Are You Ready for Space Tourism?

2021 ushered in the birth of the space tourism industry in earnest. Just when we had become accustomed to the commercialization of space by Elon Musk of SpaceX, we have now also seen launches from Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin who have both succeeded in putting paying passengers into space. With three competitors, the space tourism industry is now in a space race for tourism dollars. Unfortunately, space tourism exists today only for the very wealthy. With prices souring around $250,000 a seat, space travel is not yet available for the average person. These high prices are not likely to last in the future though. Eventually competition and improvement in technology will bring the cost of space travel down to earth and space tourism will become a commodity available to the rest of us.

Can you imagine a world where space tourism is not only affordable for most people and taking a vacation in space becomes common? If you don’t think you will live long enough to experience that world, keep this in mind… it took a mere 66 years to go from the Wright brothers and Kitty Hawk to Neal Armstrong walking on the Moon. Think about the changes the world saw during those 66 years. Before the end of this century. Even if you do not want to take a honeymoon cruise to the moon or live in a colony on Mars, your children and grandchildren are likely to. Can you imagine that world? Jim Grebey did.

In his new book, Red Tide – Life on the Martian Frontier (Red Tide), Jim Grebey describes life at the end of the 21st Century. It is a life where space tourists board space bound cruise ships to enjoy the thrill of floating in their cabins while enjoying the benefits of weightlessness on their honeymoon. A cruise to the Moon allows tourists to take a shuttle down to Armstrong City to visit the first LEM landing site or hike through glass tubes through the Buzz Aldrin National Crater Park on the surface of the Moon. It is also a time when 5,000 colonists live and work in the first Colony on Mars.

Red Tide tells the story of Myah, a 27-year-old marine biologist working for NASA on a grant to study marine life on the Great Barrier Reef. She enjoys her life in Australia but is abruptly recalled to Florida to meet with her NASA sponsor who wants to send a marine biologist to Mars as part of his team searching for past life on the planet. He has chosen Myah for the mission and convinces her to return to Mars with him by showing her a piece of sediment from a bore sample taken from the Martian Frontier. Red Tide follows Myah’s journey, first on a cruise ship to Armstrong City, and then on a transport headed to the mining colony on Mars. Myah believes the piece of sediment she was shown may be a clue providing further evidence that a vast surface ocean once existed on Mars. She is seeking actual evidence to convince people life once existed on the planet. She reluctantly agrees to go to Mars and finds the colony far more advanced than the remote alien outpost she imagined.

On Mars, Myah joins a team of scientists on an expedition onto the Martian Frontier following geologic clues that life might once have existed. The team survives the hostile Martian environment and discovers a hidden secret about the planet. Red Tide proves that the basic nature of man, their need for love, adventure, and discovery does not change even though humans are no longer tied to Earth. Human nature and potentially its survival is tied to their natural desire to explore the unknown. Red Tide answers fundamental question such as: Why do humans need to become a multi-planet race?

Jim Grebey turned his imagination loose and creates this vision of our universe at the end of the 21st Century. What he imagined is not some Jetsonian world, but a practical vision of life in the next 66 years. Be sure to put Red Tide on your Holiday reading list. It may help you decide where to book your next cruise. Red Tide by Jim Grebey | BookShop (bookbaby.com)