I've long complained that NASA's efforts to reduce costs were misdirected, because their focus was on technology (which is a problem, but not a major one) rather than new markets and financing (which is the problem). We've long known that many people would go into space if they could afford it--polls have always shown it--but NASA has steadfastly ignored this, instead always perverting every launch study they do into a replacement for the Shuttle--oversized, and underflown (the most recent example being X-33, though the SLI program shows signs of the same debilitating tendency).

They have spent (and in most cases, wasted) billions of dollars on this, when a tiny fraction of a percent of the funds that they've spent on these technology efforts could have funded some serious market polling that vehicle developers and investors could literally take to the bank.

Finally, after many years, a mere trickle of the NASA new-vehicle funding (this time out of the Space Launch Initiative) has gone toward this end, which will have value far beyond the billions previously spent on technology and system studies.

A NASA contractor, Futron, has directed Zogby International to do a poll, using funding from their market-analysis contract with NASA. Unlike previous polls, which queried the general public, this one focused on people with the actual means to go.

The unsurprising (to me) result is that rich folks are like any other--half of them want to go, and are willing to pay what it costs. Mark Shuttleworth isn't a weirdo--he's typical. Of course, the way in which the rich folks aren't like you and me is that they can afford to.

To me, this is one of the most exciting things that's happened in space in a long time (partly because I've been advocating it for many years). It will go a long way toward making investors take this market more seriously, the previous lack of which has been holding us back. The frustrating thing, of course, is that it could have been done any time over the past couple decades, had we had more visionary people running the agency.

A poll that rich folks are willing to pay for extreme vactions should neither surprise, nor excite anyone. We've had polls for years suggesting that people are willing to pay to go space, how is this one any different? People saying 'yes' on polls does not always equate to bodies at the ticket window. This poll also has an extremely small sample size (450), making the potential for error somewhat larger than your usual political poll.

It shouldn't excite, but it does, because there's always so much skepticism about the market (particularly from aerospace industry professionals), and this is the first poll that actually polled people who have the money.

And the small sample size isn't a problem. Political polls have to be relatively precise, because races are often close. If a market poll is off by ten percent one way or the other, it doesn't take away from the fact that the market is much larger than many would have guessed.

Climbing Mt Everest requires large investments of time, and a LOT of money. Plus significant risk. But there are waiting lists of people who want to do it, and overcrowding on the mountain.

A space trip would yield similar psychic rewards. It would cost more, but everything else would be easier. And there are hundreds of thousands of people in the world who could afford it... there are a lot of millionaires these days.

So I think there is no question that there is a big market for space tourism.

I've never doubted it either, but many still refuse to believe it (at least enough to put up their money). I'm hoping that this study will help in changing perceptions.

I was watching this show Space Exploration on discovery wings. I think that was it I guess. And the theme of the show was about what it would take to get people in space. Lots of people. From space stations, to moon bases, and ultimately trips to Mars. Towards the end of the show there was O'Keefe talking all about how wonderful space will be for the private citizen that wants to go to space. It sounded very exciting until he droned out the usual excuse that currently going to space is to hard and to expensive. He said that currently it would cost tens of thousands of dollars per pound to send a person into space and that realistically that price would need to drop to hundreds of dollars per pound to make space travel a viable industry. Just the tone of his voice alone made it sound like it was going to be incredibly difficult to ever make space travel that cheap. So, at the moment they are focusing on expanding technology to make space travel more efficient.

http://www.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/background/facts/slisumm.html

Sometime, I hope to be able to sit down with Mr. O'Keefe and tell him why he's mistaken about that.