MUMBAI - A space tourism buzz has hit India with British entrepreneur Richard
Branson's Virgin Galactic opening shop in the country in October, after brisk
worldwide sales for passenger flights to space circa 2010.
At US$200,000 for the 150-minute space ride, Virgin Galactic says the "Founders
List" of the first 100 clients is closed to new reservations. Already four
Indians - two US-based and one each in the United Kingdom and India - are among
the 200 space tourists
who have already bought the ticket to ride.
Japan is their biggest market in Asia, says Virgin Galactic, and the Chinese
state media reported that seven locals, including a woman, have applied for the
space tickets.
"We already had 80,000 people contacting us for reservations," David Clark,
handling "astronaut relations" at Virgin Galactic, told Asia Times Online. "The
response is overwhelming."
By 2010, the first astro-tourists are scheduled to blast off aboard SpaceShip
Two (SS2) from Mojave Spaceport in the California desert, heading 110
kilometers above earth. Virgin Galactic plans first weekly and then daily space
flights.
The UK-based Virgin Galactic, calling itself "the world's first spaceline", is
touting breathtaking views of Earth and the experience of two weightless
minutes of zero gravity in a 4,000-kilometers-an-hour spacecraft at three times
the speed of sound.
If sales prospects are true, then it reveals a global market willing to pay a
minor fortune for space travel and a dawn for space entrepreneurs. Experts say
the $200,000 space tickets are a bargain compared to NASA space shuttle flights
each costing up to $1 billion.
Lalit Sheth, who in the 1980s pioneered the overseas tour business in India
with the Raj Travels company, told Asia Times Online that he was not surprised
that $200,000 space travel tickets were being sold in India.
"If Indians now have money to easily buy cars worth $1 million, buying this
will be just a fun game," Sheth said. "Many will line up to indicate that they
have done this and $200,000 is peanuts for many in India to achieve a massive
status symbol."
India's Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, a multi-millionaire
industrialist, also expressed interest a space ride - but prudently after the
first few flights.
Patel was reportedly impressed when he was told at Virgin Galatic's India
launch gala of successful test flights and acquired licenses, but this is an
area where the space tourism company could be exaggerating or even
misrepresenting its prospects. "All trials have been successful," Carolyn
Wincer, head of astronaut operations for Virgin Galactic, told the Indian media
in October. "We have already got all required licenses for trips on our
SpaceShip 1 [SS1]."
Actually, SS1 has already been retired to the National Air and Space Museum in
Washington DC. And SS2, which is scheduled to carry Virgin's space tourists, is
on hold pending an investigation into a July accident in California which
killed three employees of SS2 designer, Scaled Composites. A California
occupational safety and health report is expected by January 26, 2008. David
Clark of Virgin Galactic told Asia Times Online that the company would be
addressing all safety concerns during a simulation display in January in New
York.
The underlying reality is that if a well-known brand name sells space tourism,
then a huge, wealthy, pioneering and risk-taking global market is ready to
gobble it up. Media reports in October also quoted a market study saying that a
passenger space ship crash would not kill the space tourism market. The market
is ready, whether the product is ready or not.
With over 100 Virgin Galactic space travel agents worldwide, Clark says
"current plans are to fly 50,000 sub-orbital passengers in the first decade".
Most clients are business owners with their average age in the mid-50s, and
some are Hollywood stars.
Space tourism and Virgin Galactic-like companies were born out of legendary
aviator Burt Rutan's SS1 winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004, for
being the first to build and launch a privately-funded spacecraft. It carried
three people 100 kilometers above the Earth's surface, twice in two weeks.
Barely three years later, key elements for consumer space travel are in the
making with private space ship operators such as Virgin Galactic and the
Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Global. And even a bank - the First Czech-Russia
bank - is offering loans for space tickets.
In 1921, Australian prime minister Billy Hughes caused a sensation when he
offered 10,000 pounds (100 was the average monthly salary of a senior
government official in the 1920s) for the first flight from England to
Australia completed in less than 30 days - the average time taken by ship.
Spin-offs from privatized space travel technology could make possible a
30-minute London-Sydney passenger flight in our lifetimes.
Space tourism already enjoys a more expensive market, with the US-based Space
Adventures selling orbital trips at $20 million to the International Space
Station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.
There's scope for informed skeptics on technological readiness of passenger
sub-orbital space travel by 2010, but there's also room for realistic hopefuls.
The Wright brothers too endured skeptics sneering at the likelihood and
benefits of air travel, including renowned scientists like Lord Kelvin, who
said in 1895 that it was impossible for humans to travel in a flying machine.
Orville and Wilbur Wright flew the Wright Flyer eight years later at Kitty
Hawk, North Carolina - and the rest is history.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
