This video clip shows some newer technological developments for space tourism and its economic aspects. Multiple companies are working on space tourism projects in order to get regular people into space.
Space tourism began in 2001 when Dennis Tito, an American multimillionaire, boarded the Soyuz spacecraft with the Russian Space Agency and became the first-ever space tourist. He spent a little more than a week in orbit, during which time he conducted scientific experiments. It is suggested that Tito paid somewhere between $12 and $20 million for his space excursion. As time goes on, it seems to be getting more and more likely that regular people will be able to travel into space as tourists, which opens up an entirely new frontier for the economic impacts of tourism.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Opinions of Space Tourism
During my research, I came across these polls, which are very informative of whether people from different countries and different age groups would be interested in going to space as a tourist. It also gives valuable information on what they'd do in space, how long they'd stay, and how much they'd pay to go there, plus it includes a poll of reasons why people not interested in going would decline a trip to space.
Fig. 1: Percent of respondents interested in going to space by age and country
Fig. 1 describes the basic level of interest in travelling to space, broken down by age and country. The bars to the right represent the total percentage of people willing to travel to space. As can be seen, the Japanese are very enthusiastic. Germans do not seem to be that interested, with only 43%. Abitzsch attributes this to the more prosaic German life-style.
Fig. 2: Preferred activities during a space trip by country
Fig. 2 shows the preferred activities of the respondents while on their space trip. The simplest thing to do, watching the Earth, is also the most popular. This goes for all the nationalities included. With the exception of taking a space walk, the other activities are fairly easy to realize as well.
Fig. 3: Preferred length of space trip by country
Fig. 3 shows the preferred length of a space trip. Obviously, once people are up there they prefer to stay for a while. There is no major difference between the different surveys in this matter. A logical conclusion of this is that the full potential of space tourism will not be reached as long as there are no orbital hotels.
Fig. 4: Amount people would pay for a space trip by country
How much are these people willing to pay? Shown in Fig. 4, this is maybe the most interesting question of all. The problem with comparing these numbers is that people earn different amounts in different countries, as well as there being a difference in how much they can buy for what they earn.
To remedy this, the amounts are shown as a multiple of an average income per capita in each country. In order not to have to worry about exchange rates and inflation rate distortions, the so called Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) in international dollars ($int.) have been used as a common monetary database. Based on a globally standardized market basket, the real purchasing power of an income could be compared directly among several countries.
The PPP values used are (year of comparison: 1994):
Germany 16580 $int.
Japan 20200 $int.
USA 25850 $int.
Fig. 5: Reason for not being interested in going to space
Fig. 5 shows the reasons why people are not interested in going to space. 5-10% didn't think it was realistic and about 1/3 said safety was their main concern. This could mean that when space tourism becomes a reality and proves to be safe enough, these two groups might change their mind.
All of these polls got me to thinking:
If you had the opportunity to go to space as a tourist, would you go, and why/why not?
Do you think space tourism would be worthwhile?
[These polls were obtained from the market research on the demand for space tourism done by Patrick Collins, which can be viewed from this website:
http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/space_tourism_and_its_effects_on_space_commercialization.shtml]
Fig. 1: Percent of respondents interested in going to space by age and country
Fig. 1 describes the basic level of interest in travelling to space, broken down by age and country. The bars to the right represent the total percentage of people willing to travel to space. As can be seen, the Japanese are very enthusiastic. Germans do not seem to be that interested, with only 43%. Abitzsch attributes this to the more prosaic German life-style.
Fig. 2: Preferred activities during a space trip by country
Fig. 2 shows the preferred activities of the respondents while on their space trip. The simplest thing to do, watching the Earth, is also the most popular. This goes for all the nationalities included. With the exception of taking a space walk, the other activities are fairly easy to realize as well.
Fig. 3: Preferred length of space trip by country
Fig. 3 shows the preferred length of a space trip. Obviously, once people are up there they prefer to stay for a while. There is no major difference between the different surveys in this matter. A logical conclusion of this is that the full potential of space tourism will not be reached as long as there are no orbital hotels.
Fig. 4: Amount people would pay for a space trip by country
How much are these people willing to pay? Shown in Fig. 4, this is maybe the most interesting question of all. The problem with comparing these numbers is that people earn different amounts in different countries, as well as there being a difference in how much they can buy for what they earn.
To remedy this, the amounts are shown as a multiple of an average income per capita in each country. In order not to have to worry about exchange rates and inflation rate distortions, the so called Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) in international dollars ($int.) have been used as a common monetary database. Based on a globally standardized market basket, the real purchasing power of an income could be compared directly among several countries.
The PPP values used are (year of comparison: 1994):
Germany 16580 $int.
Japan 20200 $int.
USA 25850 $int.
Fig. 5: Reason for not being interested in going to space
Fig. 5 shows the reasons why people are not interested in going to space. 5-10% didn't think it was realistic and about 1/3 said safety was their main concern. This could mean that when space tourism becomes a reality and proves to be safe enough, these two groups might change their mind.
All of these polls got me to thinking:
If you had the opportunity to go to space as a tourist, would you go, and why/why not?
Do you think space tourism would be worthwhile?
[These polls were obtained from the market research on the demand for space tourism done by Patrick Collins, which can be viewed from this website:
http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/space_tourism_and_its_effects_on_space_commercialization.shtml]
Sunday, January 6, 2008
The Potentials of Biological Discoveries in Mars
This video details the journey of the Phoenix Mars mission, which is literally a rebirth; an enormous financial and technological loss occurred in 1997 when the Mars Polar Lander was lost. The main goals of the Phoenix are to make biological discoveries, and hopefully, finding out more about the factors of life on Mars will help us to understand them better here on our own planet, and everywhere else as well.
With the financial and technological losses that have occurred and could potentially occur again in the future in mind, are the billions of dollars spent on our space missions worth it?
With the financial and technological losses that have occurred and could potentially occur again in the future in mind, are the billions of dollars spent on our space missions worth it?
Discoveries of Water on Mars
This video shows some of the important discoveries made from observing pictures taken from Mars orbiters that NASA has sent. There are many possibilities as to how this information can be used in the present and in the future. These discoveries are over a year old, so they aren't even completely recent, and already sending spacecrafts to Mars has yielded us beneficial information which lead to a better understanding of our next-door neighbor in space.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
From Space Race to Space Travel
Although the study of astronomy has existed for many centuries, actual space travel has only really existed in the past fifty years or so, beginning with the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. At first, this was mainly a matter of pride, staking the two dissimilar governments against each other to see which one was better and could reach the farthest into space. There are many implications in today's world of space travel on the economy.
Space missions cost billions of dollars--NASA spent $40 billion on the Apollo missions, but the cost of these missions was borne as a matter of national pride and ambition during the space race to the moon, and it afterwards quickly became so unacceptable to spend such a large amount of money that the series was curtailed. Military possibilities and interests allowed the continuation of the Skylab program, and shuttles proved to be useful.
Now, as we look to the present and the future of space travel programs, it seems that space settlement is becoming a major goal, which may be in part due to the realization that Earth's resources are limited; the damage we're inflicting upon Earth, combined with the other impending damages from other causes, is highly difficult to reverse, and perhaps eventual settlements in space could help us to explore and find resources elsewhere in space. For example, it appears highly likely that there will be [manned] missions to Mars within the next twenty years (probably less).
Lots of progress is being made in space technology all the time, and it seems that the U.S. government will try to spend more in the NASA programs with the goal of reaching Mars, along with other important missions. Eastern countries such as China and India have also been recently contributing to the space travel efforts. It seems that the advantages of space travel are spreading around the world, and perhaps its usefulness will motivate us to find out more about our solar system, our galaxy, and our universe.
Space missions cost billions of dollars--NASA spent $40 billion on the Apollo missions, but the cost of these missions was borne as a matter of national pride and ambition during the space race to the moon, and it afterwards quickly became so unacceptable to spend such a large amount of money that the series was curtailed. Military possibilities and interests allowed the continuation of the Skylab program, and shuttles proved to be useful.
Now, as we look to the present and the future of space travel programs, it seems that space settlement is becoming a major goal, which may be in part due to the realization that Earth's resources are limited; the damage we're inflicting upon Earth, combined with the other impending damages from other causes, is highly difficult to reverse, and perhaps eventual settlements in space could help us to explore and find resources elsewhere in space. For example, it appears highly likely that there will be [manned] missions to Mars within the next twenty years (probably less).
Lots of progress is being made in space technology all the time, and it seems that the U.S. government will try to spend more in the NASA programs with the goal of reaching Mars, along with other important missions. Eastern countries such as China and India have also been recently contributing to the space travel efforts. It seems that the advantages of space travel are spreading around the world, and perhaps its usefulness will motivate us to find out more about our solar system, our galaxy, and our universe.
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