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Would they really? I bet most people wouldn't want to go into space. A lot of people can now bungee-jump, fly their own planes, fly in a balloon, paraglide, deep dive, yet how many do any of these things.

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I've done a handful of these things, and they seem categorically different from being in space: even low Earth orbit _feels_ noticeably different from skydiving etc (I'm also making the assumption that it's safer than eg paragliding). I suppose we're just starting from different assumptions about what captures the imagination of the average person. At the very least, I'd be surprised if the average current spaceflight customer was more driven by status than by excitement about space per se.

> At the very least, I'd be surprised if the average current spaceflight customer was more driven by status than by excitement about space per se.

Absolutely agree with this. There are far better ways of flexing status on Earth than paying for a space trip.

If you asked any given person on the street whether they'd like to see the Earth from space, I'd be willing to wager serious money they'd be more likely to say yes than no, given that it were easily accessible and the money would be taken care of. Those activities you listed have quite a bit of money and time needed to do. But the desires are all absolutely there.

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