Benefit Estimation Model for Tourist Spaceflights

摘要

It is believed that the only potential means for significant reduction of the recurrent launch cost, whichrnresults in a stimulation of human space colonization, is to make the launcher reusable, to increase its reliability, and tornmake it suitable for new markets such as mass space tourism. But such space projects, that have long range aspects arernvery difficult to finance, because even politicians would like to see a reasonable benefit during their term in office,rnbecause they want to be able to explain this investment to the taxpayer. This forces planners to use benefit modelsrninstead of intuitive judgement to convince sceptical decision-makers to support new investments in space. Benefitrnmodels provide insights into complex relationships and force a better definition of goals. A new approach is introducedrnin the paper that allows to estimate the benefits to be expected from a new space venture. The main objective whyrnhumans should explore space is determined in this study to "improve the quality of life". This main objective is brokenrndown in sub objectives, which can be analysed with respect to different interest groups. Such interest groups are thernoperator of a space transportation system, the passenger, and the government. For example, the operator is stronglyrninterested in profit, while the passenger is mainly interested in amusement, while the government is primarily interestedrnin self-esteem and prestige. This leads to different individual satisfactory levels, which are usable for the optimisationrnprocess of reusable launch vehicles.