Bigelow Aerospace thinks the secret to turning the suborbital tourism marketing in a successful business is by selling "hang time" to "sovereign clients" — specifically astronaut-supporting countries harboring aspirations of a space program — aboard the company’s planned low-Earth orbit space complex.

Founder and CEO Robert Bigelow divulged for the first time April 10 his company’s business plan and pricing model for providing training, transportation and a four-week visit to the company’s planned space station.

"The suborbital business is going to be a resounding success," he said at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. "We’re in business to make an economic benefit and hopefully help mankind along the way," added Bigelow, entrepreneur and owner of the Budget Suites of America hotel chain. "We think we’re doing something good and positive."

Bigelow is in the process of targeting between 50 and 60 potential customers — including foreign governments and businesses ranging from the high-tech or biotech fields to pharmaceutical, automotive and entertainment industries — who will be willing to pay nearly $12 million per ticket (or $15 million in 2012, when the first voyage is expected). Customers are being encouraged to make a deposit of 10 percent of the price, which will be refundable until the first module becomes operational.

Bigelow’s space modules, designed using inflatable technology purchased from NASA, will feature more living space that the International Space Station (ISS), including exercise equipment and private compartments.

"We anticipate fees to be less than the current fees charged for the ISS," Bigelow said. Even at $15 million, Bigelow’s ticket plan would undersell the cost of going to the ISS by roughly 40 percent while offering four times the duration. For example, as the fifth private space tourist, Microsoft developer Charles Simonyi reportedly paid the Russian Space Agency $25 million for a week’s visit.

That said, Bigelow understood that the initial pricing will limit demand. "We don’t think that space tourism will have legs for quite some time due to costs," he said. "The long pole in the tent is transportation," which he described as a major consideration, consuming roughly two-thirds of the total cost for the service. Realizing that, he balked at the notion of his service being described as a "space hotel," instead describing his business as a lessor of wholesale property in space.

Bigelow’s pricing guidelines call for leasing available by month or year, for costs ranging between $4.5 million and $88 million depending on terms. There would also be options available depending on a client’s needs, whether it be for more privacy, confidentiality or separate facilities. "There are some uses disharmonious to others, and we might orbit in different inclinations," he said. "We leave it to the customers to say ‘yes’" to whatever services and amenities they might choose.

At the same time, "We have a plan that banking understands," be it leasing, depreciation of vessels and other more earthbound business considerations, Bigelow said. While Bigelow said that his company had invested about $95 million, "it will take a lot more to the 2012 timeframe for capitalization with facilities and launches." Bigelow also intends to provide all supplies and maintenance, upgrades and replacements.

Bigelow said customers could lease sections of the module for confidential research work. Based on the inflatable technology Bigelow has tested and lofted with the company’s Genesis 1 spacecraft in July, the finished module will initially feature a life support system for six people. Genesis 2 is scheduled to be orbited aboard a Dnepr rocket at the ISC Kosmotras Space and Missile Complex near Yasny, Russia, during a launch window starting April 19.

Bigelow’s schedule for transport launches called for two in 2010, one in 2011 and three in 2012, then increasing from 13 in 2013 to 30 by 2017. Meanwhile the company expects to increase from its first operational space complex in 2013 to a set of three by 2017.

Currently there are about 225 astronauts around the globe. "Why can’t we add a zero to the end of that?" Bigelow said. "If you look at satellites, they were a novelty in 1957 and a necessity today. That’s where we’re headed."

— J.J. McCoy