Space Tourism

Check out the NSS/Virgin Galactic Space Ambassadors program: One special Space Ambassador will be selected to fly on a Virgin Galactic space flight!

Space Tourism Leads to Space Settlement
NSS Position Paper on Space Tourism
Annotated Bibliography of Recommended Reading

"My dream is to make space accessible to tens of thousands of people." — Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic

The first 300 seats are already booked for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo (image on right), scheduled to begin service in 2011. Click for larger version (1600 pixels).

See remarks by Richard Branson on the importance of this work, and the video Virgin Galactic – Leading The Way in Space Tourism.

Competition for private space travel heats up as XCOR Aerospace in conjunction with RocketShip Tours announces the availability of $95,000 tickets for a seat in the co-pilot seat next to former Space Shuttle pilot Rick Searfoss in the Lynx suborbital spacecraft.

"The process of creating a successful off-world tourism industry will be the key economic and technological driver enabling the human species to evolve into a real Solar System Species."
— John Spencer, author of Space Tourism and President and founder of the Space Tourism Society.

"SpaceShipOne [showed that] space travel was no longer just the domain of prohibitively expensive government programs subject to political whim. Now it was just like any other business that could be developed into a thriving industry." — From Rocketeers.

"The sheer beauty of it just brought tears to my eyes. If people can see Earth from up here, see it without those borders, see it without any differences in race or religion, they would have a completely different perspective. Because when you see it from that angle, you cannot think of your home or your country. All you can see is one Earth...."

— Anousheh Ansari, Iranian-American space tourist who flew to the International Space Station in September 2006.

"It was amazing. The zero-g part was wonderful. I could have gone on and on — space here I come."

— Stephen Hawking, renowned British astrophysicist who was able to leave his wheel chair and experience zero-gravity aboard a parabolic airplane flight on April 26, 2007. Hawking plans to fly on SpaceShipTwo.

Annotated Bibliography of Recommended Reading

2008: Tourists in Space: A Practical Guide, By Erik Seedhouse. Springer-Praxis. 314 pages. [Review]. [Amazon link]. The bulk of this book goes into considerable detail about what sort of training prospective spaceflight participants should undergo.

2007: Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots Is Boldly Privatizing Space, by Michael Belfiore. Smithsonian Books. 304 pages. [Review]. [Amazon link]. An excellent and exciting read that allows you to meet the major players in the development of privatized space flight.

2007: Destination Space: How Space Tourism Is Making Science Fiction a Reality, by Kenny Kemp. Virgin Books. 262 pages. [Amazon link]. A more accurate title would be The Virgin Galactic Story because that is essentially all that is covered (note that the publisher is Virgin Books).

2005: The Space Tourist's Handbook, by Eric Anderson and Joshua Piven. Quirk Books. 192 pages. [Review]. [Amazon link]. A more accurate title would be The Space Adventures Story because author Eric Anderson is president of that company — the first company to actually fly space tourists.

2004: Space Tourism: Do You Want to Go? by John Spencer. Apogee Books. 224 pages. [Amazon link]. A broad overview of the entire topic of space tourism, written by the founder and president of the Space Tourism Society. Offers unique perspectives not found elsewhere, such as parallels with the yachting and cruise industries. A significant contribution to the literature.

2002: Making Space Happen: Private Space Ventures and the Visionaries Behind Them, by Paula Berinstein. Plexus Publishing. 490 pages. [Amazon link]. A broad overview of space privatization featuring extensive interviews with the movers and shakers that are making it happen.

1998: General Public Space Travel and Tourism: Volume 1, Executive Summary. Joint NASA study concludes that serious national attention should be given to enabling the creation of in-space travel and tourism businesses, and that, in time, this should become a very important part of our country's overall commercial and civil space business-program structure. 40 pages. [PDF 100K]

1996: Halfway to Anywhere: Achieving America's Destiny in Space, by G. Harry Stine. M. Evans and Company. 306 pages. [Review]. [Amazon link]. Discusses what is involved in airline-like operations for spacecraft, and provides a history of the first re-usable rocket, the Delta Clipper.

LINKS & RESOURCES

Rocketplane Global
Scaled Composites
Space Access Society
Space Adventures
Virgin Galactic
XCOR Aerospace
X-Prize Foundation
Zero-G Corporation

Wall Street Journal: Economy Fare ($100,000) Lifts Space-Tourism Race
Climbing a Commercial Stairway to Space: A Plausible Timeline?
Anousheh Ansari - First Female Private Space Explorer
Space Future - Space Tourism
Wikipedia - Space Tourism
Space Tourism Society
Space.com: All About Space Tourism
Space Tourism - Multimedia Special Report (13 minutes)
NSS News Archive on Space Tourism