Cody+LaRont

1) Space Tourism by Cody LaRont. Is space tourism and colonization realistic? This is interesting because it simply sparks my curiousity. This could potentially happen in the near future. 2) Denis, Bensoussan. "Space Tourism Risks: A Space Insurance Perspective." //Acta Astronautica// 66.11/12 (2010). Web. 30 Oct. 2010.

I don't think this article is scholarly but it does cite scholarly sources. This article discusses the risks invloved with space tourism and how insurance can be provided. Space tourism experts will have to investigate things like space vehicle and passenger insurance among other critical issues like space law and regulations; environmental impact concerns; and passenger medical and fitness screening/training processes. The involvement of space insurance in the space tourism department will help to bring a reality check to what is actually possible. Developing a viable and affordable insurance plan for future space tourists is an essential part of planning spacce tourism. As much of an opportunity this is for insurance companies, it is a challenge. There are many risks that have been identified and have to be dealt with. Many of these issues are simply because of the riskiness of space travel. Others include defining where space begins (for legal purposes), the human experience, and creating a new space insurance industry. The figures are not very reliable yet but the projected figures are 1 fatal accident expected for 50,000 flights compared to 1 in every 8 million commercial airline flights. In order to improve on these numbers, the space will be put through very extensive testing, usually for several hundred hours. Another main concern of the insurers is the safety of the passengers. The operators of the space craft need to implement safety devices in order to maximize safety for the passengers. The main criteria that will used to assess the risk is the technical reliability of the space craft.

"'Space tourism is probably unstoppable' according to Mr. Binnie from Virgin Galactic" "A recent Sunday Times opinion qualified Space Tourism as a 'USD 200,000 trip to nowhere'." "The prototype of Las Vegas hotel billionaire Robert Bigelow's 'space hotel', a privet space station that could be rented out to everyone from wealthy vacationer to national space programs, has been in orbit since July 2006." 'Amateurs talk propellant, professionals talk insurance'

I didn't really realize it but insurance is a huge part of the future space tourism industry. Space tourism will create a completely new branch of insurance. Since all of these industries will be brand new, there is a lot of unknowns and danger involved. Tons of research has to be done in order to be able to start all of these new programs. Space tourism will create a whole new industry and contribute immensely to the economy. This will completely change the world. It will change us from an earth based culture to a culture going beyond its boundaries. Even though the the start of this new industry will be very difficult and is venturing into the unknown, it will pretty much be impossible to stop from happening.

Hellinghausen, Mary A. "UTMB Experts Researching Commercial Space Guidelines Bay Area Citizen News Archives Houston Community Newspapers Online - News Around Town." //Untitled Document//. 29 Sept. 2010. Web. 20 Oct. 2010. [].

This is not a scholarly source. It is written by a journalist from the Bay Area Citizen, which is a newspaper based in Houston, Texas. It does contain quotes from a credible source in the field though. It quotes Dr. James M. Vanderploeg, associate professor of aerospace medicine in the UTMB Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health. This source seems unbiased, it is just informing people about what is going on currently. This source is quite relevant because it addresses not the ability of the machine to go into space, but the ability of the average person.

This article is looking into the future at the potential issues, namely healthy related, of sending average people to space. The journalist discusses this with the help of Dr. James M. Vanderploeg, Virgin Galactic’s chief medical officer. He says that even people with health issues will be able to go to space, it is only a matter of understanding and controlling those health issues. In order to understand health issues, they will have to gather a large amount of research with the help of Stanford University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, three NASA centers, space industry coalitions, commercial payload and launch companies, and commercial spaceports. According to Vanderploeg, tourism in space will depend a lot on the FAA's ability to set proper rules and guidelines.The research they do will help set those guidelines and even go beyond the space industry into the health industry. Vanderploeg also says that one of the most important things is to figure out how to capture medical data and make it available in a common data base for future research.

"Vanderploeg notes that in 50 years of space flight, about 500 astronauts have flown to date. 'The first year of commercial space flight could fly that many people,' he said." "UTMB, along with research partners Stanford University and the University of Colorado at Boulder, will share $1 million per year in base funding from the FAA over the next five years." "Commercial enterprises such as Virgin Galatic and Space Adventures could be offering suborbital commercial flights within the next two years, with prices in the $100,000-$200,000 range." This article was pretty interesting because it brought to light other issues with space tourism that I had never considered. I only thought about the capablitiy of the technology being able to take people to space. I had never thought about the capablility of the people going to space. They think that most people should be able to go to space, even people with health issues. In order for people with health issues to go, medical crews need to be able to control those health issues. There is a ton of research that has be done before they will know confidently how to conrtol tourists' health issues. They have have all of this research done before the FAA can make guidelines for space travel. Projections from Virgin Galactic say that they could be sending tourists to space two years from now. I haven't read this yet, but from my point of view, it looks like the guidelines and health concerns could take longer to solve than the technology and the machines. I'm not sure how the research is going to help set guidelines because Vanderploeg says after they send people to space commercially, they will have a lot more sample data. The FAA is going to have to somehow make guidelines without some of this research they need. Vanderploeg believes that in one year they will send as many people to space as the world has in 50 years. This will allow them to attain data for research way more quickly than before but the fact that that many people will be able to go to space is astounding to me because of the price of the tickets to space. Virgin Galactic is selling tickets already at $200,000 per person but they still have a long list of people in line to go to space. What I want to know now is how the research has progressed. What are they doing to experiment the controlling of health issues? Have there been any break throughs? //Welcome | Virgin Galactic//. Web. 20 Oct. 2010. [].

Williams, Lynda. "Irrational Dreams of Space Colonization." //Peace Review// 22.1 (2010): 4-8. Print.

This is a scholarly source. It is an article in a journal called Peace Review. The author of the article has a M.S. in Physics and teaches Physics at Santa Rose Junior College. This essay examines the threats and promises of commercial space exploration, and its consequences to life on Earth. It is enevitibal that the Earth will be destroyed sometime in the future. Some people are trying to escape by colonizing in space, on mars or the moon. The core ethical dilemma posed by space colonization: should we put our resources into developing human colonies on other worlds to survive natural and manmade catastrophes, or should we focus all of our energies on solving and mitigating the problems that create these threats on Earth? Since both landscapes on the moon and mars are very hostile and inhospitable to humans, people would have to live in small pods similar to trailer park homes. That would make it very limiting to how many people could live in those new colonies and how long they could live there. The question now is, is it ethically and fiscally responsable to pursue these colonies? There is also the problem of energy sources. The sources are there but the cost of aquiring it is far greater than the benefit. Even if you forget about all this other stuff, just getting to Mars will kill you because of the lethal doses of solar cosmic rays. The technological hurdles prohibiting practical space colonization of the moon and Mars in the near future are stratospherically high; the environmental and political consequences of pursuing these lofty dreams are even higher. There is also the problem of international space laws. How will we be able to peacefully inhabit space without them? There are still many things to consider before throwing ourselves into an attempt to colonize space. The biggest thing to consider are the possible environmental and political consequences.

"How can we, as a species, control the exploration, exploitation, and control of the moon and other celestial bodies if we cannot even commit to a legal regime to protect and share its resources?" "The reality is that our planet Earth is a perfect spaceship and may be our final front-line...It would be wise and prudent for us as a species to focus our intellectual and technological knowledge into preserving our spaceship for the long voyage ahead so that, once we have figured out how to make life on Earth work in an environmentally and politically sustainable way, we can then venture off the planet into the new frontier of our dreams."

This article takes a different approach, it isn't as much concerned about our physical ability to get to space and colonize it. Although it does discuss those issues, the bigger problem is the evnironmental and political consequences on earth. We would need to create new international laws concerned with colonization in space, namely the moon and mars. Without international laws controlling everything there is a potential for war to breakout which would cause catostrophic problems. We are close to commercial space travel for tourists but as far as colonization in space goes, we are no where close to being capable. We are not even close to the shear technological advances needed to colonize space. Even forgetting about the technology needed, we still need to make considerations about the consequences of pursuing space colonization. Obviously there are potential political issues, mostly in international politics.Since there is a much more limited space...in space, there is a very real possiblilty for the breakout of war over territory. With concern for the environment, there is already thousands of pieces of manmade debris in the space just outside of earth. If we keep adding debris, we won't be able to leave Earth's atmosphere without a serious risk of collision. We also need to consider what will not be done while pursuing space colonization. Where will the funds be taken from? What will we stop pursuing in order to pursue this? Do the benefits of doing this outway the costs? There is hope though, we need a lot of time for technology and politics to develop but we have a lot of time. The sun has billion of years left of energy so we don't have to worry about being destroyed by it for a while.