A new poll conducted for CNN and Time by market research firm TNS finds strong interest in space tourism among many people in the Asia-Pacific region, provided you don’t bring up minor issues like price. The poll, conducted last month and tied into the “CNN Future Summit” in Singapore that included a discussion of space tourism, found that two-thirds of respondents “would be interested in taking a trip into space”, although it’s not clear from the press release whether the poll referred to orbital or suborbital flights, or if even any distinction was made. “If money were no object,” the release stated, “49 per cent of Indians said they would be very interested in becoming a space tourist, alongside 46 per cent of Thais, 44 per cent of Singaporeans and 43 per cent of Hong Kong citizens.” The lowest levels of interest in space tourism were in the Philippines and Japan.
Jeff,
Not surprised about the Philippines. I spent two years there (admittedly I was mostly way out in the provinces), and while there were tons of engineers there, not very much interest in aerospace stuff at all. But Japan–that’s interesting. From all the previous interest in space tourism from Japan, you would’ve thought that they would’ve polled well…
~Jon