Already, Space Adventures of Arlington, Virginia has sent two tourists into orbit. Billionaire Dennis Tito was first, paying $20 million for the experience. His trip in 2001 generated at least that many millions of dollars in free PR for this young company (founded in 1998).

Trips to orbit remain expensive, but competitors are looming. Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson’s latest venture, plans to offer such trips for just $200,000 and expects the price to plunge to $20,000 or less within 10 years.

So, what must a pioneering company do in order to stay ahead of the curve? Space Adventures plans to offer trips, literally, around the moon.

Dr. John M. Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University says, “…I don’t see any technical showstoppers.”

At $100 million, the trip will be pricier than a mere orbital voyage. It will also last longer than one: 10 to 21 days, depending on itinerary and whether a visit to the International Space Station is included.

The vessel will be a Soyuz, flown by a Russian pilot. (NASA has refused to dirty its hands with grubby capitalist enterprises, even stooping to attempts to prevent Dr. Tito — a private citizen who was nevertheless NASA-trained — from flying at all. So Russia has gladly leaped into the open market niche.)

Since Soyuz lacks the power to make the lunar voyage, it will be augmented by a booster rocket. Docking will occur either in low Earth orbit or at the International Space Station if the iternarary includes a visit there.

The company’s research suggests that 500 to 1,000 people in the world can afford to do this. It will take two such paying customers to make the trip worthwhile.

Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson reports, “It’s the same number of people who could afford to buy a $100 million yacht.”

While it may be difficult to conceive of paying $100 million for the privilege of spending weeks cooped up with two other people in a chamber the size of an SUV, and risking death to do it, the company has already received indications of interest. Its success in selling brief $20 million orbital trips suggests this is not as outlandish as it seems.

The tremendous grip that space travel holds on pop culture’s imagination has been consistently underestimated both by NASA and its piggy-trough contractors. This is a major reason why I have previously declared that the “real space age” began with SpaceShipOne’s victorious 2004 flight, winning the Ansari X-Prize by, for the first time, using non-governmental spaceship technology to reach orbit at low cost. Our Transformational Technologies Portfolio company SpaceDev (SPDV.OB: OTC BB) provided the engine for that flight, and is poised to power much of the coming space tourism revolution.

What does all of this mean? Assuming that Space Adventures and other companies with similar missions achieve their goals and avoid systemic catastrophic failures (even one or two such failures will probably not derail this phenomenon), we can expect space tourism to become a steadily growing industry in the years ahead.

Just as the first airplane trips were limited to yesteryear’s billionaires, so too will space voyages plunge in cost and blossom in availability.

Your grandchildren will visit the moon with the same aplomb as you visit Europe. The wealthier among them will have the opportunity to join private expeditions to the outer planets — the ones beyond Pluto, in the Oort Cloud.

Even more significant, as space tourism flourishes the building of permanent private space stations to support it will begin to make economic sense. People will start to live on those stations, first as support personnel for the tourism ventures and soon thereafter as residents of luxury hotels and even residences.

The kinds of experiences possible on such vessels will make anything on Earth seem pale by comparison. Think of gravity made optional and variable. Think of strapping on wings and flying through clouds like a bird. Think of 3-D ballet, with exquisitely slow and complex dance moves, including leaps 20 feet into the air. Think of vistas that, literally, extend out forever.

Permanently inhabited space stations will grow into space cities, as surely as frontier outposts in the American West grew into the cities of today. They will come to offer a quality of life, both economic and social, far surpassing terrestrial existence.

Do not think that tomorrow’s space cities will resemble tin cans. They will have no more similarity to the International Space Station than a cruise ship does to Columbus’ Santa Maria. (For one thing, they will have large rotating sections to simulate gravity. Both “full earth” and partial gravity will be supported, with different uses.)

To properly describe the breathtaking scope of vacationing, or living, in space is beyond what I can do justice here. I encourage you to grab a copy of Dr. Gerard O’Neill’s The High Frontier, published in 1975 and still as timely as ever. (Though out of print, used copies are available through Amazon.com.) To a large extent, this book inspired the course my life has followed.

Dr. O’Neill did more than anyone else in the 20th century to articulate a practicable vision for a real space development program (rather than the politically motivated boondoggle we’ve been saddled with) to expand human freedom, opportunities and quality of life.

I had the privilege of meeting the late Dr. O’Neill and supporting his work financially and through some service projects. He remains one of my heroes today.

If you can, go see the IMAX movie L5: First City in Space. It’s a 3-D immersive taste of the future. Few experiences could be more awe-inspiring than this one, except actually being there.

Your grandchildren will definitely have that opportunity, and some of us may as well. Invest wisely in Transformational Technology Portfolio stocks, and a decade from now you could be remembering these words from space.

To your profitable future,

Jonathan Kolber
August 30, 2006

The Ultimate Tourist Experience was originally featured in the Penny Sleuth.