PayPal to launch inter-planetary payment system

PayPal said Thursday it will launch inter-planetary payments -- yes, a system for buying things in space.

       It sounds like a PR stunt, but PayPal is dead serious about getting into the burgeoning field of space tourism. With companies like Virgin Galactic and Space X bringing the go-to-Mars dream much closer to reality, PayPal said its goal is simply to start thinking about the complicated issues concerning space commerce.

     "We don't have all the answers right now, but it's clear we won't be using cash when we're in space," PayPal president David Marcus told CNNMoney. "We feel it's time now -- not next year, not when [space tourism] starts to happen -- to start figuring out what this looks like."EBay-owned PayPal is partnering with two leading groups, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute and the Space Tourism Society, to answer "the big questions around the commercialization of space."