Money Could Buy Next Giant Leap In Space, Aldrin Says

By Dayan Candappa
Reuters
posted: 01:32 pm ET
25 February 2001

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Reuters) -- With guided tours of outer space set to become a
tourist attraction, space exploration will soon be driven more by commercialism than
scientific curiosity, a U.S. astronaut said on Sunday.

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the Moon, and science-fiction writer Arthur C.
Clarke met in Sri Lanka to discuss their vision of the future of space travel.

"The immediate future of space travel depends on the ability of private citizens to get into
space as paying tourists,'' Aldrin told a news conference after the meeting.

Aldrin, 71, who founded ShareSpace, a nonprofit organization dedicated to opening

space travel to the public, said a " whole new industry'' would develop around space
adventure travel in the next 10 to 12 years.

Clarke, 83, was internationally acclaimed as a space visionary in 1945 for his
controversial theory forecasting a world linked up by a network of geostationary
satellites. He said space tourism would be the "next big leisure activity of our species.''

Aldrin said cheaper, reusable rockets would be needed.

"We will soon have cheaper, safer rockets that can be used again and again to cater
to...tourists,'' he said.

Both men agreed the benefits of commercial space travel would be more than just
financial.

"Space tourism is the only way to build the space generation that will take us...to Mars
and beyond,'' said Aldrin.

The British-born Clarke, who has lived in Sri Lanka for 40 years, said colonizing other
planets was the only way for the human race to survive a collision between Earth and a
big meteorite.