The barriers to entry for this one are not just high, they’re astronomical! But with current “tourists” paying $20M per seat - and the fact they’re apparently fully booked until 2009 there is definately room for growth and some significant profits.
No doubt thats why Richard Branson has been working with the X Prize winners to develop craft for his new company Virgin Galactic bringing the cost down to a mere $200,000 dollars per seat starting in 2009. So how can we take advantage of this?
Well there are clearly going to be big opportunities for any company able to provide a cheaper flight, or the equipment required to offer such a flight. There’s going to be great opportunities for companies offering space simulation and training both prior to the flight and as a cheap alternative for those of us that don’t have a spare $200,000 burning a hole in our pockets. There’s going to be a growth of space travel agents.
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I agree, there are definitely going to be opportunities in the years to come that will offer cheaper alternatives to those who cannot afford to shell out $200K for a 4 to 7 minute space flight, I guarantee it. Even now we are starting to see skill games, and contests all geared towards offering free trips into space becoming more frequent.
The barriers to enter into this industry either as a company or as a tourist are no where near astronomical, and are in fact only as high as anyone’s imagination will go. 25 years ago you couldn’t dream of ever having the chance to go to the moon, and now for only $100 million dollars you can.
Put aside the fact that I just said “only” for a moment and appreciate the bigger picture which is the fact that we are starting to see prices placed on things we used to think were so far out of our reach.
This tells us that soon even a trip to the moon will become more affordable. We are and have been in the “creative age” of the space tourism industry.
The important thing to not lose site of here is that it’s happening now! and there are unlimited opportunities to help make it happen sooner regardless of your background.
I see one of the founders of PayPal recently test launched a new rocket too…