Vacations on the moon. Hey, if the Russians can stay up there in a leaky tincan, surely it can't be that hard. Plans are afoot to connect a hotel module to the in-progress International Space Station. But much depends on breakthroughs in rocketry. Hurling payloads into space is fiendishly expensive.
Safety is another issue.
Consider that the world's only reusable orbiter, the venerable U.S. Space Shuttle, recently experienced computer meltdown and a white-knuckle propellant leak. Not to mention the danger posed by all the space junk orbiting the planet. Virgin reckons flights could commence as early as 2009. Ex-astronaut Buzz Aldrin has his own plans to send tourists into space. Several are experimenting with craft that take off like regular jets and release rocket vehicles when they reach the edge of the atmosphere.