Only tourism can open the final frontier
Space tourism is the only hope for the economic exploitation of space in the next 50 years. Half a century after Sputnik, the biggest obstacle to spaceflight remains the cost of reaching orbit.
Today rockets and spaceports are still only funded successfully by governments. What will change this? Blaming aerospace companies or pinning hopes on an unproven radical new technology is not the answer.
Henry Ford knew the solution. Just like the car, mass volume and high-launch frequencies are the key to reducing unit cost. Governments will never require launches frequently enough - only tourism can offer that demand.
The success of a privately developed suborbital service would bring financing into the nascent industry, create competition and further spacecraft development. This could one day lead to an orbital transport system to reach private orbital complexes. Why start with suborbital? Because it is easier to achieve technically, has proven demand already and appears to be affordable by a large enough portion of the world's wealthy.
Yes, the change to orbital is substantial, but suborbital success can alter the minds of non-technical investors and customers, who would otherwise think all spaceflight was fanciful. SpaceShipOne proved that it is not a technical hurdle that makes people doubt spaceflight can be achieved privately it is a problem of perception.
Perhaps by the 150th anniversary of Sputnik, space tourism could have extended to the Moon. But if space transport remains a government activity, by the dawn of the 22nd century we will still all just be looking up at the stars and not reaching for them.
FLIGHTGLOBAL.COM LINKS
PICTURE: SPUTNIK 50: Spaceflight picture of the week
PICTURES: SPUTNIK 50 - 50 images of spaceflight
PICTURES: SPUTNIK 50 - Images spanning 50 years of spaceflight: past icons and future concepts
VIDEO: SPUTNIK 50 - Graphical representation of the Soviet Union's Sputnik launch
AIRSPACE: SPUTNIK 50 -Top 5 exciting space moments on Flight's AirSpace forums
BLOG: SPUTNIK 50 - Rob Coppinger's space blog, Hyperbola
TIMELINE: SPUTNIK 50 - Spaceflight since 1957
ARCHIVES: SPUTNIK 50 - Search Flight International's articles since 1909
SPUTNIK 50: Sputnik 1's bleep signal as it orbited the Earth 50 years ago
SPUTNIK 50: UK science minister green lights British astronaut missions study
Source: Flight International
