ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico -- In the last few years, personal
space travel has become a far more feasible business proposition.
But much
work remains in fostering and then sustaining such an enterprise. For one,
there is need not to over-promise ticket-paying customers about prospective
space jaunts--adventure that will be costly for the foreseeable future and far
from risk-free.
Meanwhile,
passenger space travel into Earth orbit may well be accelerated by a new NASA
effort to bolster the commercial orbital transportation business.
Those
messages came from experts in passenger space travel taking part in the Space
Technology & Applications International Forum (STAIF) being held here this
week.
Kinetic
energy
Derek Webber,
Director of Spaceport Associates in Rockville, Maryland said that a good start
has been made in making a business case for public space travel.
For one,
the success of the Ansari X Prize in 2004; even at price tags in the range of
$150,000 per trip, there are already waiting lists of eager folk anxious for
their suborbital trip, Webber said.
"The
orbital space tourism experience is, however, much harder to provide," Webber
explained.
"It is
harder technically because of the higher kinetic energy trajectories that need
to be flown," Webber continued, "and it is harder commercially, because
significantly fewer potential travelers will be able to afford the prices for
such missions, expected to be in the order of $10 million per trip."
Billions
and billions
Webber said
that suborbital passenger travel is well on the way with groups like Sir
Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and Rocketplane. "So I have turned my
attention to orbital, which of course is where many of the benefits are to be
found...if it can be done," he added.
"It will be
beneficial to the whole aerospace sector for a successful orbital space tourism
industry to develop," Webber reported. "It will enable new levels of cost into orbit
and reliability and reusability to be obtained that will benefit all space
sectors. It will generate billions of dollars in business," he advised.
"But
perhaps the most important benefits of a successful development of this sector
will be through the transformational changes and insights obtained by the
orbital space tourism elite as they renter everyday life after their personal
journeys into space," Webber observed.
Webber said
that he is hopeful that NASA's new effort to purchase Commercial Orbital Transportation
Services--often called COTS--will stimulate orbital space tourism.
Count on
COTS?
NASA has
established the Commercial Crew/Cargo Project Office at the Johnson Space
Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas as part of the Exploration Systems Mission
Directorate. That office is to evaluate COTS proposals.
NASA
intends to enter into agreements with private industry to develop and
demonstrate the vehicles, systems, and operations needed to resupply, return
cargo from, and transport crew to and from a human space facility, with the
International Space Station (ISS) providing the representative requirements for
such a facility.
"The COTS
procurement exercise is the way to do it," Webber told SPACE.com. That
is, build something to satisfy NASA needs to get U.S. astronauts up to the ISS,
and then use it for orbital tourism when not being used by NASA.
"Of course,
under COTS, the vehicle remains the property of the manufacturer/developer," Webber
said. It remains to be seen whether entrepreneurial outfits will get the
necessary funding, when the COTS awards are announced later in the year, he
said.
Promoting
the private world
"NASA is
actively looking at putting significant funds into promoting the commercial
world...to be able to buy these services from commercial vendors rather than
have to develop and build everything ourselves," Scott Horowitz, NASA Associate
Administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, told STAIF attendees
earlier this week.
A COTS
solicitation was issued by NASA last month, with proposals to be turned into
the space agency shortly, Horowitz added. COTS funds available spread out over
several years is some $500 million, he said.
"We thought
originally we'd get maybe a dozen or so people proposing to provide commercial
crew and cargo transportation services," Horowitz explained. It now appears
that NASA will review some 90 different proposals in response to the
competition, he added.
By purchasing
commercial services to provide cargo and crew services to the ISS, Horowitz
noted, the intent is that the private world will develop and operate vehicles
more efficiently and more cost-effectively than NASA. That would allow the
space agency to fund more research and technology necessary to carry out its
exploration mandate, he said.
Adventure
travel
How best to sell space and take adventure to a higher level
was outlined by Jane Reifert, President of Incredible Adventures, Inc., based
in Sarasota, Florida.
Reifert advised that insight about and catering to today's
adventure travelers and their dreams, desires and demographics "is critical to
the expansion of the civilian space industry."
"The individuals who will fill the space planes and space hotels
of the future will bear little resemblance to the camera-toting tourists who
crowd theme parks and cruise ships," Reifert reported. "They will, however,
look very much like the doctors, lawyers, computer professionals and business
owners who are flying jet fighters, floating in zero-gravity and diving with
sharks today."
Reifert's advice: "Anyone developing a civilian space
enterprise should look to those who pioneered the adventure travel industry for
guidance."
Reality
checklist
Reifert spelled
out a 10-point checklist on how to build a successful adventure business--a
no-nonsense, down-to-Earth checklist that doubles as a primer for space tourism
companies.
In
Reifert's view:
-- Hire the
right front office team
-- Choose your
sales force carefully
-- Know
your potential customers
-- Create a
unique product
-- Design
great marketing materials
-- Pay
attention to the legal paperwork
-- Plan for
the worst case
-- Make
customer service a priority.
-- Pick
your agents and partners carefully.
-- Don't
make promises you aren't sure you can keep.
"If I ever
use the word safe on one of my adventures, my lawyer would slap me upside the
head," Reifert told a STAIF audience. "Everything we offer is going to be
inherently risky...and we state that over and over again."
Space
travelers have to understand that they are taking a risk..."and it has to be one
that they knowingly acknowledge," Reifert said.
Five-star
experience
For the most part, Reifert continued, those now promoting a
five-star space tourism experience are painting a rosy and optimistic picture,
one that is based on thousands of flights with long lines of tourists hungry to
head for space.
"But the reality is...that might not happen," Reifert said.
Her experience is that things never quite jell as easily or as well as you
think they will, urging public space travel advocates to base the business on
realistic expectations.
"Nobody really knows anything," Reifert suggested, given
uncertainties in when passenger-toting spaceships are to be ready for flight,
as well as the regulations that will also shape the space tourism market.
"It has to be presented as such to customers...that they too
are in this same new, brave and exciting field with you," she said.
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