Space tourism could be huge - if marketed right. Sound engineering is essential, but the key to success is showmanship. Space tourism needs to be everything the blue-suited government space program never was - brash, fun, tacky, masterfully hyped and undeniably popular. NASA's given us the equivalent of public-access zoning hearings on TV; it's time for Survivor, or The Osbournes, or Sex In The City. It's time for The Greatest Show Off Earth.
P. T. Barnum, founder of The Greatest Show On Earth�, now known as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, gave shape to American mass entertainment, transforming the local traveling show or concert hall performance into nationally-hyped extravaganzas.
Beginning by exhibiting someone he claimed was the world's oldest woman, he went on to craft shows that reflected the distinct tastes of populist America, enriching them with real talent from high culture (he paid for the American tour of opera diva Jenny Lind from his own pocket) alongside the lurid silliness that has always been the national hallmark. In naming him as one of the hundred most important people of the last millennium, LIFE Magazine called him "the patron saint of promoting."
Barnum wrote a small book distilling his business wisdom, The Art of Money Getting or, Golden Rules for Making Money. This little classic is as useful for the modern space entrepreneur as Sun Tzu's The Art of War remains for the networked warrior.
Those who know of Barnum only from the quote, "There's a sucker born every minute," will be in for a surprise: his philosophy was quite the opposite. "I believe hugely in advertising and blowing my own trumpet, beating the gongs, drums, to attract attention to a show," he once wrote his publisher. "I don't believe in duping the public, but I do believe in attracting and then pleasing them."
Such an approach is radical, almost incomprehensible, for an industry long dominated by engineers on governmental cost-plus contracts. But their time is passing, and a new industry just might come into existence owing more to Barnum than to the Code of Federal Regulations.
In a blasphemous parody of the bumper sticker, let's ask, What Would Barnum Do? His advice to the space-tourism entrepreneur might look something like this:
- Select the Right Location: Barnum tells a wonderful story of being on vacation in London and being out-huckstered by a marketing genius on the sidewalk promoting a wax museum. Unfortunately, once Barnum and his friend were escorted inside, they saw "a lot of the dirtiest and filthiest wax figures imaginable - they looked as if they had not seen water since the Deluge."
The salesman was desperately making the best of it, but the product simply wasn't up to the pitch. Barnum hired the man away from the dismal London side street and sent him touring with Barnum's spectacular shows in America, where he made his fortune.
Selling berths on a Soyuz flight to the ISS is like hawking tickets to a bad waxworks: you may be pitchman enough to get a few curious customers in the door, but that's it - as events are proving. Provide a quality attraction at a reasonable price, as Barnum did, and millions will provide repeat business. Don't get trapped selling make-do goods.
- Don't Dream It, Do It: Barnum describes "a like philosophic pauper who was kicked out of a cheap boarding-house because he could not pay his bill, but he had a roll of papers sticking out of his coat pocket, which, upon examination, proved to be his plan for paying off the national debt of England without the aid of a penny." A shame Barnum doesn't give the fellow's name - he could be the patron saint of the space community. Gee-whizzery is fine, but it doesn't grow fortunes or build industries. There's certainly a time and place for the grandiose. It's not in the planning, Barnum says - it's in the execution. "Exercise caution in laying your plans, but be bold in carrying them out." Keep your business plan tight and practical: let it make you a small fortune, then use that to corner the market you've pioneered. Spend your time dreaming of asteroid mines and you'll end up sleeping alongside Napoleon on the park bench.
- Focus: For many, the goal is an established spacefaring civilization. The means is whatever looks like it might work this week. We try lobbying Congress, teaching afterschool astronomy classes, putting on lectures, building reusable launch vehicles, then turn to space tourism in hopes that this new magic bullet will hit the target. Barnum says, "a constant hammering on one nail will generally drive it home at last," where chasing after the next new thing really only leads to the poorhouse. Socially annoying as monomania is, it really does get the job done.
- Persevere: "Bending tin," building a business, and even, perhaps especially, failing at it, are the foundations of success. Barnum says of failure, "[t]hus a man buys his experience, and it is the best kind if not purchased at too dear a rate." Beware the viewgraph engineer and ivory-tower pundit, but after failing, pick yourself up and try again - success owes more to ruthless perseverance than the tides of fortune.
- Know Your Product: Space tourism is no different from Barnum's wax museums, giant elephants and General Tom Thumb. You're not selling paraffin, big pachyderms and small men. You're selling what Barnum would call "humbug," or "ballyhoo." You're selling exotic experience. Bear in mind that this product is at the other end of the universe from the "space product" that NASA "sells:" they sell safe, routine government operations. Consider how few people pay to watch tax-legislation proofreading... and that about as many watch the feed from NASA TV. If you try to sell the NASA product, you won't be in any business very long.
- Pursue Your Passion: Space tourism must be grounded in showmanship, in selling exotic experiences to the paying public. If your passion is scientific deep space missions, or asteroid mining, or building new civilizations, fine - go pursue those things, with ruthless determination. Don't bide your time trying to build and run an entertainment business because that's where the market is right now. The only people following the bandwagon are sweeping up after the horses. It's the guy out in front with the baton who's the hero. By the same token, if your passion is space, and you are a natural purveyor of world-class humbug, the sky's no longer the limit.
- We Love Humbug But Hate a Scam: A good tall tale is worth most any price, while fraud is worse than a crime, it's a mortal insult. The subtle codes by which we read the distinctions are the stuff of social-science careers, but we can readily tell the difference. If you're selling hype, deliver hype. This is another argument against using government space stations as tourist destinations. "Space tourism," by its very name, is hype: it's selling a unique, exotic, futuristic experience. Collecting vast sums of money and then dropping the customer off in a dank little can inhabited by aging fighter jocks...well, that's a scam. Better a suborbital quickie in a luxury cabin than two weeks of sleeping in a lab.
- Deliver The (Customer Service) Goods: "Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements, will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly... People don't like to pay and get kicked also." You may be in business to lay the foundations for O'Neill colonies or a Kardishev Type II civilization - your customers come to you for a thrill and the chance to live like a king for a little while. Don't mistake the two. They could have gone to Vegas or Kathmandu - if they come to you, they're expecting a better experience for a better value. Deliver or go bust. "Anything spurious," Barnum warns, "will not succeed permanently because the public is wiser than many imagine."
- A Little Advertising is a Dangerous Thing: Once you have a quality product that's tested well with real consumers, promote it constantly and shamelessly. Advertising is the prime application of "More's Law:" if some's good, more's better. Advertising succeeds only when everybody knows what your product is, why they can't live without it, and that the one and only source for the true quality - is you. Advertising a little bit, or stopping before you've saturated the audience, doesn't buy a little bit of return - it just wastes your ad budget. Again, caution in planning, boldness in execution.
P. T. Barnum transformed the nature of entertainment by recognizing that the budding Industrial Age needed new forms of delivering some of the most sought-after goods throughout all of history - a tall tale, a bit of a thrill, and something new, wonderful and strange. Our budding Network Age now calls out for new forms of those age-old goods. What would Barnum do with this unexploited opportunity? Orbital casinos with honeymoon suites - and, of course, elephants. What's a circus without 'em?
Author's note: my special thanks to Michael Turner of Tokyo for the idea and the reference to Barnum's book.
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