starship-design: Tourism

["jakesmiley" <jakesmiley@netzero.net>]

Hello...

    Unfortunately for space tourism, even a single scare will crush the
industry.  For years the general populace has been subjected to numerous
sci-fi flicks where large numbers of people die violently in a systems
failure.  So, despite the safety of space-travel and redundancy there will
always remain that terrible doubt.

    Even if nothing ever happened, all it would take is a small drop in
oxygen levels one day and pretty soon you'd have a hard time finding anyone
willing to pay the fare.  They'd start thinking about the Challenger or the
Apollo fire.  Which seems ridiculous (they're only proof that most accidents
happen within 10 miles of your point of origin. ;] ), but you know the media
would sensationalize it.

    Think about what's happening to tourism all over the world recently.  It
doesn't take much to upset 'business as usual'.  Factor in the average
operating cost of a station, and you don't have much of a profit margin to
start with.  I doubt that one could ever accrue a large cash buffer while
relying on tourism.

    Also, what would happen when the glamour left space-travel?  People will
eventually realize that it's all just a bunch of stinky space-suits and
cramped cabins.  The QE2 is a lot more comfortable, and cheaper too.  The
worst part of this eventuality is that it would happen when the station was
already fairly old, as stations go.  Thus, just as operating costs ran
through the roof business would drop off.  Many a hotel has gone that
route...

    Okay, on computers...  Sure, if you need really fast computing
distributed is only a pain.  However, when was the last time you seriously
needed a 2GHz chip?  Most people don't.  Besides, I was thinking of a
distributed network for simple, raw number crunching.  No fancy graphics, no
cutting edge interfaces.  Just parse up the data to be ground and pass it
around the table, so to speak.  These processors aren't doing anything else
constructive.  Why not let them analyze star formations, or whatever, while
no one else is using them?  It'll just cut down on the number of processors
required for scientific and engineering tasks.

    Cables?  Isn't a space station wired anyway?  Hey, you could always go
wireless!  Well, if you could figure out how to cut through the
interference...

    I'm not worried about corporations being unable to see a profit.  Or
that they won't be willing to engage in long-term investment (those guys do
whatever their investment bankers tell them to, and the IB's are easy to buy
off).  I'm more worried that they won't be able to see past the risk.  Who
would insure a space scheme?

    Anyway, smile all you want.  I'll still have fun learning.

-JS


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