I wonder if this will have an effect on the airplane travel industry and tourism in general. Why go through the trouble of paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars visiting a place on the other side of the planet, when you can experience 90 percent of it in VR?
Why even dream about going to Mars? For one, it's probably not going to happen to us in our lifetime anyway, and second, we could do it much faster and cheaper, by using some remote-controlled robot and experiencing it through VR, Avatar-style.
I believe that VR is less strong environment for social encounters. Once somebody cracks this , VR will not only disrupt tourism but also areas of the economy which sell experiences which is a large part of our economy.
Why even dream about going to Mars? For one, it's probably not going to happen to us in our lifetime anyway, and second, we could do it much faster and cheaper, by using some remote-controlled robot and experiencing it through VR, Avatar-style.