Includes bibliographical references (p. 207-212) and index.

Preface -- Introduction -- ch. 1. Before the flight -- The experience begins -- ch. 2. Selection for spaceflight -- When can you go? -- Safety first -- Radiation -- Back in the atmosphere -- Landing -- ch.3. Getting ready -- Safety -- Spaceflight theory -- Geography -- Medical issues -- The third day -- EVA training -- Centrifuge and water landing survival -- ch. 4. Astronauts at school -- Training program -- Preparing the spacecraft -- ch. 5. Launch -- ch. 6. The sky is not the limit -- Making it affordable -- The development of spaceplanes -- Reusability -- Financing the future -- Nuclear rockets, laser craft and space elevators -- ch. 7. In orbit -- Earth orbit -- Activities in microgravity -- The "Freedom Flyer" -- Going outside -- ch. 8. Space stations : giant cans and wheels in the sky -- Hotels in space? -- Checking in at a 2040+ space hotel -- Microgravity sports and recreation -- Space loving -- Space food -- Sweet dreams -- Pets in space -- ch. 9. The end of the tour -- ch. 10. Returning from space -- Rough landings -- Spacediving -- Putting your feet back on the ground -- Souvenirs -- ch. 11. To the moon, Mars and beyond -- Fly me to the moon -- Lunar activities -- Reaching the moonbase -- Mars vacation -- Space colonies -- More distant worlds -- Mercury -- Venus -- The giant planets and Pluto -- Asteroids and comets -- The constraints of distance -- At the speed of light -- ch. 12. The road ahead -- Cost and safety -- Be a space tourist now -- Bibliography -- Index.

"Space tourism is just science fiction ... or is it?" The face of space travel is changing rapidly. A growing number of well-funded and technologically savvy organizations are privately developing and testing new kinds of space vehicles, and even competing against one another in highly publicized space-flight contests. Over the last few years, tow private citizens, both multi-millionaires, have taken separate trips into space that they paid for with their own money. And even commercial air carriers have begun to consider, and in at least one case invest in, the private development of spacecraft what will take travelers on mind-boggling flights to the very edge of space. Suddenly it seems that frequent if not routine space travel for ordinary citizens - long depicted as fantasy in movies and science fiction stories - may become a reality. To be sure, the economic, political, and technological hurdles to widespread participation in space flight are daunting. Investors and business managers will have to work hard to bring down the price of entry to a very small fraction of the $20 million each paid by pioneering space tourists like Dennis Ito and Mark Shuttleworth. Aside from the issues of passenger safety and comfort, even relatively modest flights to the edge of space will require a lot more investigation and testing - of reusable spacecraft, of efficient and safe propulsion and guidance systems, and of training and conditioning regimens for potential space travelers. Still, as van Pelt demonstrates, the development of a viable space tourism industry is already happening. This book includes a brief history of human space flight, highlighting the challenges and opportunities faced by astronauts and cosmonauts over the last forty years. From the front lines of industry and government research centers, it reports in technical detail on experiments in space flight that are currently underway. The book also discusses the attitudes (not always positive) of governments and key non-governmental organizations toward private space travel. And van Pelt creates imaginative scenarios to suggest what it will feel like - to prepare for a flight, to go through launch, to experience microgravity, and to look back up into the blackness of space and down at the curvature of Earth from a place that until now very few humans have ever visited. - Dust jacket.

All Ages.