Space tourism guru speaks to RIT crowd

Gene Meyers, president of Space Island Group Inc., left, talks with Francis Domoy, chair of RIT's hospitality and service management department.

At RIT on Feb. 6, Gene Meyers, founder and president of Space Island Group Inc., publicly detailed for the first time ambitious plans to place a privately financed space station into outer space before the end of the decade.

Describing his firm's planned space station as "the Mayflower of the new millennium," Meyers spoke to a packed audience of RIT students in Xerox Auditorium, including those in RIT's groundbreaking space tourism development course, faculty and staff, and students visiting from area colleges.

Students were most interested in Meyers' expectations for future employment opportunities in outer space, which would likely include positions in food-preparation and hotel-operations.

Meyers was invited to RIT because of the university's space tourism development course, the only such course offered anywhere. According to Francis Domoy, hospitality and service management department chair, RIT plans future space tourism-related courses in areas such as menu development, nutrition, remanufacturing and packaging.

Domoy calls Meyers plan for outer-space development the "most rational" he has seen and predicts that an RIT graduate will be the first person to manage an outer-space hotel.