>
> I agree with Andrew. To push the argument a little more.
> Have you ever
> been to Las Vegas? The fastest growing city in the USA. One
> could argue it
> is built to over-indulge the rich. I am sure there are other
> cities on
> Earth which would fit into the same mold. Why not have some
> on low orbit
> and others on the Moon. What ever the market justifies,
> maybe even on Mars,
> though I don't see how that could work. But I could have foreseen Las
> Vegas?
> Sincerely, Jay Huebner

Let's keep to the point here: were you in Vegas in the 30s & 40s, which is
when the business you see as an easy fix was developed? For that matter:
have you been to Atlantic City, which tried to clone the mature Vegas
approach with little success? Vegas worked because it started as a
relatively simple idea which could be implemented cheaply; & each stage of
the city's expansion was co-financed (with the proceeds of organised crime
built up during Prohibition, of course) by the take on the previous
incarnation of the city. That does not apply to the nonsense which is
generally passed off as space tourism.

The only really cheap fix stage which canuld be exploited - the Vomet
Comet/Vometski Cometski level of parabolic flight - has proved unmarketable;
& despite the press releases, Russian flights with non-scientific passengers
have been few & far between. Why? The Russians want people to actually pay
for their flights; & despite what people might prat to market researchers
carefully trying to steer answers in the right direction - can't you tell i
used to work in the business? - they aren't prepared to write cheques
(particularly in a business environment when catastrophic insurance is
becoming extravagantly expensive for adventure activities). The kid from
MirCorp doesn't want to pay for his flight (his flight is conditional on a
TV deal in what is known in the trade as "development hell", which is why he
has never officially asked the Russians for a seat); which is why he was
never going to fly, no matter what press releases MirCorp released....

Financiers can see this; & know that can't build a real space (ie,
non-parasitical) tourism technology without people who will actually pay for
their flights & not merely promised to do so in an unscientific survey. A
small market of millionaires actually willing to pay money might pay for an
evolutionary technology (probably based on a man-rated Proton) capable of
stretching the window a bit (a 6- to 10-seater Soyuz derivative at
Proton-class prices would be nice); but you'd need a real queue of real
people with real assets to pay for a real revolutionary technology.

There's another issue which needs to be confronted here. It seems likely
that both Titov & Shuttleworth claimed at least some of their fees back from
tax-payers as promotional expenditure. It's one thing to argue that people
have the right to spend their own money any way ther see fit; another thing
entirely to require that tax-payers (who may already have paid for the
development of the technology) may another co-payment for the flight....

Live in peace
Robert.Clements@...
endeavour2 project http://www.geocities.com/robtclements/endeavour2.html>

> There's another issue which needs to be confronted here. It seems likely
> that both Titov & Shuttleworth claimed at least some of their fees back from

Presumably you mean Dennis Tito, not the cosmonauts Vladimir Titov nor Gherman
Titov.

>
> tax-payers as promotional expenditure. It's one thing to argue that people

Not that I am aware.

Or do you mean they tried to deduct the costs as business expenses ?

This is not the same thing as a subsidy.

>
> have the right to spend their own money any way ther see fit; another thing
> entirely to require that tax-payers (who may already have paid for the
> development of the technology) may another co-payment for the flight....
>

What is your source for this ?

No taxpayers subsidies that I am aware of.

On the contrary.

The US Govt actively opposed the Tito flight, and Dan Goldin of NASA threatened
to charge Russia a bill for the cost of Tito's visiting the ISS. I do not know
if they ever followed through on that threat.

Does anybody have any updates on that ?

>
> Every frontier that has been opened up has been opened by people
> who are ambitious and willing to take risks in order to create wealth
> for themselves and their descendants. There is no reason to believe
> that the high frontier will be opened in any other way.

Clearly your view of history is fairly defficient. Every frontier -
including the USAmerican inland, which is probably the most misrepresented
history in history - has been opened up by employees; primarily of the
resident or controlling state authority; & secondarily by the employees of a
loose - sometimes not so loose, as in the Dutch East Indies Co. -
partnership between the state & the local temporal equivalent of corporate
interests. This critical work was followed at a very distant third by the
individual enterpreneurs who basically capitalised - some would say: ripped
off - on the work of the first two groups. Space development is barely in
the first (nationalist) stage of its development; yet this fantasy view
story lead some people to believe that we can - & therefore must - jumpcut
to the third. It won't happen; which in itself isn't so much of a problem;
but this mythology is somewhat blocking real work which could be done in
developing the nationalist sector by pretending that only private &
entrepreneurial development is acceptable - Pioneer Rocketplane might still
be around if this nonsense hadn't help sabotage its NASA support funding,
for eg.

Live in peace
Robert.Clements@...
endeavour2 project http://www.geocities.com/robtclements/endeavour2.html>

> > Every frontier that has been opened up has been opened by people
> > who are ambitious and willing to take risks in order to create wealth
> > for themselves and their descendants. There is no reason to believe
> > that the high frontier will be opened in any other way.
>
> Clearly your view of history is fairly defficient. Every frontier -
> including the USAmerican inland, which is probably the most misrepresented
> history in history - has been opened up by employees; primarily of the
> resident or controlling state authority;

This is simply false. North America was settled by various groups looking
to improve their own personal lot (and this includes the first nations).
Even the initial voyages of discovery were financed with an eye to short
term profit. Later waves of settlement were driven by the profit motive as
well. Individuals made their way to the new world primarily on their own
initiative, not at the behest of bureaucrats. There are notable
exceptions, such as the Roanoke colony, which was a horrible failure
precisely because it started from the premise of wanting to have a
colony and then looking at economic issues rather than the other way
around.

The history of frontiers has always involved some government involvement,
but that's not what creates the wealth that sustains the growth of the
frontier. Individuals attempting to make money is what sustains
the frontier.

>& secondarily by the employees of a
> loose - sometimes not so loose, as in the Dutch East Indies Co. -
> partnership between the state & the local temporal equivalent of corporate
> interests.

Corporate fatcats in other words. That's exactly what I meant when I
said that the profit motive is what opens frontiers. India wasn't
brought under British dominion out of spite for the locals or out of some
"mission civilizatrice" despite the colonial apologists' protestations
to the contrary. It was brought under British dominion because that
served the interests of the Company and its' shareholders. Likewise
the opening of the Canadian west - trappers looking to make some
money and to live in freedom.

>This critical work was followed at a very distant third by the
> individual enterpreneurs who basically capitalised - some would say: ripped
> off - on the work of the first two groups.

To the contrary, the lone enrepreneur (often in the form of groups of like
minded individuals pledging to help each other out) has been an essential
element in the true frontier openings. Note that the colonization of
India doesn't count since it was more on the lines of replacing
established governments with Company approved governors. If you look
at the colonization of North America there is a consistent pattern
of european entrepreneurs living well beyond the limits of government
authority (and for many that was the whole point).

>Space development is barely in
> the first (nationalist) stage of its development;

Well, I don't buy your viewpoint on the historical development of
frontiers. Suffice to say that frontiers, by their very nature, are
extraordinarily complex and messy places, not given to the kind of
tidy historical narrative that we are used to from the history of
nation-states. Given this fact it's likely we can both martial
reams of examples of development along one path or another.

That said: If we expect governments to lead the way in opening the
high frontier we are, IMO, never going to see it opened in our lifetimes
in any meaningful way. The payoff for the politicians is simply too
remote. I expect that there will be spectacular discoveries by unmanned
probes (government funded), and this is a legitimate use of taxpayer
money. Basic research *should* be gov't funded. But the extraordinary
creativity of the market (or more properly of individual entrepreneurs
empowered by market opportunities) is so much greater than anything the
government can hope to do that it is folly to rely on anything else to
create a viable spacefaring civilization.

>yet this fantasy view
> story lead some people to believe that we can - & therefore must - jumpcut
> to the third.

There has never been a frontier opened in tidy little stages. It's a
mess, and that's good. Messiness maximizes the chances of the critical
path being discovered. Looking back from two hundred years in the
future the necessary steps to creating a spacefaring civilization will
hopefully be obvious. But we are not omnipotent, so we can only
speculate about what the next step should be. Obviously the majority
of our speculations will be wrong. The only way to ensure that *something*
succeeds is to try many, many, things, and the best way to do that is
to encourage many people to try their best ideas. In the end of the
day there will be winners and losers, but having the government make
the call based on agendas that are only marginally interested in opening
the high frontier is a sure-fire route to failure. The best thing
the government can do is to perform basic R&D, perhaps offer guaranteed
payloads at set prices to help reduce market risk, and otherwise stay out
of the way.

>It won't happen; which in itself isn't so much of a problem;
> but this mythology is somewhat blocking real work which could be done in
> developing the nationalist sector by pretending that only private &
> entrepreneurial development is acceptable

The "nationalist sector" has consistently produced lousy launch vehicles
despite the fact that it's been known for decades how to produce good
launch vehicles. The requirements to have contractors in every
congressional district hobbles every element of the US space program.
Note that the current cheapest launch service provider (Russia)
doesn't suffer from this issue due to not having been democratic
when their launchers were developed. Sadly Russia lacks the capital
for new LV development.

The best hope for cheap launch is the evolution of simple, reliable
rockets from sub-orbital tourism (and similar applications like
micro-g research and imaging) into simple, reliable orbital launchers.
The incentives for governmental interference in launcher development
on gov't contract are simply too great, and these incentives are
in direct opposition to what is required to build cheap launchers.

......Andrew

Andrew Case
acase@... |

Hello

I think the comments are getting too divergent. The issue is can tourism
support a viable space industry without government subsidy.

I do not know the answer. I believe (my opinion) the current tourists are not
paying the true cost of their flights, but they are being tolerated for
publicity value. If this is not true, I apologise now.

My argument had been a cheap means to orbit makes most space development
models viable, mining, tourism, energy, exploration, whatever.

My point had been that NASA should be more like its predecessor, NACA, and
devote its efforts to doing the primary research that allows industry to
commercialize space.

BTW, what ever happened to the X-Prize?

> Hello
>

Hello,

> I do not know the answer. I believe (my opinion) the current tourists are
not
> paying the true cost of their flights, but they are being tolerated for
> publicity value. If this is not true, I apologise now.

Well, I really don't know in what ciphers are you basing your assumption
that "the current tourists are not paying the true cost of their flights".
There is a rule of thumb saying that the current cost for lifting a pound to
LEO is $ 10,000 . So, a guy weighting 200 lb costs $2 million. Even if life
support systems and related stuff quintuples his/her weight, then the cost
will still be $10 million. Since Tito and Shuttleworth apparently paid
something around $20 million (and they *have* enough money to pay that
without straining their budgets), then the Russians are in fact having a
100% profit.

However, it has been mentioned that the launch costs using Russian tech are
indeed well below the rule-of-thumb threshold of $10,000/lb, so the profit
that the Russians are really gaining may be much higher.

Lucio Coelho