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Thread: Money To Burn?

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    Money To Burn?

    On another site, there is the story about the private spaceship in which people supposedly will be able to pay for a ride into space.

    Here is my question? The price, amazingly enough is quoted at $250,000, of the one ride. Yep, a quarter of a million dollars.
    Would you pay that much for this, if you had the money. That much money will by you any number of fine airplanes, very good Bonanzas, Mooneys, etc. even a top of the line T-6 or an L-39 if that is your taste. It will buy a house in some low cost areas, and a down payment on a house in top areas.
    Do you think there are enough people with more money than sense to do this, or is it that a lot of people will say they are on board until it really comes time to pay?

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    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Greenwood View Post
    On another site, there is the story about the private spaceship in which people supposedly will be able to pay for a ride into space.

    Here is my question? The price, amazingly enough is quoted at $250,000, of the one ride. Yep, a quarter of a million dollars.
    Would you pay that much for this, if you had the money. That much money will by you any number of fine airplanes, very good Bonanzas, Mooneys, etc. even a top of the line T-6 or an L-39 if that is your taste. It will buy a house in some low cost areas, and a down payment on a house in top areas.
    Do you think there are enough people with more money than sense to do this, or is it that a lot of people will say they are on board until it really comes time to pay?
    The flight is of no practical use (unlike an airplane or house), so the participants have to justify it in other ways.

    1. There are those who are absolutely gaga about space, and if they can work the money issues at all, they'll pay it and do it. Got several good friends who fall into this categories, unfortunately, none of them have the disposable income. Even if I could afford it, being a hard-headed engineer, a quarter of mil for 10 minutes of weightlessness doesn't seem like a good deal.

    2. There are those whose egos are the most important things to them, and being able to call yourself an "astronaut" is worthy of a high expenditure. A lot of times, these folks are successful enough in business that they may have the extra income to pay for it.

    (It should be noted that a ride in SpaceShip Two takes you into space, but will not qualify you for membership in the Association of Space Explorers, the the international astronaut/cosmonaut society. ASE requires completion of a complete orbit.)

    (I attended the annual banquet of the ASE one year, and wrote it up for my EAA newsletter... http://www.eaa26.org/oct2008.pdf page 6)

    3. There are those to whom a quarter-million dollars is a drop in the bucket (Hal, for instance :-), and they either are just curious or want to new experience to brag about.

    Sixty years ago, the number of people who had summited Everest was extremely small, but, today, for a few thousand dollars, there are several companies who will haul you to the top. I see space tourism in the same light....

    Ron Wanttaja

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    Ron, I agree that Hal could easily afford a space trip, on his profits on all that expensive bottled water sold at Airventure.

    But he is being kind of hard to please, he said he is not going on the spaceship until they paint it a nice yellow and brown. No luck there, even Rutan who is known for funny looking airplanes, has a standard below which he will not go.

    BY the way, as for Everest , no one "hauls" you to the top. You go on your own two legs and it is a hell of a long way up.
    I know a few people who have done it . One said the weather was good, and no real climbing problems. The other was when weather was horrible and they lost people and barely got back. He is Neil Biedelman, a tough kid that I used to ski race with and who was lucky to get down.
    There are, of course, guided trips which do a lot of the planning and work for you, but you walk every step of the way and something like 5% of everyone who has made it to the summit has died on that mountain.
    Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 06-13-2014 at 10:30 AM.

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    Private enterprise space travel will become commonplace in the not too distant future. As it becomes more popular and more utilized the price for a ticket will come down just as it does on so many other consumer goods and services. Private space travel is currently used to supply the space station and back.

    Personally, if I was a multi, multi millionaire, $250K would be lunch money, but I'd be waiting for the ship that can make a full orbit and would be willing to pay a little more for that kind of thrill, excitement and incredible life experience.

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    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Floatsflyer View Post
    Private enterprise space travel will become commonplace in the not too distant future. As it becomes more popular and more utilized the price for a ticket will come down just as it does on so many other consumer goods and services. Private space travel is currently used to supply the space station and back.
    Well...the analogy is barnstorming, from about 90 years ago. Did barnstorming lead to the professional aviation industry...mail, cargo, and passenger transport? Probably not, but it made people more air-minded and willing to consider using aircraft for these purposes. They saw ordinary people owning airplanes, and it raised the dream of maybe owning their own aircraft.

    "Space Barnstorming" is a bit different. It's not being taken to the people, but performed in places where the taxpayers have paid for facilities to support these private companies. Rides aren't being offered at the equivalent of a week's pay; they're aimed at the super-rich. The technology itself supports only space tourism; it has limited ability to grow into something that will support full-orbital operations. The shuttlecock mode is brilliant...for a Mach 5 vehicle. Won't work for orbital velocity, about five times higher.

    And space tourism is very vulnerable to political and legal actions. If Waldo Williams crashed his Jenny 90 years ago and killed a couple of farmers, people would "Tsk-Tsk" and life would move on. Waldo probably didn't leave much in his estate but a wrecked Jenny, and the news probably didn't spread outside the county.

    But kill a half-dozen billionaires in rocket crash? The supply of billionaires willing to ride future missions will likely evaporate, quickly. And it doesn't matter what legal papers they signed in advance, it certainly *would* result in massive lawsuits. I expect Branson has himself isolated from the company to the maximum extent possible. But he's going to be tied up in court for a while....and the pressure will be on to regulate the activity, and eliminate more of the dangers.

    Which, frankly, isn't very possible. A quote from the early pioneers, "There's a fine line between a bomb and a rocket...and the finer the line, the better the rocket." That, coupled with the re-entry issues, will not see safe space becoming "safe" in the foreseeable future. It's a heck of a lot of risk...and money...for ten minutes of weightlessness. Yet, even if they manage to come up with an orbital system, with maybe a "resort" the tourists stay at for a day or two, will have its own issues. Human adaptation to space is not a comfortable process.

    Ron Wanttaja

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    Quote Originally Posted by rwanttaja View Post
    Well...the analogy is barnstorming, from about 90 years ago. Did barnstorming lead to the professional aviation industry...mail, cargo, and passenger transport? Probably not, but it made people more air-minded and willing to consider using aircraft for these purposes.

    Ron Wanttaja
    Don't mean to go off topic here, but while barnstorming didn't directly lead to commercial aviation, certainly history tells us that the demise and death of barnstorming, brought about by radical government intervention with new rules and regs governing the operation of aircraft and pilots in the mid 1920's, did lead to these new applications of civil aviation in all manner of commercial purposes and uses.

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    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Floatsflyer View Post
    Don't mean to go off topic here, but while barnstorming didn't directly lead to commercial aviation, certainly history tells us that the demise and death of barnstorming, brought about by radical government intervention with new rules and regs governing the operation of aircraft and pilots in the mid 1920's, did lead to these new applications of civil aviation in all manner of commercial purposes and uses.
    You might be right, Floats. I've heard the delay in the start of these services has been primarily regulatory; the difficulty in balancing a reasonable level of Government oversight without making the business model economically impossible.

    One can draw the analogy even closer. "Barnstorming" was, basically, selling rides that began and ended at the same point. Selling rides that brought the customer...or a payload, like mail... to a different location was a natural outgrowth that didn't require a great leap in technology. The same Jenny that carried joyriders for $5 a head could carry a mail pouch on the same seat... and a businessman needed to get from Walla Walla to Yakima in a hurry, sitting on the mail pouch.

    You don't get that with the "space tourism" rockets. The vehicles have no capability for mission growth. The logical next step is to deliver a person or package anywhere in the world in a hurry, and/or deliver them to an on-orbit destination. Both missions require much more propellant than any of the current vehicles can carry, and require the vehicle to withstand a much higher heat level.

    A sub-orbital vehicle could reach anywhere in the world in less than an hour. The business model might be viable. No one likes sitting on a plane for 14 hours, and the ability to go from Los Angeles to Dubai in 60 minutes is appealing. Sure, it'll be costly, but the Concorde didn't seem to have problems filling seats. And the "One Hour Transferizing" model has more potential for repeat customers than the up-and-down Space Tourism business.

    Delivery to an on-orbit destination is the typical Sci-Fi business plan. There's a lot of companies making good money operating cruise ships and resorts. A trip to and stay at a zero-G resort on-orbit, while certainly not as cheap as an inside cabin on the inside passage, could really be attractive to the well-heeled billionaire.

    The problem there is biology: Adaptation to zero G is an uncomfortable, even painful process. Space Adaptation Syndrome (AKA "Star Whoops" or "The Technicolor Yawn") is not funny, can last for days, and affects about half of those to enter space. A space resort is going to depend on happy customers and word-of-mouth to stay in business. Guests who spend the first half of their week in space ralfing at the stars aren't likely to recommend any stars to Michelin. Sure, drugs might help, but who wants to spend half their million-dollar vacation asleep?

    Plus, of course, there's the whole potty problem. Most people willing to drop a casual million or two on a vacation get upset if there aren't any hot towels in the restrooms; pointing them at the current Space Station zero-G toilets (or, Gawd forbid, handing them an Apollo Bag) is NOT an option.

    (Note I said "most people". I'm aware there have been a couple of space tourists on the ISS.)

    So you'd probably have to make the resort a 2001-like wheel, spun for something close to 1 G at the rim, and access to various lower levels of gravity in sections on the spokes. Your tourists still have an opportunity to get sick on the ascent and descent, but a good tranquilizer should take care of that. Or a couple of stiff drinks.

    Does sound like fun. Watch the Earth flow past from the 1G observation deck, try out the half-G sports court halfway down the spoke, and try a little zero-G volleyball at the hub or "mixed wrestling" in private rooms...

    Sign me up. Is there an installment plan? I might have enough in forty years....

    Ron Wanttaja

  8. #8
    EAA Staff / Moderator Hal Bryan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rwanttaja View Post
    3. There are those to whom a quarter-million dollars is a drop in the bucket (Hal, for instance :-), and they either are just curious or want to new experience to brag about.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Greenwood View Post
    Ron, I agree that Hal could easily afford a space trip, on his profits on all that expensive bottled water sold at Airventure.

    But he is being kind of hard to please, he said he is not going on the spaceship until they paint it a nice yellow and brown. No luck there, even Rutan who is known for funny looking airplanes, has a standard below which he will not go.
    Sorry guys, I couldn't hear you very easily over the jangling of all the Krugerrands - it was my day in the money room!

    Hal Bryan
    EAA Lifetime 638979
    Vintage 714005 | Warbirds 553527
    Managing Editor
    EAA—The Spirit of Aviation

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    I think that I recall that in the 1970's Pan Am was selling reservations for flights to the future 2001 style space station that everyone was sure would be in orbit by now. I wonder where all of those tickets went?

    Best of luck,

    Wes

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    Quote Originally Posted by WLIU View Post
    I think that I recall that in the 1970's Pan Am was selling reservations for flights to the future 2001 style space station that everyone was sure would be in orbit by now. I wonder where all of those tickets went?
    They're stored in the warehouse with all the jet packs and flying cars we were supposed to have by now (and Hal's Kruggerands...:-).

    Speaking of Rocket/Jet Packs, I thought the recent XKCD slant on them was a good one...

    http://www.xkcd.com/1382/

    Ron Wanttaja

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