MORE ON SPACE TOURISM: Here’s an AP report from the ISDC:
Space tourism companies can survive the inevitable disaster if they warn passengers of the risks that a privately operated rocket ship could crash, an executive of one of the leading firms said Friday.
“God forbid it should happen on the first flight. Hopefully it’s many, many years out,” said Alex Tai, chief operating officer for British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space venture.
Tai said customers who are given an honest assessment of the risks won’t be able to successfully sue operators after a crash. And he said the public understands the danger of space travel after two disasters involving NASA-operated space shuttles.
Virgin Galactic plans to begin test flights next year and carry the first paying customers — $200,000 per seat — in late 2009 or early 2010.
That’s right. People engage in all sorts of risky “adventure tourism” — from scuba diving, to rock climbing, to whitewater kayaking, to mountain climbing to much riskier sports — and we accept accidents as part of the cost.
And here’s more reporting:
Virgin Galactic’s chief operating officer revealed Friday at the National Space Society’s 26th Annual International Space Development Conference that the suborbital spaceliner research and development company is in talks with space mogul Robert Bigelow to use his expanding modules to create Virgin Galactic orbiting hotels.
Alex Tai said his boss, Sir Richard Branson, and Bigelow have huddled recently to work out the details. Tai also said the suborbital spaceliner is coming together on various floors at Scaled Composites in Mojave, Calif.
Tai said test flights of SpaceShipTwo — the passenger carrying ship — will begin in 2008 and could last between 12 and 18 months.
They expect ticket prices to start out at $200K and drop to $100K or less over a few years.
Meanwhile, on a slightly different topic, NASA is looking favorably at using commercial space firms for mission support:
NASA is in the market for commercial relationships and private capital as it gears up for its next manned missions to the moon.
“That would make our life a lot easier,” said Neil Woodward, acting director of NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. . . .
“If somebody says ‘I have this really great way to be able to extract water ice from lunar regolith (lunar rocks) that I’ve developed on my own dime’ we would be interested,” Woodward said.
“If we could be in a commercial relationship with somebody who has the capability that’s fine because in many cases they can do it for less money than we can,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of a space development conference in Dallas.
Venture capital in space exploration was a key theme at the conference.
Read the whole thing.