Affordable Space Travel is Within Reach

The debate as to when affordable space travel is to be within reach of the ordinary person continues, although it will not be long before you and I can take the next space hopper to the moon. The signs are there and groups of people are doing their best to help reduce the costs of space travel to us if we want it.

Since 2001 there have been five people willing to pay $20 million to experience the thrill of space by traveling on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station. That is a lot of money for what is no more than a unique vacation, but even so the Russian space agency is booked up until 2009. How would you like to take a trip like that?

Just imagine the thrill of making your way to Houston, or even to Russia, to catch the next flight to the moon or Mars, or even just to the local space station. That may not be as far away as you think, and it is certainly more than just a comic book story. After all, you can do it now can’t you? If you have a spare twenty million bucks, that is, but how many of us have money like that to spend on our vacation? Not many, and the problem there is to overcome the belief that only the very rich are able to travel on these extraterrestrial journeys.

Why don’t we get together to promote space tourism for the ordinary man? Joe public is paying for all this space travel through taxes of one kind or another and deserves a cut of the action. And this may not be as far into the future as you might think. Part of New Mexico has already been earmarked as Spaceport America, and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has taken a 20 year lease for the use of it with initial plans for thrice daily 20 minute space trips.

Some companies are actively supporting and promoting the opening up of this type of space tourism, and the public should be made aware of the exciting possibilities that are just around the corner. However, to promote space travel into an overwhelming tide of public interest and demand, public awareness that this is attainable in their lifetime must be stimulated and boosted through simple commercial advertising that also donates to the funds required to make commercial public space travel possible.

It has already started, and apart from Richard Branson’s interest, hotel billionaire Robert Bigelow acquired an inflatable ‘space hotel’ from NASA that is now orbiting earth as a test module. The first true space hotel is estimated to be available by around 2010. That is certainly not what you could call the ‘far future’.

Steve Bennet, a British entrepreneur, owns a tried and tested space rocket, the Starchaser, that he his hoping will one day take space tourists from Spaceport America on a vacation of a lifetime. Even if it is not that particular vehicle, there are others being designed for private use. Once upon a time individual rocket packs were something you saw in the James Bond movies. You can now purchase your own, without restriction, in sports shops and even department stores the world over.

It’s all happening and apart from the millions being poured into the construction and operation of such projects by established billionaires, it requires funding so that it will come within the price range of ordinary people and not just other billionaires. There are many ways to fund such projects, but until the public has been made aware of the fact that these are real opportunities, and not just the stuff of comic books, then the drive to support and promote space tourism to the public will not be there.

Money is even now being generated by private industry to achieve this, and there are companies like DestinySpace Enterprises selling space apparel, part of the proceeds of which go towards making the dream of low cost space tourism a reality, and others that are similarly donating or offering space trips as prizes for skill games.

In an e-mail correspondence with President and founder of DestinySpace Enterprises David M. Jankowski, he is quoted as saying “Merchandising is a very good way in which to set about achieving this and many other goals, particularly when the products involved are related in some way to space travel. It is the need to make the public more aware, and to build up a groundswell of opinion in favor of affordable space travel, that has to be promoted.
Once this need has been recognized then perhaps there will be more done by private and public subscription towards achieving the desired end of enabling ordinary people to travel into space without the need for a $20 million bankroll.”