Tourists in space? *Nsync's Lance Bass wants to go up. One American already paid $20 million for a trip. But is space tourism a good idea?

• Author: Aldrin, Edwin
• Position: Opinion - Brief Article

YES Enthusiasm for space tourism has been growing over the last few years, as the opportunity becomes more and more real. I believe space tourism is a wonderful idea, because it will rekindle the excitement for space exploration that existed in the 1960s when America was racing to put a man on the moon by the decade's end.

As space travel comes closer to ordinary people, it generates more interest. The public identifies with people who're not just specially selected for these missions.

But for space tourism to really take off, we will have to develop the ability to take large numbers of people into space in short periods of time--maybe 60 to 80 at a time, on daily flights. Eventually, we'd also need a place for them to stay--a kind of space hotel. These are precisely the kind of facilities that the government would need for further exploration of the moon or a trip to Mars someday.

Rather than being a frivolous and expensive indulgence, space tourism could, in a sense, pave the way for further space exploration by developing--partly with private money--the necessary infrastructure. Whichever country first develops the capability to take adventure travelers into low Earth orbit will have such a large advantage on space exploration. That country would have a worldwide monopoly on the technology, which would lead to tremendous economic benefits.

Space tourism is such a major industry that it's going to come sooner or later, whether segments of the American government want it or not. Space travel is an out-of-this-world experience: the exhilaration of weightlessness, circling the Earth in 90 minutes, and seeing 15 sunrises in one 24-hour period.

The world conditions right now are not too supportive of quick development of a space tourism industry. Hopefully, that will change in the next 5 to 10 years, and we'll start to see real progress.

--BUZZ ALDRIN Apollo 11 Astronaut

NO When American multimillionaire Dennis Tito paid the Russian space program $20 million last spring to hitch a ride to the International Space Station, he realized a lifelong dream. But his presence at...