UWFDM-1192 Business Context of Space Tourism

Broadly speaking, two types of potential commercial activity in space can be defined. First, there are those activities that represent an expansion and improvement on services with broad existing commercial foundations such as telecommunications. The second type of potential commercial activity in space is one that may offer a type of service with few or any existing commercial foundations such as space-based remote sensing. Space tourism clearly belongs in the first category of potential commercial activity in space. Roles in cooperation with the private sector that might be considered for NASA include 1) acceleration of the “Professional in Space” initiative, 2) research and technology developments related to a) a “Tourist Destination Module” for the Space Station, b) an “Extra Passengers Module” for the payload bay of the Space Shuttle, and c) a “Passenger-rated Expendable Launch Vehicle,” 3) definition of criteria for qualifying candidate space tourists, and 4) initiatives to protect space tourism from unreasonable tort litigation. As baseline information for establishing fees, the cost of a possible tourist flight should be fully and objectively delineated. If it is correct that the marginal cost of each Space Shuttle flight to Earth orbit is about $100 million and the effective Shuttle payload is about 50,000 pounds, then the marginal cost would be roughly $2,000 per pound.