The Economic Outcome of Space Tourism

The purpose of this paper is to promote the idea of space tourism. It has been a dream for many people since the industrial revolution to travel into space. But the truth is only a select few are ever allowed to venture out there. The first people the leave the Earth’s atmosphere, had taken a huge risk with so many unknown factors and have been documented in the history books forever. These brave men and women ventured out into the unknown unaware what side effects or altercations that were to follow. Thanks to them now we have a better understanding about space. We can send people out there with much less risk than there was before. Space exploration has excelled phenomenally since the first orbit of 1954. So much progress been made that one day soon average everyday people will be able to experience the weightlessness of space. The idea of space tourism was planted like a seed when the first man went into space and it is almost ready to bear fruit. This paper discusses the possibilities of space exploration and helps bridge that dream closer to reality.

Over the past few years the general perception of space tourism has changed from being considered "science fiction" to becoming recognized as an important new target for the space industry. This change has been stimulated in part by the Space Tourism Study Program of the Japanese Rocket Society, which led to the development of a scenario that has received general consensus: if some $12 billion of funding became available in the near future, commercial passenger space travel services to and from Earth orbit could have began in 2010. At a growth rate of some 100,000 passengers/year/year the business could reach 700,000 passengers/ year by 2017, at a price of about $25,000 /passenger.

The importance of this result is that $12 billion is less than half of one year's funding of government space agencies today, and it is therefore readily affordable. Based on market research data, economic growth projections, and...