I am looking forward to this being available. I consider it one of the bell weathers of the private space flight 'business.' A healthy source of revenue for private access to space will change the market dynamics on what gets built, a small niche revenue will not. Either way, we get a data point.
The thing that would concern me is that once the novelty wears off, and there's no place in particular to "go" in space, a healthy revenue source might be difficult.
I've seen an analysis which said that the revenue source isn't going to space and back, but going really fast between 2 points on earth. The analysis basically said that with mail delivery you pay up to 5 times as much for the fastest delivery tier as you do fo the second fastest and that there are about 10% as many deliveries at the fastest tier as at the second fastest. So if you could use space ship 2 for an even faster tier and could get 10% of the current fastest market for 5x the price, then there should be enough mail to pay for up to 1 flight per day across the country.
Don't we already have same-day delivery? So the next tier would have to be quicker delivery than that, which would necessitate more than one flight a day. Is it still economically viable in that case?
Does this same economy math apply to passenger transport? Or could one flight per day of mail to the other side of the world be worth it?
There's something there in your point. But I think the kind of launch and landing infrastructure requires these kinds of things be pretty far from important population centers...meaning your short rocketship trip would be bookended by interminable ground transport.
Jerry Pournelle once suggested that while there is no place to "go" in space, that "doing things" in space was always entertaining in its own right. And by "doing things" he strongly hinted that he felt that "doing it" would be the strongest driver.
I expect he is correct, and don't doubt for a minute that if the Bigelow Space guys figure out how to deploy a hotel in space, an entrepreneur will deploy a bordello.
Nausea and not having any idea how to move around effectively in space probably mean a space love hotel wouldn't be a good idea, despite Pournelle's hopes.
Actually that is one of the novelties. If you've got a lot of experience you know all the 'moves' but you lose some of the 'fun' of figuring things out.
