Space enthusiasts want ticket to ride

By KATHERINE PFLEGER

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 27, 1999

WASHINGTON -- Millionaire Robert Bigelow foresees a day when his growing hotel empire will expand beyond the boundaries of Las Vegas, the United States and even Earth.

Like all space enthusiasts at the first U.S. Space Tourism Conference last week, Bigelow believes that in 10 to 20 years, people with or without the Right Stuff will be able to take a trip to space, and he is offering to invest $500-million with anyone who has the know-how to make that happen.

"People have compared where we are today" in the aerospace industry "to the 1800s in the shipping industry," said Bigelow, owner of Budget Suites of America and Bigelow Aerospace. "The craft that's our ultimate vision will take 100 guests and 50 crew" on a six-day cruise to the moon.

A cruise ship in space? Surely, he must be dreaming.

Not if you ask anyone at the conference. Engineer Mark Reiff, for example, describes Bigelow as "an angel."

On Wednesday and Thursday, dozens of star-gazers gathered with Bigelow in the nation's capital to talk spacecrafts, federal regulations, space safety and finances. They want to take space travel out of the government's hands and put it into the hands of private corporations that will someday sell tickets to the final frontier.

Their ideas may sound as though they are out of a sci-fi movie or an episode of The Jetsons. But no one at the conference wanted to hear that.

"You could say that 10 to 20 years before the Apollo program, no one could be on the moon," said conference organizer Bob Haltermann, executive director of the Space Transportation Association's Space Travel and Tourism Division. "You always have naysayers. First you have dreamers. Then they have to make it reality."

Some people are willing to bet that Haltermann's reality is right around the corner. Omega World Travel President Gloria Bohan has taken about 100 reservations for trips to space, including a few customers who have put down $600,000 deposits. Never mind that she doesn't have a launch pad, a spaceship or even a departure time.

"Customers who have been everywhere say going to space would be the ultimate vacation for them, and they would save handsomely to go there," Bohan said.

Ivan Bekey, an internationally known space systems engineering consultant, says recent surveys show 1-million people would be willing to pay $20,000 to leave the planet, and if the price tag drops to $10,000 or $15,000, 10-million would go.

What might they get for their money?

Brian Husting, a resort designer and project architect for Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, predicts travelers will be able to chip balls at old satellites, sign up for zero-g massages, go dancing and get astronomy lessons -- all from the comfort of a space hotel.

But more practical believers point out that such visions are millions, if not billions, of investment dollars away. Only five companies in the world are trying to build a reusable rocket that would take cargo -- and possibly someday a "human payload" -- to space. Construction of a full-scale resort is decades off, they say.

"What needs to happen between now and space tourism is a lot of things," including medical and technological advancement, said astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad, who went to space four times with NASA, including a trip to the moon. "But you have got to start somewhere."

Conrad, the chairman and chief executive officer of Universal Space Lines, is trying to build what he sees as a step toward space tourism -- a low-cost, expendable spacecraft. "You've got to get the interest out there," he said.

Conrad, of course, is a walking commercial for space travel. "What do I think of space? My short answer -- it's super," he said. "My long answer -- it beats Disneyland."

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