I would expect the most common applicant would be someone with some number of years as a military or civilian test pilot.
On a more startupery/hackerish note have folks been brainstorming what sort of business opportunities there are going to be in a world with space tourists? Clearly souvenir barf bags (joking) but more seriously, perhaps one-off altitude tracking devices, an iPhone app that tells you when you are "in space" or not "in space", an eligible singles who can afford to spend the afternoon visiting space kind of thing.
People will eventually be spending more time in orbit, are there applications there? Zero-g 'flicks' when holding your iPad to make it to do things like move to the next page.
Exactly, I know a guy, Dr. Mark Sheppard, who has been working his whole life to be an astronaut. He has (5) degrees so far is a trauma surgeon (or something) and is in the airforce.
It is REALLY hard to become an astronaut -- so I sent this to him as it might be a great alternative.
On a more startupery/hackerish note have folks been brainstorming what sort of business opportunities there are going to be in a world with space tourists? Clearly souvenir barf bags (joking) but more seriously, perhaps one-off altitude tracking devices, an iPhone app that tells you when you are "in space" or not "in space", an eligible singles who can afford to spend the afternoon visiting space kind of thing.
People will eventually be spending more time in orbit, are there applications there? Zero-g 'flicks' when holding your iPad to make it to do things like move to the next page.