This video clip shows some newer technological developments for space tourism and its economic aspects. Multiple companies are working on space tourism projects in order to get regular people into space.
Space tourism began in 2001 when Dennis Tito, an American multimillionaire, boarded the Soyuz spacecraft with the Russian Space Agency and became the first-ever space tourist. He spent a little more than a week in orbit, during which time he conducted scientific experiments. It is suggested that Tito paid somewhere between $12 and $20 million for his space excursion. As time goes on, it seems to be getting more and more likely that regular people will be able to travel into space as tourists, which opens up an entirely new frontier for the economic impacts of tourism.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Opinions of Space Tourism
During my research, I came across these polls, which are very informative of whether people from different countries and different age groups would be interested in going to space as a tourist. It also gives valuable information on what they'd do in space, how long they'd stay, and how much they'd pay to go there, plus it includes a poll of reasons why people not interested in going would decline a trip to space.
Fig. 1: Percent of respondents interested in going to space by age and country
Fig. 1 describes the basic level of interest in travelling to space, broken down by age and country. The bars to the right represent the total percentage of people willing to travel to space. As can be seen, the Japanese are very enthusiastic. Germans do not seem to be that interested, with only 43%. Abitzsch attributes this to the more prosaic German life-style.
Fig. 2: Preferred activities during a space trip by country
Fig. 2 shows the preferred activities of the respondents while on their space trip. The simplest thing to do, watching the Earth, is also the most popular. This goes for all the nationalities included. With the exception of taking a space walk, the other activities are fairly easy to realize as well.
Fig. 3: Preferred length of space trip by country
Fig. 3 shows the preferred length of a space trip. Obviously, once people are up there they prefer to stay for a while. There is no major difference between the different surveys in this matter. A logical conclusion of this is that the full potential of space tourism will not be reached as long as there are no orbital hotels.
Fig. 4: Amount people would pay for a space trip by country
How much are these people willing to pay? Shown in Fig. 4, this is maybe the most interesting question of all. The problem with comparing these numbers is that people earn different amounts in different countries, as well as there being a difference in how much they can buy for what they earn.
To remedy this, the amounts are shown as a multiple of an average income per capita in each country. In order not to have to worry about exchange rates and inflation rate distortions, the so called Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) in international dollars ($int.) have been used as a common monetary database. Based on a globally standardized market basket, the real purchasing power of an income could be compared directly among several countries.
The PPP values used are (year of comparison: 1994):
Germany 16580 $int.
Japan 20200 $int.
USA 25850 $int.
Fig. 5: Reason for not being interested in going to space
Fig. 5 shows the reasons why people are not interested in going to space. 5-10% didn't think it was realistic and about 1/3 said safety was their main concern. This could mean that when space tourism becomes a reality and proves to be safe enough, these two groups might change their mind.
All of these polls got me to thinking:
If you had the opportunity to go to space as a tourist, would you go, and why/why not?
Do you think space tourism would be worthwhile?
[These polls were obtained from the market research on the demand for space tourism done by Patrick Collins, which can be viewed from this website:
http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/space_tourism_and_its_effects_on_space_commercialization.shtml]
Fig. 1: Percent of respondents interested in going to space by age and country
Fig. 1 describes the basic level of interest in travelling to space, broken down by age and country. The bars to the right represent the total percentage of people willing to travel to space. As can be seen, the Japanese are very enthusiastic. Germans do not seem to be that interested, with only 43%. Abitzsch attributes this to the more prosaic German life-style.
Fig. 2: Preferred activities during a space trip by country
Fig. 2 shows the preferred activities of the respondents while on their space trip. The simplest thing to do, watching the Earth, is also the most popular. This goes for all the nationalities included. With the exception of taking a space walk, the other activities are fairly easy to realize as well.
Fig. 3: Preferred length of space trip by country
Fig. 3 shows the preferred length of a space trip. Obviously, once people are up there they prefer to stay for a while. There is no major difference between the different surveys in this matter. A logical conclusion of this is that the full potential of space tourism will not be reached as long as there are no orbital hotels.
Fig. 4: Amount people would pay for a space trip by country
How much are these people willing to pay? Shown in Fig. 4, this is maybe the most interesting question of all. The problem with comparing these numbers is that people earn different amounts in different countries, as well as there being a difference in how much they can buy for what they earn.
To remedy this, the amounts are shown as a multiple of an average income per capita in each country. In order not to have to worry about exchange rates and inflation rate distortions, the so called Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) in international dollars ($int.) have been used as a common monetary database. Based on a globally standardized market basket, the real purchasing power of an income could be compared directly among several countries.
The PPP values used are (year of comparison: 1994):
Germany 16580 $int.
Japan 20200 $int.
USA 25850 $int.
Fig. 5: Reason for not being interested in going to space
Fig. 5 shows the reasons why people are not interested in going to space. 5-10% didn't think it was realistic and about 1/3 said safety was their main concern. This could mean that when space tourism becomes a reality and proves to be safe enough, these two groups might change their mind.
All of these polls got me to thinking:
If you had the opportunity to go to space as a tourist, would you go, and why/why not?
Do you think space tourism would be worthwhile?
[These polls were obtained from the market research on the demand for space tourism done by Patrick Collins, which can be viewed from this website:
http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/space_tourism_and_its_effects_on_space_commercialization.shtml]
Sunday, January 6, 2008
The Potentials of Biological Discoveries in Mars
This video details the journey of the Phoenix Mars mission, which is literally a rebirth; an enormous financial and technological loss occurred in 1997 when the Mars Polar Lander was lost. The main goals of the Phoenix are to make biological discoveries, and hopefully, finding out more about the factors of life on Mars will help us to understand them better here on our own planet, and everywhere else as well.
With the financial and technological losses that have occurred and could potentially occur again in the future in mind, are the billions of dollars spent on our space missions worth it?
With the financial and technological losses that have occurred and could potentially occur again in the future in mind, are the billions of dollars spent on our space missions worth it?
Discoveries of Water on Mars
This video shows some of the important discoveries made from observing pictures taken from Mars orbiters that NASA has sent. There are many possibilities as to how this information can be used in the present and in the future. These discoveries are over a year old, so they aren't even completely recent, and already sending spacecrafts to Mars has yielded us beneficial information which lead to a better understanding of our next-door neighbor in space.
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