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]