Very valid point. But for crew, there's already a demonstrated market for tourism, so at very least a few seats could be sold.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 09/02/2014 02:25 amVery valid point. But for crew, there's already a demonstrated market for tourism, so at very least a few seats could be sold.Do you really ever see SpaceX flying tourists?I think they turn their nose up at it.Foreign astronauts, sure, but Bigelow has to give 'em a destination first.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 09/02/2014 02:25 amVery valid point. But for crew, there's already a demonstrated market for tourism, so at very least a few seats could be sold.Do you really ever see SpaceX flying tourists?...
If their ultimate goal is to bring colonists to Mars, they have to start to start somewhere. But I agree that SpaceX prefers to be the transportation company but they have shown no intention of directly competing with Space Adventures.
We do wanna turn the Dragon capsule into a crew rated capsule. Right now only two countries can take astronauts into space - and I think that's a shame, I think we need to see more - Russia and China. The US lost that ability when we retired the Shuttle in 2011. So hopefully we will see more organizations coming forward and taking astronauts to space - I think its a critically important function for us as humans actually.So we've got an ascent test and abort test in early 14 and hopefully we will be flying demonstration flights in early 15 with crew. That'll be an exciting time, then everybody that wants to go to space, that can afford to go to space, should be able to go to space. - source
The closest I've heard to the company talking about space tourism was:
Which is curious since orbital tourism is basically the only business I see that could lead to high flight rates (50+) for commercial launch service providers in the next decade.
I'm sceptical though. Soyuz is cheap, so Space Adventures could have built a small station for tourists a long time ago if it were profitable to do so.
Bigelow isn't expecting tourists either.
Even suborbital tourism hasn't happened yet.
The principle of re-usability being worth it is axiomatically true.As a few people have pointed out above, the necessary hardware and market instantiations have yet to be realized.If it should come to pass that crew vehicles were to be as cheap as paper cups, then re-usability would no longer hold true.I did not know that these things were equipped with "fuzzy dice and beaded upholstery".
"Space Tourism" makes for a great image and the studies tend to paint a rather nice picture but the reality? Nobody's doing it much at the currrent price and it has to get REALLY cheap before it would be a major player. Worse I suppose is not many people have actually paid attention to what the people surveyed WANT from "Space Tourism" and it isn't cheap! They mostly wanted a cheap orbital "destination" (hotel) where they could be pampered and treated like an Earth hotel which entails a HUGE supply and infrastructure layout prior to coming into being. Very few would have been willing to pay large sums to "just" go up and orbit the Earth a few times, there had to be an "experiance" attached and sadly that won't happen without a lot of prior work being done on putting up the needed infrastructure.
It seems to me that space tourism just isn't a viable commercial venture....snip...I think the only way that commercial human spaceflight will ever be viable is through resource collection and manufacturing.
The cost is so high that your customer base is tiny, and repeat customers will be rare. With present or shortly-available technology, it just isn't a sustainable business model.
At present, there is no money to be made in going to space for the sake of going to space. We need an orbital gold rush to spur the infrastructure development that would make it a viable option.
It is my belief that tourism is usually an outgrowth of commerce, and not the other way around. Commerce creates the need for infrastructure, and tourism relies on that infrastructure. Tourism may eventually provide a significant amount of revenue for a location (think Hawaii and Orlando), but it doesn't start out that way.
Quote from: RanulfC on 09/04/2014 09:24 pm"Space Tourism" makes for a great image and the studies tend to paint a rather nice picture but the reality? Nobody's doing it much at the currrent price and it has to get REALLY cheap before it would be a major player. Worse I suppose is not many people have actually paid attention to what the people surveyed WANT from "Space Tourism" and it isn't cheap! They mostly wanted a cheap orbital "destination" (hotel) where they could be pampered and treated like an Earth hotel which entails a HUGE supply and infrastructure layout prior to coming into being. Very few would have been willing to pay large sums to "just" go up and orbit the Earth a few times, there had to be an "experiance" attached and sadly that won't happen without a lot of prior work being done on putting up the needed infrastructure.It seems to me that space tourism just isn't a viable commercial venture. The cost is so high that your customer base is tiny, and repeat customers will be rare. With present or shortly-available technology, it just isn't a sustainable business model. I think the only way that commercial human spaceflight will ever be viable is through resource collection and manufacturing. In the forseeable future, I only see two scenarios that could create a commercial space economy: 1) if there is an asteroid that could be mined for materials that are badly needed and rare enough on earth that asteroid mining is the cheapest way to get them, and 2) if a microgravity manufacturing or materials process is discovered for a product needed on earth that is so vastly superior to any earthbound equivalent that it justifies the expense.At present, there is no money to be made in going to space for the sake of going to space. We need an orbital gold rush to spur the infrastructure development that would make it a viable option....back to the original topic...
Quote from: SWGlassPit on 09/05/2014 02:56 pmQuote from: RanulfC on 09/04/2014 09:24 pm"Space Tourism" makes for a great image and the studies tend to paint a rather nice picture but the reality? Nobody's doing it much at the currrent price and it has to get REALLY cheap before it would be a major player. Worse I suppose is not many people have actually paid attention to what the people surveyed WANT from "Space Tourism" and it isn't cheap! They mostly wanted a cheap orbital "destination" (hotel) where they could be pampered and treated like an Earth hotel which entails a HUGE supply and infrastructure layout prior to coming into being. Very few would have been willing to pay large sums to "just" go up and orbit the Earth a few times, there had to be an "experiance" attached and sadly that won't happen without a lot of prior work being done on putting up the needed infrastructure.It seems to me that space tourism just isn't a viable commercial venture. The cost is so high that your customer base is tiny, and repeat customers will be rare. With present or shortly-available technology, it just isn't a sustainable business model. I think the only way that commercial human spaceflight will ever be viable is through resource collection and manufacturing. In the forseeable future, I only see two scenarios that could create a commercial space economy: 1) if there is an asteroid that could be mined for materials that are badly needed and rare enough on earth that asteroid mining is the cheapest way to get them, and 2) if a microgravity manufacturing or materials process is discovered for a product needed on earth that is so vastly superior to any earthbound equivalent that it justifies the expense.At present, there is no money to be made in going to space for the sake of going to space. We need an orbital gold rush to spur the infrastructure development that would make it a viable option....back to the original topic......unless you lift quite a bunch of people at a time, like 100 or more...
Quote from: OliI'm sceptical though. Soyuz is cheap, so Space Adventures could have built a small station for tourists a long time ago if it were profitable to do so.Remember MIR?Quote from: OliBigelow isn't expecting tourists either.http://spaceadventures.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.viewnews&newsid=809
The defense industrial players weren't interested because that wasn't their business.
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 09/05/2014 03:18 pmIt is my belief that tourism is usually an outgrowth of commerce, and not the other way around. Commerce creates the need for infrastructure, and tourism relies on that infrastructure. Tourism may eventually provide a significant amount of revenue for a location (think Hawaii and Orlando), but it doesn't start out that way.Tourism is commerce, and it's just like any other business.
One does a market survey.
If enough customers are present to make a product viable, a business can be formed.
If the customers are there before any other kind of business takes place, then tourism drives infrastructure development and any other viable businesses follow.
JAXA paid for a number of market surveys back in the early 90's for orbital and suborbital space tourism. Even back then, they found a sufficient customer base to support a space tourism business.
It's taken a while for non-defense players to develop who are willing to address the market, but my point is that the market surveys have said that the market was there for a while now.
Reusability reduces capital equipment expenditures, but it also has the potential to increase costs by destroying mass production.
I've wondered how SpaceX will deal with that fact; they stumbled into a low-cost means of rocket manufacture by building lots of smallish engines, but if they build reusable rockets their mass production will go away. Obviously they've calculated that the tradeoff favors reuse.