Orbital Space Tourism is a kind of Space Tourism where the customers are put into orbit -- thus staying in space for several hours at least, rather than mere minutes, as with suborbital flight?.
Most who have paid to go to orbit do not call themselves "space tourists", preferring other terms with more respectful connotations. However, the term is now in common use, and it's been argued that usage is unlikely to change.1
History
As of 2009, Space Adventures is the only company that has arranged actual orbital space tourism. It currently hosts customers on ISS as a kind of "space hotel". It relies on Russian expertise and facilities for training its customers to be adequate astronauts, and for transporting customers to and from ISS.
Prospects
Orbital space tourism may soon become more competitive. Other companies are investing in it. One company, Excalibur Almaz, is turning a formerly secret Russian military space station2 to commercial use.3,4
Persephone: independent but synergistic
Project Persephone aims to provide exovivaria users with a kind of telepresence? in orbit. For those who pay to do it for fun, this could be called "virtual" orbital tourism. The Project's likelihood of success might be improved by growth in real orbital tourism, although the popularity of exovivaria won't depend on it. In the longer run, however, links are likely to be made between orbital tourism and exovivaria, with growing synergy value between them.
1 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/736/1 ⇑
2 http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/Almprog/almprog.htm ⇑
3 http://www.iomtoday.co.im/isle-of-man-business/Manx-company-buys-Soviet-spacecraft.5576775.jp ⇑
4 http://www.parabolicarc.com/2008/03/22/leroy-chiao-talks-about-nasa-commercialization-and-excalibur-almaz/ ⇑
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