Space Tourism—A Future Dream or a Cyber-tourism Reality?

Abstract

Space is viewed by many as the next frontier and the next boundary to be crossed. This view, popularized in cinema and by science fiction writers, was recently reinforced by the successful suborbital flight of the privately owned SpaceShipOne. But is this view based on substance; will space become the new mass tourism experience of the 21st Century? In time this might be the case but as this paper argues the cost of travel is likely to be so high that non-physical travel based on cyber experiences is a strong possibility. This paper uses scenarios as a method to investigate the possibility of both physical and cyber-travel into space in the future.