Dennis Tito's space flight is a resounding victory for freedom, democracy, Russia and capitalism in space - over the forces of government control, bureaucracy, Goldin's Nasa and monopoly.

Under the title "Money Could Buy Next Giant Leap In Space, Aldrin Says", Reuters' Dayan Candappa reported a meeting between Buzz Aldrin and Arthur C Clarke in which they agreed that space tourism is IT.

Space News reported on January 15 that "senior Nasa space station officials" will meet in Moscow in February to discuss Russian plans to fly US citizen Dennis Tito to the ISS. The reason for this was given as: "Russian space officials recently informed Nasa in writing of a plan to fill the Soyuz capsule's vacant third seat with paying customers during routine missions."

In the blizzard of media discussion of what the 21st Century will be like, the number of journalists who recognise the role that passenger space travel will play in the world economy is vanishingly small. Yet passenger space travel will bring about a transformation of the world economy in the 21st century as significant for human development as the European 'Renaissance' in the 15-16th centuries.

Space tv AG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the German television production company Brainpool of Cologne, is reported to have made reservations for 7 flights in the Russian 'Soyuz' launch vehicle between 2002 and 2008 to allow selected people to visit the Russian sector of the International Space Station.

After more than a year, it seems fair to promote Nasa administrator Goldin's unkept promise to make the path-breaking report "General Public Space Travel and Tourism" (NP-1998-03-11-MSFC) available on Nasa's web-site to a broken promise.