A Russian Soyuz rocket and its crew rumbled off toward the International Space Station on Wednesday. But left on Earth to croon a different tune was Lance Bass from the pop band 'N Sync.

An unabashed space case, Bass had prepped for a seat aboard that 12-day Soyuz taxi mission for months. He learned Russian. He got an A-OK flight physical. He received high-tech tutoring by top-notch cosmonauts and astronauts not to touch certain buttons.

However, Bass was unable to pay the "going rate" to become the third ever space tourist, running out of the time needed to pull together the hefty $20 million fee.

In many ways being left at the launch pad, a few dollars short and hoping for better times is symbolic of status of public space tourism.

Along with its own internal research, Futron subcontracted the highly respected polling outfit, Zogby International, to further refine just how strong public space travel interests might be. A total of 450 individuals took part in 30-minute surveys done over the phone. Those polled were "qualified individuals", meaning the survey was restricted to very wealthy folks.

"We found that as long as the Russians are willing to fly passengers into orbit, there's going to be enough people willing to spend the $20 million. The rate would be two to three a year, and up to as high as 50 passengers a year by 2020, even at current prices," Webber told SPACE.com, assuming that a destination like the ISS is available for the travelers.

For suborbital, quick journeys up to the edge of space and back down, there's a good story there too.

"They want to do it. A $100,000 is not a disincentive to what many people would think is a lifetime experience. You see two horizons. The normal horizon we all know, and then you see the thin film of the Earth's atmosphere. That's what you're getting. You get the black sky," Webber said. Yet there is one slight setback, he added.

The problem is that there are no safe and sane, suborbital passenger rockets. "We're hoping this survey data will help in the venture funding side of this, to help those companies build the vehicles," Webber said.

There is no question in Webber's mind that a chuckle factor regarding public space travel is long gone.

"We do think space travel is going to be one of those things that people try and fit in their life experience. Here we are, next year it'll be a 100 years after the Wright Brothers flew. So the time is right. The beginnings of public space travel are beginning to happen. It will slowly grow. I think the giggle factor is gone," Webber said.

Phil McAlister, Futron's Director of Space & Telecommunications, said that those surveyed were given the straight skinny about flying into space.

"There are some realities associated with space travel. One of them is that it's inherently risky. A person can get nauseous while on orbit. After orbital flight, you might experience dizziness on coming back, perhaps even get backaches," McAlister explained. "Everyone was told about the positive and less positive attributes associated with the experience. Our feeling is that we have good, realistic analysis of the demand for this kind of service," he said.

McAlister said Futron researchers spent time picking the right adjective to best describe the overall survey findings.

"The adjective we came up with is 'promising'this is indeed a very, very promising market, if you can overcome technological, regulatory, and other hurdles. But in terms of the market demand, it is very promising," McAlister said.

McAlister said that the last year of the forecast, 2021, over 15,000 passengers could be taking suborbital hops. That would represent revenue of close to $800 million. That same time period, 60 passengers a year are likely to be flying, representing a market of over $300 million.

"That is a very, very good market for just about any industry these days," McAlister added.

Data assembled by the Futron/Zogby public space travel polling partnership is available for purchase, although pricey.

"Our real hope is that we're advancing the whole market of space tourism. The economic impact associated with this kind of market is significant. And the nation that provides this kind of service will experience significant economic benefits," McAlister suggested.

Although public space travel studies are vital, they are no substitute for flying hardware.

Based in St. Louis, Missouri, the X Prize wants to put pedal to the metal.

An X Prize competition has been created to attract the best and brightest of today's aerospace engineers to develop private spaceships for space tourism. To win a $10 million purse, teams must privately finance, build and fly a three-person spacecraft 62 miles (100 kilometers) up to the edge of space. The spacecraft must return safely, and then demonstrate the reusability of their vehicle by flying it again within two-weeks.

No small order. Yet over 20 registered X Prize teams from six nations are hard at work on a range of novel craft. Several X Prize contenders are nearing flight-ready test time.

"I see dead people," said one aerospace industry observer. He worries that the grab for millions of dollars could lead to shortcuts in testing, less-than-safe flying machines, and injured or, worse yet, killed in action amateur space pilots.

That attitude causes Peter Diamandis, Chairman and Founder of the X Prize, to bristle.

"There is no question that there is risk involved in winning the X Prize and opening the space frontier," Diamandis told SPACE.com.

"The X PRIZE is up front about this risk and requires teams to abide by all applicable national, regional and local laws in making their flights. We also allow teams to fly one person plus ballast on their flights rather than risk three lives on these flights. In addition, teams can incorporate an ejection seat into their design and count the weight of this ejection seat against the ballast of the two additional people if they desire," Diamandis said

"The bottom line is that there is riskbut this is a risk worth taking!", Diamandis explained. "Many forget that tens-of-thousands of people risked their lives to open the 'New World' and tens of thousands more risked their lives in opening the west. Space is a frontier and frontiers are risky! These teams should have, must have, the right to take risks that they believe are worthwhile and significant," he said.

"Those of us who are dreamers and doers should have the right to take such risks. The rest can stay home and watch the future happen on TV," Diamandis concluded.

Eric Anderson, President and CEO of Space Adventures Ltd., headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, expects there will be significant advancement in suborbital spacecraft development over the next few years. The first test flights of those vehicles could come as early as 2003-2004, he said.

Last July, as example, rocket plane builder, XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, California, and Space Adventures joined forces. They are offering the first 600 suborbital flights to 62 miles (100 kilometers) altitude aboard XCOR's prospective Xerus vehicle, designed specifically to handle suborbital tourist traffic.

Space Adventure is also eyeing use of the Cosmopolis XXI, also tagged the C-21. This proposed plane would be airlifted by carrier aircraft - then unleashed as a two-stage approach to suborbital passenger travel. A full-scale model of the reusable C-21 was unveiled last March in Russia.

Anderson also added that Russian Soyuz taxi flights to the ISS will continue "with at least one space tourist visiting the station in 2003," he told SPACE.com.

A budding, full-service space tourism firm, Space Adventures plans to make available for the first time space flight simulation and training programs within the United States. These activities, to start next year, add to the selection of space experiences "that people can participate in without actually buying a ticket to space," he said.

Fuss, fumes, and flames

A slow but steady pathway to space tourism is predicted by Alan Ladwig, Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Government Relations for the Zero Gravity Corporation (Zero-G) of Santa Monica, California.

Zero-G is a newly formed company that plans to start offering commercial parabolic flights within the United States in 2003.

Free-floating for a fee is the idea.

Using a modified Boeing 727 aircraft, parabolic maneuvers taken by the plane give wannabe space travelers an encounter with sustained weightlessness - but without all the fuss, fumes, and flames from riding a rocket.

Ladwig said that flight of paying customers to the International Space Station is "a nod in the right direction." However, he contends that making orbital flight a routine tourist destination is some years away.

"The key obstacle is the same thing that has been holding back space development for the past 30 years a safe, economical, reliable transportation system," Ladwig points out. "Without such a capability, all the visionary talk of space tourism is just a bunch of hype," he said.

As a former NASA executive, Ladwig lives by a weighty but enlightened rule on loan to him by a space agency mentor: "If you cant break gravity, you aint got squat!"

"Space tourism will occur. But it will evolve more slowly than most of us have the patience forand it will focus on experiences closer to home," Ladwig said. Those more "down-to-Earth" adventures include such things as terrestrial tours to space-related locales or high-speed, high-altitude jet flights.

"Zero-G's parabolic flight services are intended to make the exhilaration of weightlessness more accessible to people in the United States, Ladwig said. In a couple of years, he added, some enterprising company will step forward as winner of the X Prize, which will enable the beginnings of a suborbital flight market.

"Lets hope the projections uncovered in the Futron tourism study will be realized once suborbital services become available," Ladwig concluded.

Looking outward in the hopes of clearly identifying a still hazy public space travel market can give you eye strain.

Nevertheless, focusing on emerging commercial space opportunities is critical, said Jason Andrews, President of Andrews Space & Technology, with offices in El Segundo, California and Seattle, Washington.

Andrews told SPACE.com, that in the past, "there's been a giggle factor" and that nobody wanted to take space tourism as real.

Andrews said that now everyone needs to take a couple of steps back. "We all need to focus on how to expand the commercial health of the industry," he advised.

One technical impediment sure to cause problems, Andrews said, is the required energy for Mach 4 (four times the speed of sound) contrasted to the energy required to reach orbit.

"There may be a better bang for your buck, so to speak, in a suborbital market," Andrews said. Once first-generation suborbital systems start flying, that will spur into being second-generation suborbital vehicles, he said.

"It's a lot harder to go orbital than suborbital and have the economics work out," Andrews said. "But we need to be skeptically optimistic. I think we should take space tourism seriously and proceed cautiously."