Space Tourism
by
Ben Bova
( a recent USA TODAY article).

Looking for an out-of-this-world vacation? How about going into orbit for a few days of zero-gravity fun?
It's not as far-fetched as you might think. Representatives from the aerospace, tourism and insurance industries are seriously looking at the prospects for turning orbital space and eventually the Moon into vacation sites.
The biggest attraction may also be the biggest problem. While astronauts uniformly report that the weightlessness of zero-gee can be exhilarating, it takes a day or so to get accustomed to it. Almost everyone who's gone into orbit has been queasy for at least the first few hours.
NASA calls it Space Adaptation Syndrome, and scientists are working on methods of alleviating it. SAS isn't like motion sickness; it's apparently caused by a confusion in the brain between sensory systems.
Once in zero-gee, the balance sensors of the inner ear start telling the brain that you're falling. But the eyes tell the brain you're not. Also, the fluids in your head begin to shift, because they're weightless, stuffing your sinuses and making you feel as if you're coming down with the flu. Result? Mild nausea, sometimes dizziness. Experienced astronauts have upchucked. Tourists might be quite miserable, at first. But the body soon adapts and zero-gee becomes enjoyable. You grow a couple of inches taller because gravity is no longer pulling down on your spine. Your waist and legs thin. You can float like an angel.
Space tourism may become possible when the next generation of space boosters begins flying, in five to ten years. Today, going into orbit costs about $10,000 per pound. The goal for the next generation of boosters is to bring that price down closer to $100 per pound. Still pricey, but within the market for people who buy around-the-world cruises and adventure jaunts to Antarctica or up the Amazon.
The 36-story-tall Saturn V that lifted the Apollo astronauts to the Moon could put almost 200 tons into low Earth orbit, at a cost of about $3500 per pound (1995 dollars).
To bring down the cost of going into space, NASA developed the shuttle, which is largely reusable. However, it takes several weeks to "turn around" a shuttle orbiter after a flight. And since the Challenger accident in 1986, a small army of technicians and administrators checks and rechecks every molecule involved in a shuttle flight, driving up the cost of shuttle operations to three times that of the old Saturn V.
The new boosters now under development will be completely reusable, and designed to be "turned around" within hours by a small ground crew. They will operate more like commercial airliners than today's space shuttle, with the emphasis on efficient operation and profitability.
The big argument among the engineers is "SSTO vs. TSTO:" single stage to orbit or two stages to orbit.
Is it possible to build a rocket booster that can place payloads of ten or 20 tons in orbit in one leap, without needing an extra set of engines to get it off the ground? Or will a two-stage rocket be necessary?
A champion of the SSTO concept is Maxwell Hunter, a veteran aerospace engineer and father of the Delta Clipper. Hunter believes that with modern lightweight materials and ultraminiaturized electronics, SSTO is not only feasible, but more practical than two-stage designs. McDonnell Douglas built and test-flew the DC-X and DC-XA, unmanned scale model versions of the Delta Clipper. The DC-XA crashed and burned because of a jammed landing strut, and the program has been suspended.
NASA and Lockheed Martin are building the X-33, a SSTO which, if successful, Lockheed Martin will develop under private investment into the Venture Star, a true spaceplane. Kistler Aerospace is working on a TSTO design, and other companies both in the U.S. and abroad are pursuing SSTO and TSTO concepts.
Space tourism is not the only goal driving this new wave of development. The commercial uses of orbital space, ranging from communications satellites to industrial experiments in zero-gee, are already generating hundreds of billions of dollars in launch services. But tourism can become a major impetus.
Of course, a rocket vehicle that can carry ten or 20 tons into orbit for $100 per pound will also make the best long-range air transportation system imaginable. New York to Tokyo in half an hour. Ski jaunts in August to the Andes or New Zealand. That is a multi-trillion-dollar market, not only for the tourism industry but for aerospace firms and airlines as well.

My personal hope is to visit an orbital honeymoon hotel. If you like waterbeds, you're going to love zero gee.

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Ben Bova's latest novel, Moonrise, shows how SSTO rockets will revolutionize travel on Earth and in space.