Space Settlement FAQ's]

Ryan Healey wrote:

> Personally I'm confident that once space tourism gets to over 1 000 people
> (maybe that's too high or too low) per year it won't take long before we have a
> significant presence.

Right now, that looks like the way its going to go. I'm wondering
what we can do to make it happen in 5-10 years rather than 20. A
cheap launcher, or a neat way to use an existing launcher would do
it. Stick a crew cabin on an Energia would theoretically give a
ticket price of about $180,000; but I've a feeling that the price
would come down with quantity- the Russians would fall over
themselves if you want to launch 10-20x in one year, probably you
could negotiate them down by a factor of 2-4x on price; that's on
the edge of what people would pay.

Still, I'm not sure what the peak acceleration is on an Energia,
and the reliability is suspect.

Also, not sure how to handle reentry, they'd probably want to go
both ways.

There's almost a business case right there. You'd need to sort out
the hotel too somehow. Get the Hilton on the job or something.
Where can you put 500 people on orbit right now anyway?

There's a tonne of problems, but all of them are soluble.

--
- Ian Woollard (ian.woollard@...)

"Is a planetary surface the right place for an expanding
technological civilization?"
- Gerard O'Neill