THE SPACE MARKETPLACE


Before you begin, READ AN ARTICLE about space tourism by John Mankins of NASA Headquarters.

There is a growing international recognition that low Earth orbit travel will soon be possible for businesses and individuals. A European conference on space tourism is planned for later this year. The recently unveiled long-range space program plan for Japan calls for advancing transportation technology so that the average person can fly into space (and so that nations can take advantage of the plentiful resources of space). Recently, an official of the Tanegashima Launch Facility (Japan's major spacport and premier launch site) projected that roughly 75 percent of the launches 20 years from now will involve space tourism.

Today's fleet of launch vehicles were designed either directly for the purpose of launching intercontinental nuclear warheads or are direct descendants of these military programs. With the exception of the Space Shuttle, none were designed for reuse. At the present time, there are approximately 80 space launches per year, only a small percentage of which are manned.

By contrast, on any given day, almost 10,000 people take off in commercial aircraft each minute! Even counting the launch of new multi-satellite communications constellations (e.g. Iridium, Globalstar and Teledesic), the number of launches is expected to, at most, double on an annual basis. Public space transportation activity holds a potential for spectacular increase as true commercial consumer markets such as travel and tourism become a reality.

However, before this happens, basic issues about the feasibility and economics of commercial human space travel must be addressed. X PRIZE competitors will demonstrate the technical and operational capability needed by vehicles that would carry customers into space. The excitement generated by the competition is expected to assist in the creation of a robust market for space tourism.


X PRIZESM is a service mark of The X Prize Foundation, Inc.