Until space tourism becomes a substantial business space activities, including particularly all crewed space activities, will remain a burden on tax-payers - that means you. No other activity than tourism offers similar promise of turning space activities into profitable commercial activities in the foreseeable future.

Suppose the taxpayers of the world were to ask: "For how many more decades are we going to have to pay $25 billion per year (the current level of government space spending!) before space activities become financially self-supporting?" Since the space agencies of the world currently have no plans to develop passenger-carrying launch-vehicles, this would be at least 30 years - just $750 billion. Why should the public agree to pay this? Especially since the agencies are not doing what they want?

In the last few years space activities in Russia have shrunk by about 90% - because they have little commercial value. And currently Russia must concentrate its resources on activities that are commercially valuable and contribute to economic growth. The budgets of NASA, ESA and several national space agencies have started to be cut recently. It's quite possible that government budget cuts in the rich countries will lead to continuing cuts in space spending there too, since they have little public support. The only way to ensure the growth of space activities is to put them on a commercial basis - and that means developing a space tourism industry.

It's possible to go even further and argue that until space tourism becomes a major new profit center of the aerospace industry, economic growth in the rich countries will remain sluggish. Over the past few decades governments have invested approximately $1 trillion in space activities, but this investment is still far from earning a commercial return. By normal business standards a $1 trillion investment should be earning annual profits of $100 billion or more by now - but annual turnover (let alone profits) of all commercial space activities is still only in the billions of $$. Large-scale profits can arise only from large-scale space activities - which can be achieved only by making much more effort to develop economical passenger launch-vehicles.

During the last decades of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show" toured throughout the USA and Europe to enormous popular acclaim. No doubt Bill Cody was mocked by his previous colleagues saying "Entertainment's no job for a real cowboy".

But "Buffalo Bill" created a great deal of wealth; he became world-famous; and he entertained and educated tens of millions of people about the "Wild West". (He also went on to play an important role in the development of aviation). By comparison, being a cowboy became relatively less and less well-paid. Today it may be fun as a hobby, but as a way of life such manual labour has its limitations - unless you're in a cigarette commercial! It would surely to right to say that Bill Cody read the times correctly.

So, instead of expecting taxpayers to keep paying colossal sums for their expensive - and elitist - interests, astronauts and space agency staff should learn from Bill Cody and start to develop an orbital hospitality industry. This will not only be hugely popular with the public around the world, but it will also enrich the space industry and other participating businesses, and the economies of those countries which play a major role in it, and it will stimulate world economic growth.

For as long as the space industry does not take this path, then space activities will remain a tax-payer funded activity. As such they surely don't have a very bright future. Who'll pay $500 billion to watch a few people walk on Mars? - when instead they could spend a few tens of $ billions (at most) and get a space tourism industry? As the choice becomes clearer it's easy to predict what taxpayers will choose - if their opinions are asked!