The allure of spaceflight hasn't diminished for Aldrin. He bemoans America's lack of a clear agenda in space, and scorns the political reluctance to establish a human presence on the moon and planets.

"Let's jump ahead 50 years," he posits. "Can you imagine looking back on a nation that got people to the moon -- six times! -- and then had such a big gap? It's the epitome of short-term thinking. People ask me, What do we do next? Go back to the moon? To Mars? Neither! We're not ready to do either, because we don't have the launch vehicle system!"

Over lunch by the pool of a nearby hotel, Aldrin outlines an ambitious plan for the development and commercialization of outer space. It's achingly attractive -- particularly since the goal, the centerpiece of the entire plan, is adventure travel.

"Travel and tourism now form the world's largest industry, with a gross annual output approaching $3.5 trillion dollars a year. Space tourism," he claims, "is a logical outgrowth of the adventure tourist market."

Building up space tourism must begin, he insists, with rethinking the space shuttle. Designed 25 years ago, our current shuttle rides piggyback on solid-fuel boosters. It's an outdated technology with a dangerous drawback: Solid-fuel rockets can't be turned off after liftoff. The sensible alternative, Aldrin says, is to develop a liquid-fuel, "fly-back" booster (LFBB). Such boosters (close cousins of the rockets that powered the Gemini and Apollo missions) would lift a second stage -- a space shuttle or satellite -- into near orbit. The shuttle or satellite engine then takes over, while the booster flies back to Earth -- automatically -- and lands on a runway for refueling.

Why hasn't anyone built such a booster? NASA hasn't because its flight rate isn't high enough. Commercial launch companies haven't because it's cheaper -- in the short term -- to use throwaway rockets. "Nobody has the incentive to design a reusable booster," observes Aldrin, "unless they find new, long-range applications."

The application Aldrin envisions, of course, is space tourism. Before that can begin, though, both government and business have to be sold on LFBB technology. Anticipating this, his company -- Starcraft -- has patented a small, reusable rocket called StarBooster. It uses replaceable liquid fuel "cartridges," much like modern fountain pens. The booster itself -- which will be about the size of a Boeing 737 jet -- is still on the drawing board. Aldrin shows me a model, the size and shape of a silver-dipped biscotti.

Aldrin's hope is that "demonstrator" rockets like StarBooster will convince NASA and private industry that reusable boosters are good business -- leading to ever bigger boosters and an eventual redesign of the shuttle.

To spur this process, he says, we must start sending private citizens into space. These "citizen explorers" could be chosen through a corporate sweepstakes (sponsored by, say, Pepsi or Nike) and given seats on the current shuttle. The contests will prove so popular that private industry will jump on the bandwagon. With reusable boosters and a ready market, we'll soon see a whole fleet of shuttles dedicated to space tourism -- built by Boeing/Lockheed, operated by the airlines, and booked through companies like Space Adventures and Club Med.

"Very nice," you sigh. "But what about me? With seats priced around $70,000 (headphones and martinis extra), what chance do I have of watching 'Alien XII' in orbit?"

"Chance" is the word. Aldrin proposes a national lottery, overseen by his nonprofit ShareSpace Foundation. As the space tourism market grows -- i.e., as the spaceships get bigger -- so does the number of prizes.

Proceeds will pay for the seats. They'll also be reinvested into education and into aerospace research that mainstream companies (which were dragged kicking and screaming into the space tourism business to begin with) won't touch. Further revenues will pour in from -- you guessed it -- logo placement. Citizen explorers will likely embark on their flights sporting Eagle Creek space-sickness bags, Reebok Skywalkers and Calvin Klein One helmets ("A helmet for a man and a woman").

At this point, space tourism grows exponentially. Empty first-stage fuel tanks -- left in orbit by selected spacecraft -- will be captured and reconditioned, forming the core of an orbiting space hotel. Life-support systems and minibars are brought to the site by a "heavy lifter" -- a huge, reusable booster on par with the Saturn V. Such rockets will be built by industry to support space tourism. But once they are built, their uses will be legion. Leased by NASA, they become the workhorses for long-overdue missions: bases on the moon and the human exploration of Mars.

This brave new future could be upon us, says Aldrin, by the year 2020. At that point, the fun really begins. With an orbiting hotel in operation, work begins on the "lunar cycler," a spacefaring cruise ship that uses the gravitational energy of the planets -- the so-called "slingshot effect" -- to maintain a continuous loop between Earth and the moon.

Aldrin demonstrates the concept with condiments: a Heinz ketchup bottle is the Earth, a mustard jar the moon, a bottle of Tabasco the spacecraft. Passengers embark in Earth orbit; the lunar cycler whips around the home planet, speeds to the moon, rimshots the moon's gravity well, and returns to Earth a week later. Far-fetched as it sounds, the math is pretty basic. Aldrin -- once known in NASA as "Dr. Rendezvous" -- has worked out the details.

Nor has he stopped there -- for after the moon comes Mars. The first Mars cycler will take only scientists on its two-year mission to the red planet; but when the ship loops back to Earth for its four-month maintenance cycle, the interest will be intense.

"Can you imagine, in 2030, taking a space cruise on the very ship that carried the first human beings to Mars?" Aldrin stares at me, stone sober. "I can't believe that people wouldn't line up for that possibility."

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