The Space Frontier Foundation, which has been pressing eloquently for better and more commercially-targeted efforts to develop space, recognises space tourism as one of the activities that could play a major role in generating the financial support needed to develop space. At this year's 7th Annual Conference, Tom Rogers, President of the Space Transportation Association in Washington DC (among his various hats) chaired a panel on Space Adventure Tourism during the afternoon of Saturday October 10th at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel, L.A. airport.

Under the headline "Vacations in Orbit" journalist Jeffrey Kluger subtitled Time magazine's first article on the recent activities aimed at realising space tourism "Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin has flown in space twice. Now he's hoping to send you there too."

The Report of the AIAA/ CEAS/ CASI Workshop on International Cooperation in Space held in Banff Canada in January 1998 has been published, and it includes strong support for the creation of a space tourism industry.

In a recent piece entitled "Skeptics put Glenn, NASA under the microscope" about John Glenn's scheduled flight on the space shuttle, CNN quoted several medical researchers as saying that although Glenn is 77 his flight cannot be justified by medical research into aging. (Among other things, a single case is not statistically useful, and there is little data on his earlier short flight.) Politics and PR seem to be the real reasons behind the plan.

Space Tourism was discussed in two places in the May 25 issue of Space News, both positive and negative views being expressed.

Jim Benson, Chairman and founder of SpaceDev, the San Diego company developing the first commercial satellite mission to an asteroid, has decided to establish the "Space Development Institute" in San Diego.

Pierre Bartholome, former head of ESA's office in Belgium argued that commercial profits from space activities have been earned from satellite operation, ground equipment manufacturing, satellite manufacturing and rocket manufacturing, in that order.

Space 98, the biennial space conference of the American Society of Civil Engineers' Aerospace Division, is one of the few "mainstream" space conferences that is actively adapting to the "new paradigm" that space activities are becoming increasingly commercial, and their funding will come increasingly from the private sector with the objective of earning profits.

The final report of a study of General Public Space Travel and Tourism performed cooperatively by NASA and the Space Transportation Association (STA) under a Space Act Agreement dated 12th September, 1995 was released at a press conference on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. on March 25.

The Final Report of the joint study on General Public Space Travel and Tourism released March 25 by NASA and the Space Transportation Association (STA) concluded that "Our national space policy should be examined with an eye to toward actively encouraging the creation of a large general public space travel and tourism business." However, one of the problems which the Report specifically discusses is that the concept of "space tourism" is not taken seriously by many technical experts who might be expected to support it: