Economic analysis of Space Tourism
In analyzing the Orbital Space Tourist Industry, the stark reality is that launch costs dwarf anything else in the income/cost stream. Currently, ignoring the Shuttle, the only game in town is Russian, and a Russian 3 person Soyuz launch is rumored to cost in the neighborhood of 150 million dollars. Add another 100 million dollars for launch insurance, and if all three of the seats are paying customers to your custom orbiting space resort, they already are paying 84 million dollars each, before you get any income to pay for your staff salaries, your development costs, your command/communications center, your orbiting resort facility itself, any maintenance, Re-entry, recovery and disposal costs, and any financing. Add these in, and the cost of a ticket to an orbiting space resort for a week will come to about 140 million dollars. Am I missing anything?
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