Is It Finally Time for Space Tourism?

NASA's Quest for Human Spaceflight Popular Appeal*

“…They questioned official NASA programs and celebrated commercial efforts to reach space. These efforts emerged full‐blown in the last part of the 20th century as entrepreneurial firms sought to recapture the initiative lost at the end of the Apollo program (see Michaud, ; Launius, ; Launius and Jenkins, ).…”

Bragging Rights and Destination Marketing: A Tourism Bragging Rights Model

“…The relevance of bragging rights to tourism is, to some extent, supported by studies including Delener 2010, Beeton (2005), Launius and Jenkins (2006), and Brooker and Burgess (2008). Although these studies do not investigate the role of bragging rights in tourism, they allude to its relevance.…”

“…In reference to film-induced tourism, Beeton (2005, p. 112) proposes that visiting film sites allows the individual to return home knowing how movies were filmed and so "brag about possessing an insider's knowledge". Launius and Jenkins (2006) argued that bragging rights may also be earned by participating in exclusive activities such as hunting in sub-Saharan Africa. Brooker and Burgess (2008, p. 279) propose that one of the reasons people may visit new and un-commercialised destinations that the individual's peers have not heard about or considered visiting, is because of the "bragging rights" that might be earned.…”

Space law in the age of the International Space Station

“…160 It also became clear that this new branch of space activities created the distinct necessity to establish appropriate legal rules and principles, and to some extent -essentially at the national level within the U.S.-this has already been done. 161 …”

“…In April 2001, U.S. citizen Dennis Tito was launched to the Russian part of the ISS for no other reasons than that he was driven by his desire to fly in outer space and happened to have the money privately available to pay the price quoted to him for fulfilling that desire. 158 Originally Tito, through the brokerage of a small private company called MirCorp established specifically for bringing self-financed private persons into space, was supposed to be launched on a Russian launch vehicle to the Russian space station Mir, at an overall price estimated at the time to amount to some US $20 million. In the course of his preparation, however, Mir had to be de-orbited, which occurred over the Pacific Ocean in March 2001.…”