Do we need another acronym?

Yesterday’s Space Venture Finance Symposium didn’t devote much attention to space tourism itself, focusing instead on the state of financing (from angels through VCs to private equity and corporate deals) in the entrepreneurial space industry. One item did catch my eye: German consultant Joerg Kreisel described several types of space ventures. There was space-to-space (S2S) businesses (borrowing from the commonly-used business-to-business, or B2B, class of ventures), such as a number of on-orbit servicing ventures in the works. There are also the more common S2E (space-to-earth) businesses, like communications and navigation. Then there’s S2R. S2R? Space-to-rism, Kreisel explained. (Groan.) So what does he think of S2R, er, space tourism? “I think we will see many people die on the way, but that was the same in the early days of air flight.”