Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding
Space tourism has to be pretty expensive but someone like Kim Strickland (middle class?) can afford it on savings at 20.
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It's moderately expensive if you have an income in a highly developed economy, eye-wateringly expensive if you have an income in a mid-development economy, and fabulously expensive if you have a income in an underdeveloped economy. The thing that really sucks about it is the difficulty of keeping up your high-tech income when you are away from work for months. Take into account the opportunity cost of wages forgone and interstellar tourism is prohibitive: the higher the DL of the economy you work in the less the fare matters and the more the time does.
That makes interstellar travel in
FLAT BLACK broadly similar to travel by ocean liner. It was expensive, yes, especially if you wanted at least a minimum of comfort. But the thing that excluded the middle class, that really made it a status symbol to travel for pleasure, was that the time cost sucks unless your income comes without the need to work. (Or unless you can work for income on an ocean liner, as the officers and crews did, and sometimes writers such as Somerset Maugham.)
So if you have the bug, and are prepared to quit you job and live cheap while you travel, it's surprisingly affordable. But Strickland is probably not strictly middle class.