n Manote Tripathi

 The Nation

 Buzz Aldrin, who on July 20, 1969, was straight down the ladder after Neil Armstrong onto the moon's surface, is peeved that the only tourists going into space are billionaires riding Russian rockets.

Why are the rest of us left daydreaming back on Earth?

Aldrin's Starcraft Enterprise, which is a private company, not a spaceship, is coming up with ways to get people aloft routinely - and affordably - in, say, space buses.

He's among the panellists on "CNN Future Summit: World in Motion", airing today on the news channel, and he gave The Nation a glimpse during an exclusive telephone interview last week. The following are excerpts.

We've heard a lot from Richard Branson, Steve Fossett and the Russian Space Agency about putting tourists in space. What will the next breakthrough be?

Even beginning to take people sub-orbital practically - without using government assets - is a breakthrough. The only people who've gone into space have gone on board national government spacecraft.

I think there may be three or four competitors to do that within the next five years as part of the effort to re-supply the International Space Station.

That activity will be subsidised by government as the occupants of the station are taken up and back.

What might the next tourist destination be in space - perhaps the moon?

All sorts of things are possible, but is the moon economically attractive to do for people other than explorers or scientists? I can see that once it's become economical to take people into orbit around the earth, it's relatively a small step to put them on a trajectory that swings around the moon and comes back.

But to enter the lunar orbit requires a significantly greater commitment to return the people safely - and then to land them on the surface of the moon. How many people can afford to make a business out of doing this? I'd rather guess that it might be a combined operation between government and the private sector.

Even to put people into earth orbit, there may be ways that government-funded rocket systems could be used by the private sector. Those rockets can be improved to the benefit of the public sector and the government.

There's a possibility of the private sector and the government using the same vehicle. That will make space travel safer and less expensive. This is something we haven't explored yet.

If the number of people [on each trip] is

limited to five or 10, though, it's difficult to make that pay for itself.

What will future spacecraft be like?

We'll continue using chemical rocket propulsion to get into orbit - nobody's entertaining the use of high energy like nuclear for large rockets.

As for the vehicle, I'd certainly like it to be able to land people back on a runway with wings and wheels instead of landing on airbags or guided parachutes, which limits how much weight you can carry, and thus how many people. I think we need more people.

I would hope that we would have what I would call "variable geometry", so that there's a physical geometry for the launch, up through to the atmosphere, and then a geometry of the spacecraft, with solar panels and radiators available once it's in orbit.

These devices will burn up during re-entry, so we have to retract or disguise them, and we may want to have wings that can fold back against the spacecraft for the re-entry.

What are the chances for low-cost space travel?

I don't think ordinary people will be able to purchase tickets to fly to space anytime soon. We have aeroplanes that go supersonic, but right now we don't have any passenger vehicle that goes supersonic.

It's just not proved to be an economical business, even though in the early 1950s we had aircraft that could go supersonic. But they were just for government operations, or for expensive jobs.

And going into orbit is a tremendous energy consumer.

What about planetary colonisation once space travel becomes more commonplace?

 Well, that's a very crucial question because I really think that to just go to Mars and explore and then come back again and leave Mars vacant is not the way to take humans beyond the earth-moon system.

I think we need to commit to a gradual          permanence.

But I think people will have to justify the transportation ticket by what they contribute to the growing community on the surface.

I also feel it's very difficult to do something on an equal international basis. It's very difficult to define exactly what portions of the mission will be done by what people.

There doesn't appear to be much stability among nations, or the economic status to be able to commit to the long-term development that space travel requires.

I wish I could be optimistic and see that changing significantly. I think we have to have a lot more patience.

I don't think we should cease expanding human capability in space just because we have a lot of problems back here. That, I think, is part of human nature - to be able to progressively expand our horizons and our capability and our ability to travel places.