-and-circus rockets than the way it's currently being financed.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Are you kidding? If I had several million to blow on a trip to space I sure as hell would do it.
I'd want to do stupid stuff too. Like put a tether on and fly around with a fire extinguisher rocket. I'd also probably be an idiot and shoot at the moon some. Then all us astronauts would run out and place space ball. I'm sure that'd be a sweet EVA.
I'd make most of my money back plugging Coke and Virgin Galactic. Then I'd make my own cereal called Space-O's which would really be fruit loops with different packaging and a charicature of my mug on it.
Eventually some aliens would catch my message in a bottle upside the head and be like...oh man, damn earthlings.
- Jack Handy's step-brother
The amount of scientific research necessary to make regular space travel useful is tremendous. It actually gives companies an incentive to invest research money into pure research because there is soooo much we have to figure out before it can really become part of normal life.
Let's cut the idealistic bullshit on something too. There is something about the government-centric approach to space that needs to be brought up. Who do you really trust to spend money wisely, an eccentric businessman who is getting involved directly like this or Congressmen and government bean counters? The government chose to lock us out of space travel on a private basis for a while and then did nothing to advance it.
This is just more evidence to me of why socialism cannot be trusted to provide for new and edgy research or art. This businessman doesn't have to think about the greater good, he only cares about his ability to fly into space and maybe advancing this for general society. I remember asking a socialist friend why a government owned media outlet would publish counter-culture works and small-time art/literature since there was no proven audience and it was all based on tax funds to produce it (thus an obligation to not be wasteful in publishing art). She couldn't give an honest answer. I think here we see the clear superiority of the free market. There is a lot of money to be made in space so there is a lot of reason for people to support research in this area.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I'll just start my own Space Tourism agency with hookers and Blackjack!
In fact, forget the Space Tourism.
Slashdot = -1 Redundant, Asperger, kdawson FUD, Libertarian, and Linux
Given that the space station itself doesn't have a real scientific purpose, using it to host tourists is perfectly appropriate.
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've seen this coming for a while, it will get more common and cheaper and accessible to the common man..
1) Space Tourism, trip to The Moon Disneyland with the kids..
2) Profit!
Share your Knowlege - Kung-Fu Geekery
Things have changed, right?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
..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
(I couldn't find the pound thingy on my keyboard so I typed $)
Here ya go. I included a few extras for the next time you need them...
£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £
Hope that helps.
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
I'm just waiting for the price to come down. When it becomes affordable, I'll be there!
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.
The fact is, space tourism is a reality and it is a joke in its current incarnation. Basically, these people are rich bastards who dreamed of being an astronaught (nothing wrong w/ that). Whenever I watch video of these guys up in space, they always look like some little kid yelling 'whopee!' as they go for a ride. Do these guys really think they are astronauts? More like preschool children to me...
Since space tourism is here, and probably here to stay, a more valid question is, is this a good thing?
I think it is if it generates more interest in space exploration. It is not if it supplants manned space exploration. It could happen...I can see space travel evolving into a rich man's vacation...something to brag about to other rich people. It could be very profitable, which would direct space efforts toward missions that enable more profitable tourism. NASA missions would be about looking for more ways to make money, not to explore, understand, and one day colonize.
Basically, many Americans now have given themselves over to artificial 'experience' rather than actually DOING something for themselves. The pioneering attitude that made America great has been supplanted by a spectator attitude.
An analogy to the European settlement of North American: Imagine if people had taken this spectator attitude at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Instead of colonies, they would have made condos. Lewis and Clark would have been sent to look for better vacation spots instead of mapping the west for modern habitation.
Space tourists get to do something cool, yes, but they are truly 'spam in a can'. Spectators. We should make sure they know that, and that the cutting edge of space research is devoted to fruitful scientific and explorational missions.
Thank you Dave Raggett
"space" has to pay for it to become the new frontier. There simply must be viable economic paths to orbit and beyond. Rand Simberg has said for years that it isn't the technology or even politics, but lack of good business plans that have kept commercial development away from space. Telecomm is the obvious exception, because it has a good biz plan, and tourism seems to be finally taking off. Good news for the future. I get a kick out of otaku in Gundam clothes.
Also, what better measure for getting into space than paying a set price? The price is high, but anyone can work hard with that goal in mind. That it is an open, priced product puts it on the level playing field for all. Being a government Chosen Hero of the State is in no way egalitarian, but an act of status. It allows NASA to fly senators and Saudi princes, but stick their nose up when asked about paying customers. John Denver BEGGED them to let him fly on Shuttle, as a paying customer, they said "screw".
Josh
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allow you to join the mile high club for 5 or 10k dollars
I don't think 'mile high club' means what you think it means.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Say what you will about Paul Allen (and given that he helped create Microsoft, there's probably not a lot of love lost for him here on slashdot), but rather than blow $20M on a narcissistic joyride, he funded Spaceship One and the first private venture to make it to space. That's cool. Damn cool.
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
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.
Science will come - but science isn't going to give us a colony on mars that we can go and visit. Industry will and capitalism.
I say bring it on.
It is time for the scientific strangle hold on manned space flight to end, and for our childhood dreams to come true.
It's not as if he handed someone a check for $20M and they shredded it right there. Same for ANY luxury item. People make 'em. Others sell 'em. People supply materials to make them and they get paid. Other people supply the suppliers and they get paid.
I suppose you yourself live in a one room hovel, and own no car, computer, cell phone, ipod/cd player, television, books, music, DVDs, extra clothes or shoes. Never eat out. Never see a movie.
If not, then for shame. Why are you spending money on yourself?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I prefer NASA's terminology: Payload Specialist.
But what would happen to that $20 million if it were not spent on space tourism? Unless you are suggesting we forcibly take the money from these rich people (which will certainly not solve the world's hunger problems), then that money would either have stayed in a bank account somewhere, or have been spent on something you would likely consider equally frivolous.
In any case, the money spent on this space tourism does not just disappear into space (har har); it goes to pay the people who work at the space agencies, who in turn spend it elsewhere, etc. I suggest you either learn to deal with the concept of a capitalist society or go live somewhere else (assuming you do live in one), where everything you earn can be taken from you and redistributed "to each according to his needs."
Your point about the environment is a separate issue, but because of the title of your post I have to assume the "wasting money on luxuries while people starve" bit was your main point.
Sadly, the real motivation for the original investment was a combination of chest thumping to beat the commies and crazy paranoia about what the commies could learn or do if they "got there first". The fact that there were massive profits from the technologies that were developed was only an incidental aspect (though not enough profit to defray all of the expenses--or they would already be a successful business and wouldn't need any additional tax money now).
In the current situation, I'm convinced their main rationale is some sort of publicity, though it's tainted by twisted hope. Most of the people working for the space agencies and making the decisions about tourists know their odds of making a lot of money are much higher than their odds of getting a flying role in the program. Therefore it makes more sense to hope they could go as a wealthy tourist some day.
They are all good mathematicians, so they are unlikely to be suckered by the lottery tax. I'm only raising it as a more rational economic model than space tourism. I suspect they would reject it for the same reason I would: I regard it as basically immoral to exploit other people's stupidity. (Shucks and darn, now I can't join BushCo.)
So why have a space program? Because there is still stuff worth learning. However, maybe we (America) can't afford it now.
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The guy's Japanese. What difference does it make to him whether he spends his money in Russia or America?
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