The very positive report on the feasibility of space tourism published by Nasa in March 1998 is now available via Nasa's web-site. Typing 'space tourism' into the search form brings it up as the 3rd reference, dated 25 July, 2001. This follows three and a half years during which Nasa administrator Goldin prevented it being publicly accessible.

by Alan Breakstone

According to The Sunday Times, one of Japan's largest travel agencies has opened a space tourism branch. Yoshikazu Shiraishi, the manager of the new space division of Kinki Nippon Tourist, says they want to fulfill the dreams of millions of people.

Just to prove that Mike Kelly, CEO of Kelly Space & Technology, isn't the only one getting a little press attention lately (GQ Magazine, September 2000), founder of Space Renaissance Inc and the Space Tourism Society John Spencer has recently been profiled by The Argonauts, a web magazine focussing on adventure travel.

Here is another web site with a good collection of space tourism (and

The classic article "Studies Claim Space Tourism Feasible" published in 'Aviation Week & Space Technology' the leading aerospace industry magazine on April 7, 1997, pp 58-60, is now available on the Internet here. The 3-page article, by Aviation Week reporter William Scott, described 3 presentations at the 1997 IEEE Aerospace Conference held in Snowmass, Colorado, and is of considerable historic interest in being the first article about space tourism to be published in Aviation Week (though not the first time that the words have been used).

Readers may like to review the Space Transportation Association Space Travel and Tourism Division's Bulletin Board of news and events at http://www.spacetransportation.org/bulletins.htm.

NASA Watch, the website that is famously "on NASA's case" has opened a new section on "Tourism and other non-traditional uses of space". Although still under construction as of this writing, expect to see this grow in the coming months.

The long awaited NASA-Space Transportation Association Space Travel