(FORTUNE Magazine) – Thirty years after Alan Shepard's lunar tee shot, entrepreneurs in the earthly business of tourism are looking up toward that back nine in the sky. Forget the right stuff--all tourists need is about $95,000 and the patience to wait until the technology is invented. But it won't be another 30 years. Far from being flights of fancy, these galactic getaways are expected to blast off within a decade. Only recently have two dozen companies formed with the hopes of sending civilians--as a first step--on suborbital adventures, just shy of orbit, at 100 kilometers above earth. While some want to build the first recreational rocketship, others are dreaming up tours that sound like a cross between The Love Boat and The Jetsons.

Liftoff will happen soon, insiders say, because private dollars are going where no (or few) government dollars have gone before. Peter Diamandis, for example, is operating in the spirit of aviation prizes offered early in this century, which helped jump-start the air-transport industry. His nonprofit X Prize Foundation in St. Louis will award $10 million to the first team to design a ship that can launch three humans on two consecutive, suborbital flights within two weeks. Although the feds may not be the best managers, says Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), chairman of the House subcommittee on space and aeronautics, they are helping to "expand the technological envelope" by investing in projects such as Lockheed Martin's X-33 reusable launch vehicle. But the government won't actually push that envelope, counters Diamandis. "We need entrepreneurs willing to take risks," he says.

Cases in point: Space Adventures and Zegrahm Space Voyages, two companies already selling tickets for suborbital flights scheduled for 2002 and beyond. (The much larger Hilton Hotels and Virgin Atlantic Airways seem eager to enter the space race too. Hilton will hold a December symposium to discuss the feasibility of a space hotel, and Virgin has registered the Virgin Galactic Airways name--just in case.) Space Adventures and Zegrahm have sold a combined 350 trips, at $90,000 and $98,000 each. Both companies already book other space-related tours, such as zero-gravity flights on Russian planes and training programs at Star City (Russia's Johnson Space Center equivalent) that put customers alongside astronauts and cosmonauts.

In an industry where pockets have to be as deep as space, such offerings help these companies bring in some cash. But they still need a long horizon. Says John Spencer of the Space Tourism Society: "Real-world people finance things over a long period of time. That's the process we'll use for space tourism." Robert Bigelow, a successful terrestrial hotel developer, knows the odds. He's prepared to spend $500 million over the next 15 years to develop space cruises and hotels through his new company, Bigelow Aerospace. "I've heard a saying," he says. "If you want to take a billionaire and make him a millionaire, have him invest in space."