Personal flight into space is not yet a cash-and-carry business.
However, things are looking up: The privately-built and financed SpaceShipOne
has flown. Passenger-carrying suborbital spaceships are being built. The pulse
of public interest in rocketing high above Earth is being felt. And even ticket
prices are set.
Nevertheless, just how fast the lines will form, and what
type of person is ready and willing to toss down cash to become a payload
headed for space will require a bit of crystal ball, wait-and-see watching.
And according to a businesswoman, there are already lessons
learned that if not heeded might hold back the sky-high hopes of space tourism
operators.
Exceed
expectations on all levels
"For a long time, I resisted attending the space conferences
and sharing my knowledge of adventure travelers," Jane Reifert, President of
Incredible Adventures, Inc. told SPACE.com.
"But I now worry that if I don't speak up, expensive mistakes will be made that
will grind the space tourism industry to a halt before it gets off the
ground."
Since 1993, the Sarasota, Florida-based group has offered
high-performance jet rides, high-altitude skydiving, and other daring but
doable venues for patrons. They have also added suborbital flights to their
offerings, partnering with Rocketplane Ltd. of Oklahoma
City to supply ticket-in-hand consumers a roundtrip flight between
a spaceport in Oklahoma
and the edge of space.
One thing that Reifert is emphatic about is get to know your
client base.
Reifert said that one worry she has is that a lot of great
engineers out there working on the first generation of space tourism vehicles
"simply don't have a clue" regarding their passengers. After all, a good
architect wouldn't design a house without first considering the wants and needs
of the people who will live inside, she added.
"I fear aerospace engineers are so wrapped up in determining
engine specifications and flight trajectories that they haven't stopped to
consider who will ride in their vehicles," Reifert said.
Simply keeping the passengers alive isn't enough, Reifert
added. "To gain continued public support for civilian space travel, the initial
vehicles have to exceed expectations on all levels. If customers are
disappointed or feel they didn't receive the experience they were promised at
the suborbital level, it'll hurt any chances for orbital tourism."
"Field
of Dreams" curse
Drawing from a range of experiences that her firm has
gathered since 1993, Reifert has crafted a 10-point "Profile of a Space
Tourist" - and for those hankering to mold the space travel business, her
points about space thrill seekers are well worth noting:
1) They aren't rocket
scientists.
2) They may be "super-sized".
3) They won't really care where you put
your spaceport.
4) They shouldn't be expected to meet
stringent physical requirements.
5) They don't like surprises and expect
perfection.
6) They aren't overly concerned with
price or safety.
7) They're short on time.
8) They'll likely be men over 50.
9) They will come from around the globe.
10) They're nothing like the tourists that show up at Disney parks.
Recently taking part in a university study group's view of
an orbital tourism business, Reifert said she was miffed when one set of
graduate students earmarked absolutely nothing for sales and marketing costs.
"When I asked why they hadn't budgeted anything to pay a
company like Incredible Adventures to sell flights, they said they were sure
the media would give them a lot of exposure, like they had for the SpaceShipOne
flights. The students had what I call the 'Field of Dreams' curse....the 'build
it and they will come' mentality. I sense several of the companies working to
develop civilian space vehicles have the same unrealistic view of reality,"
Reifert explained.
Grasping
weightlessness
In Reifert's view, few people can grasp the meaning of
suborbital flight. That being the unfortunate case, people will not buy
something they cannot understand. "Those who really want to see a space
tourism industry need to be launching a public
relations and education campaign...and that will cost money," she advised
While public access to aircraft-supplied zero gravity for a
fee is now available within the United
States, Reifert said that too few people
understand what it's like to experience weightlessness.
"People didn't rush out to buy DVD players when they first came
on the market. They first had to be educated in their advantages and made
to understand the movie-viewing experience they'd enjoy," Reifert concluded.
Growing
interest
There is no doubt that the personal spaceflight industry is
turning the corner, in terms of becoming a reality-based affair, not a Twilight
Zone fantasy world. The signposts up ahead are becoming easier to read.
Space Adventures, Ltd., a leading space experiences company
based in Arlington, Virginia,
announced this week the official opening of an office in Tokyo, Japan
and the inauguration of a Japanese-language Space Adventures web site. The firm
explained in a press statement that they've received thousands of requests from
Japan,
and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, with individuals hungry for
more information on opportunities available today for space tourism.
"We have seen a trend in the last 18 months of a growing
interest in private space exploration from Japan," explained Eric Anderson,
president and Chief Executive Officer of Space Adventures.
Up-and-going
price
Anderson's
company was the first provider of orbital trips to space, handling pay-per-view
customers, American businessman Dennis Tito and South African entrepreneur, Mark
Shuttleworth - each shelling out millions of dollars for a Russian Soyuz rocket
ride and a stay aboard the International Space Station. According to Anderson, the group will
announce a Japanese space tourist in the coming weeks.
According to Space Adventures, a study undertaken by the University
of Tokyo Research Center for Advanced Science and
Technology has pinged public attitudes towards space exploration. Among the
findings of their 10-year study, they discovered "an enormous unsatisfied
desire among the general public to travel to space for themselves." Some 80 percent of young people up to the age
of 40 would like to trek into space, and 30 percent of people in their 60's and
70's also stated they would like to travel to space, the study found.
A Space Adventures' suborbital program is currently in
development, the firm has stated. It will consist of a four-day training period
and a 90-minute spaceflight, with passengers experiencing up to five minutes of
continuous weightlessness. The company is working with several of the leading
space vehicle manufacturing companies and notes it is the first company to
accept deposits from suborbital spaceflight clients, currently totaling over
$2,000,000. Space Adventures is anticipating suborbital spaceflights to
commence in the 2007-08 timeframe and the current, "up and going" price for the
program is $102,000.
Enterprise and Eve
Not to be left behind and breathe the rocket fumes of any
competitor, enter Virgin Galactic. This new subsidiary of the Virgin Group, a
British conglomerate run by tycoon Sir Richard Branson, has contracted famed
aerospace designer Burt Rutan and his Scaled Composites teammates in Mojave, California to supply a
fleet of public-carrying suborbital vehicles.
Last year, the Mojave Aerospace Ventures penned a $21.5
million deal with the Virgin Group to license suborbital reusable launch
vehicle technology based on Rutan's SpaceShipOne rocket plane. A $100 million
investment plan has been developed to build up to five spaceships.
Virgin Galactic recently reported that work is well underway
in the Mojave Desert on the initial design and technical feasibility of Virgin
SpaceShip "Enterprise" and MotherShip "Eve".
"Although we can't divulge any details yet, we are confident
that our safety and configuration specifications can and will be met and that
we will very soon be able to move to the construction stage of the project,"
explained Alex Tai, Head of Operations at Virgin Galactic in a newsletter
update.
Space
is still available
The first flights under Virgin
Galactic are planned to begin as early as 2008. Ticket
price for a person's space hop has been set at $200,000.
"Flights are filling quickly but space is still available.
Refundable deposits of at least 10 percent will be required to secure a seat,"
the space travel company's web site explains. "Our aim is to reduce ticket
prices as the business grows over the coming years. We plan to offer the
opportunity to reserve these tickets by payment of a small deposit against a
future space flight at a time and price that suits you."
Virgin Galactic is busy surveying prospective suborbital
space passengers - tagging them as astronauts in view of the altitude their
vehicles will carry them: 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth.
Part of the questionnaire asks any future astronaut traveler
to rank in order of importance the features of suborbital space flight,
such as: becoming a space pioneer by flying in the first year of flights,
viewing Earth from space, experiencing supersonic flight at over three times
the speed of sound, undergoing acceleration forces at over four times normal
gravity and feeling weightless, the reputation of the space line operator, as
well as space ship safety features.
The
potential space traveler is also queried about any qualms the person might have
about traveling with Virgin Galactic, be they safety concerns, price, value for
money, health and fitness requirements, at least a three-year wait, and the U.S.
launch location.
Lofty
plans
Last month, Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic,
told the U.S. House of Representative's Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics
that his company has even loftier plans. "Our long-term goal is to develop
commercial space tourism into an orbital business which could in the future
carry payloads as well as people into orbit," he testified in a written
statement.
Also speaking before subcommittee lawmakers, Burt Rutan
predicted that the commercial private spaceflight industry - once the revenue
begins to flow - upwards of 100,000 space travelers will have "enjoyed that
black sky view" by the twelfth year of operations.
By achieving the goals of building safe, affordable, and
experience-optimized suborbital spaceships, "this is going to be a much, much
bigger market than anyone imagines," Rutan said.
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