For many it is felt that space tourism will be the first major step into space, this is due to the fact that tourism can begin in the near Earth environment, and will generate vast revenue.
The opportunities for fare paying members of the general public to take a vacation will include a stay in an orbiting hotel with many leisure and entertainment possibilities, or even to take a luxury cruise around the Moon.
There are already several companies planning to offer such services in the near future, some of these include:
- Bigelow Aerospace are producing the Bigelow cruise ship. This will fly from Earth orbit to the moon and back carrying 100 passengers in great comfort.
- Space Island Group are going to build a ring-shaped, orbital hotel out of 12 empty space shuttle fuel tanks. The hotel will rotate to generate artificial gravity, using centrifugal force. They will offer all the luxury of today's best hotels
- Space Adventures plan to offer sub-orbital space flights on a new reusable launch vehicle. The flight will last between 30 and 150 minutes and will achieve a flight ceiling of 100 miles. Seats are available now and are already being booked, you can get yours here.
These possibilities will be just the beginning, with advances in technology driven by commerce rapid progress could be made (just look at the electronics industry). The future could see trips to Saturn's moons, further down the line will be trips to Pluto and later on travel into deep space to see nebulae might be a weekend vacation. Space will become the greatest holiday resort mankind has ever been to. Long before we move permanently into space there will be many fun times to be had on holiday.