Adumbration

Self declared utopianist Brian Merchant has a few words about space tourism over at motherboard.vice.com.

Mr Merchant finds it "depressing" that "our most promising new spacecraft are privately built vessels that aim to ferry wealthy tourists".  I suppose his use of possesive "our" in that statement is in a similar context as we might claim a cultural ownership to the fruits of civilization, but it minimizes the challenges faced and overcome by Richard Branson and his team in developing a spacecraft that other people are willing to spend their own money in a thrill ride with noticeably less than 100% likelihood of surviving.  That achievement is not something that "we" can claim as a culture - it is something the rest of us can marvel at from the sidelines, but the responsibility lies with the individual people who are actually doing it, people who are brave enough to risk their money on the venture, and the scientists and engineers and managers and bookkeepers and marketing people and hundreds or thousands of others who are contributing to that hoped-for success.  It's not me doing that work, and it's probably not Mr. Merchant either.

Mr. Merchant seems to object to rich people spending their money on such thrill rides, or perhaps worse - that they are willing to pay even more for the privilege of taking that ride in the company of a famous actor such as Leonardo DiCaprio.  But I think he is missing the significance of a piece of information that he includes in his own story - that while the celebrity laden flight costs in excess of $1 million a seat, the ticket price sans DiCaprio is closer to $200k, and that is another marvel.  When NASA was the sole option for getting in to orbit, the cost was insurmountable - no one could afford it, and the only people who were allowed to take the trip were government employees; no doubt those people have been talented and brave and singularly notable for each of their own special reasons, but being among the selected few required a lifetime commitment for a scarce chance to fly.  And the costs for those trips have not been insignificant; $500 million per Shuttle mission would not be far out of line as an estimate, giving about $100 million per person per flight, so the Virgin Galactic operation has lower costs by a factor of 500.

I see this trend as extremely encouraging.

A further extract:

Yes, it's increasing looking like the only thing people are going to be doing in space this next decade is either patching up the aging ISS or clinking champagne glasses on a luxury rocket with the rich and famous. The destination may be new, but thematically, we're boldly going somewhere we've gone millions of times before.

Mr Merchant seems to desire a future that expands the development of space, but perhaps I am reading more of myself into what seems his underlying interest in more human activity in outer space.  For those of us interested in a destiny for humanity in the stars, we have to think about sustainability of such development, and that's only going to come in the context of a growing economy, an economy that allows wealthy people to spend their money on adventure, leading eventually to the same option becoming available to people who are only reasonably well off.  The trend for all such luxuries, when left in the hands of entrepreneurs to satisfy the consumer demand, is to progressively lower the cost of access, converting luxury into entertainments within reach of almost everyone.

Along the way I see a progression from sub-orbital experiences in the edge of space, to low earth orbit weekends in cramped quarters, to destination resorts aiming to cater to a growing population interested in an affordable once-in-a-lifetime vacation.

And it doesn't bother me that what drives this will be the profit motive.

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PS.  I don't know whether or by how much Virgin Galactic has been subsidized by the state in one way or another.  I've not heard of them in any cases, egregious or even mundane (such as that for SpaceX contracting with NASA for cargo to the Space Station).