Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Gregory Olsen, Anousheh Ansari and Richard Garriott
have all expressed a preference to be called something other than "space tourist".
In each case, they explained their preferences by pointing out that they carried out
scientific experiments as part of their journey; Garriott additionally emphasized their
training is identical to requirements of non-Russian Soyuz crew members, and that
teachers and other non-professional astronauts chosen to fly with NASA are called astronauts.
Garriott prefers "cosmonaut" or "astronaut", but will accept "private" in front of either.
Tito has asked to be known as an "independent researcher". Shuttleworth
proposed "pioneer of commercial space travel". Olsen preferred "private researcher."
Ansari prefers the term "private space explorer". Alone among those who have paid
to go to orbit so far, Charles Simonyi seems to have no concerns about calling it
"space tourism", even in reference to his own experience. Asked in an interview
"Do you foresee a day when space tourism is not just the province of billionaires - when
it will be as affordable as plane travel?", he did not object to the implicit categorization
of his own trip, but rather answered "Yes, the only question is when ...."
NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency agreed to use the term "spaceflight
participant" to distinguish those space travelers from astronauts on missions
coordinated by those two agencies.
Although many space enthusiasts subscribe to the notion of space tourism as a
potential burgeoning industry that could further the development and settlement of space,
some of these same enthusiasts object to the use of the term "space tourist".
Rick Tumlinson of the Space Frontier Foundation, for example, has said
"I hate the word tourist, and I always will .... 'Tourist' is somebody
in a flowered shirt with three cameras around his neck."
Others with perhaps less enthusiasm for space development seem to agree.
Alex Tabarrok has categorized it as a kind of "adventure travel".
The mere fact of people paying for a travel experience does not,
in his view, make that activity "tourism".
"At best and for the foreseeable future space travel will remain akin to
climbing Everest, dangerous and uncommon. Yes, we might see 100 flights a year
but that's not space tourism - tourism is fat guys with cameras."