The AP reports that Xavier Gabriel, owner of a popular lottery office in Spain, wants to be the first Spanish space tourist and has signed up for a flight on Virgin Galactic. As part of a charity he sponsors, he has collected wishes from people across the country; he plans to make the “most interesting one” come true, while carrying the rest in a digital recording on his spaceflight. “We’re land-bound, and can’t appreciate how beautiful the Earth is,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to seeing it from space, and thinking about how the planet is too beautiful to be treated so badly.” He added that he hopes his flight takes place on December 22nd, the date of the annual world-famous “El Gordo” lottery in Spain.
Anousheh Ansari came in at number 9 in the Dallas Morning News’s list of top ten Texans of the year. Ansari cracked the list because of her Soyuz flight this fall, and for what she did during and after the flight: “…what makes Mrs. Ansari’s journey all the more amazing is how generously she shared even personal moments like that one with people from around the world.”
Metro, the free British daily, had a brief interview with former astronaut Charles Bolden last week. Among the questions asked of Bolden was whether he was “for or against” space tourism. His response:
I’m a big fan. Every time we can send a human into Earth’s orbit, that’s one more person that becomes aware of the value and joy of doing that, and knows what that vantage point affords us. The more of it the better.
He did caution, however, that potential tourists need significant amounts of training before they fly:
We need to be careful we don’t let people go about it in a cavalier manner. We need to put as much training into the space tourists as any government-sponsored space exploration.
“As much training” as government missions could be a significant obstacle down the road for tourism, given that those flying on Soyuz flights have to spend six months in Russia. The size of the market for those who want to fly into orbit and have up to $20 million available is small enough as it is; it gets smaller when you tack on the six months’ worth of training.