Probabilistic Assessment of the Space Tourism Industry What Will it Take to Make it Profitable?

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YoungJ-8900.pdf (1.32 MB)
Author(s)
Young, James J.
Advisor(s)
Olds, John R.
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Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering
The Daniel Guggenheim School of Aeronautics was established in 1931, with a name change in 1962 to the School of Aerospace Engineering
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https://hdl.handle.net/1853/73572
Abstract
Forty four years ago Yuri Gagarin became the first person to travel into space; this sparked a heated “space race” between the United States and the Soviet Union which ended with the historic moon landing in 1969. This began the world wide love for space travel and sparked interest in a possible future space tourism industry. It has taken nearly 35 years, but the space tourism industry has finally matured. With the successfully launch of SpaceShipOne, which captured the X-Prize in October of 2004, a vehicle is now finally available that can provide affordable access to space. Virgin Galactic has bought the rights to this design and will begin offering sub-orbital space flights in 2007 for a ticket price of around $200,000. The goal of this study will be to determine the economic viability of the future space tourism industry. The study will include an economic evaluation of the currently proposed SpaceShipTwo Virgin Galactic partnership that will begin providing sub-orbital space flights in 2007. A second study will then be preformed to characterize a vehicle configuration and economic business model that will be most profitable in this space tourism industry. These models will be analyzed using LMNoP, an economic business case analyzer developed in the Space Systems Design Lab to predict the economic viability of a space tourism business model. Probabilistic analysis will be used to help provide greater confidence in the results then could be achieved through a deterministic result. It is the hope that the result of this study will help to establish a baseline economic model for a successful space tourism industry and will provide proof that this industry is within reach.
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Date
2005-05-01
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Masters Project
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