Russians Offering More Space Tourism

mduell submitted an MSNBC story about a company in Russia offering more trips to space. No docking with the space station for these tourists tho. No word on price... instead of a week in Soyuz capsule, how about you give me half of the multi-million-dollar-fee, and you can stay at my place and I'll get you drunk. You'll feel like you're in zero Gs, but with a bigger room.

Comments

The should have left MIR up there

[Sabalon]

They could have sent the capsules up to Mir and let it be the first space hotel - albiet not as nice as the one in 2001.

I'd love to see that brochure:
Come stay in Mir(*) - for just $500,000 a night (minumum 6 night stay). See tons of space debris. Spacewalk (way) above the sandy beaches of the Rivera. Battle space fungi. Join the 100-mile high club.

(*) requires return trip purchase on our carrier - round trip ticket, $20million - first class upgrades not available.

Re:Why doesn't the US do this?

[funkman]

Because it would be the US taxpayers funding a millionaires vacation. The space station / shuttle / and all other costs related costs way more than 20 million than one tourist has paid. Lets say the cost for one year of the shuttle and space station is: 1 billion dollars. That would mean 50 tourists would need to go up in that year to break even if every tourist cost 20 million. Getting 50 people up there is no minor feat in one year as well as the extra costs for all the extra flights.

And the added bonus is only the richest 0.01% of the US would be able to even afford such a vaction.

Re:Why doesn't the US do this?

[Cylix]

Ouch...

Nice to see all that money I pay in taxes is being blown on what amounts to corporate welfare. Eventually we should see some glimmer of these technologies leak into the public sector, but until then, it is in my opinion a wasted effort.

Better use of money

[1nt3lx]

Perhaps the millionaires should get together and finance a space hotel of sorts. It would allow them to capitalize on the public's interest in space travel.

Of course, the Russian government may not be able to pay for next year's VODKA rations if they can't gouge wealthy american's who want into space.

Is this really a good idea?

[rneches]

I'm all for space turism - I've wanted to play around in microgravity since I was five, and would probably drop most of my net worth for a chance to get into space.

However, the ISS is a research station. They're supposed to be doing science and enginering stuff up there that will [someday, I hope] benifit all of us stuck down here in the gravity well. It somehow doesen't sit right with me that the Russians, however cash strapped they are, let a guy pay his way onto the ISS, and are planning to expand this (even if there won't be any more actual ISS visits). It would be like if CERN or Fermilab turned over their accelerators to someone who's willing to pay tons of cash to blow the hell out of a banana.

The ISS has been sucking huge amounts of money out of space programs that could do better science. For the price of the ISS, you could do hundreds of unmanned missions to Mars, and they would yeild mountains of real scientific data that would truely enhance our knowledge about, well, everything. If the ISS can't produce the same bang for the buck, it shouldn't be funded.

Space turism for the ultra-rich on or off the ISS strongly suggests that the scientific value of these manned missions is dubious.

Again, don't get me wrong here - I want to have humans in space, and if I could, I would jump at the chance to be one of them. But research money is a limited resource, and untill we have the technologies to do it economically, we should be spending out cash on either pure science or developing those technologies.

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Uh oh.

[vslashg]

This is where a big accident is going to happen which will pretty much kill space tourism for a decade. Tito paid a lot of money, but he was also prepared for the trip -- he went through rigorous training and so forth. His trip doesn't necessarily mean it's time to start offering "cut rate" space flights to any guy with money.

Prediction: They're going to shoot someone into space who's not prepared to be there, some sort of emergency happens and the tourist, who is unprepared for anything to go wrong, dies. And just because someone ran an unsafe space toruism operation, people will get the impression that safe space tourism isn't possible, and that will set the whole thing back years.

Bleah. A reasonable level of safety for a space tourist is more than just taking someone's cash and cramming them in a Soyuz capsule.

NASA's Role

[mojo-raisin]

I think we might be advocating a road frought with peril in pushing for tourism through NASA.

NASA was organized to provide for scientific exploration of space. It is a form of socialism to construct such an organization, but our society has determined that it is a trade-off worth making, as there has been little profitablity to be gained from early space exploration.

That seems to be changing.

It seems there are now possibilites for a profitable space program - and that should preclude government involvement. We have already seen first hand results of large socialist programs, and it is never good.

Ideally, we should see NASA's role slowly diminish in the coming decades, until it vanishes completely. I see nothing wrong with continuing ISS, but it should be in a completely scientific context.

The public would not be happy to provide vacations for a wealthy few in a tax-subsidized program.

There is a reason the Russian government doesn't mind charging space tourists - they are a socialist state. Let's not begin to follow their footsteps to socialism.

I think it's a communist plot

[typical geek]

To get the elite of America (who else could afford it), into their clutches for several weeks of insidious commie brainwashing.

To gain an insight into such a communist mindset, I would recommend looking for an obscure, often suppressed documentary (with Frank Sinatra re-enacting the lead role) called The Manchurian Candidate. It clearly shows the odious depths the malevolent commies will stoop to in order to destroy this great nation of ours.

If the CIA can't stop this, I would hope the INS would isolate returning Americans for several weeks to deprogram them from this insidious communist plot.

Thanks,

A concerned American who must post AC for my own safety.

can i pay...

[JohnnyKnoxville]

for them to take someone else into space and leave them there?

Why doesn't the US do this?

[sharkticon]

For once, it's the Russians promoting capitalism rather than the US. After all, they've got trouble with a lack of funds, and rather than bleating to their Government about it, they've done the sensible thing - sold a service for a price people are willing to pay! If only NASA would take its head out of its ass and do something this sensible.

Maybe if NASA ever decided that pretentious, high budget, high beurocracy projects like the Shuttle were the complete waste of money and resources that they were, we'd see more people in space. As it is, the money they waste on that inefficient POS would be far better spent elsewhere, repairing the damage to the image NASA has with the American public after doing absolutely nothing for decades.

As it is, maybe Congress should cut their budget some more until they do tighten their belts. The Shuttle is a black hole in terms of funding, and in any corporation it would have been axed years ago. But since NASA haven't managed to come up with anything better in 20 years, they won't get rid of it in case they fall behind other agencies. Well here's news for you - this shows the Russians are already light years ahead in terms of a sensible space policy! NASA should stop whooping it up and get down to some serious work.

Re:Why doesn't the US do this?

[zardor]

NASA introduced its planned five-year, $4.8 billion Space Launch Initiative on 17 May, awarding 22, ten-month contracts, with a total of $767 million, to aerospace companies, including Boeing, Pratt&Whitney and Kistler Aerospace, to research and develop new technologies to support the eventual development of a successor to the Space Shuttle in 15 years. Further contracts will be awarded in late 2001 and in 2002. Technologies include crew survival systems, advanced tanks, engines and thermal protection systems. NASA hopes to have two designs of the new vehicle to choose from within five years. The new reusable spaceplane, however, is unlikely to be a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle, but a reusable spaceplane flying piggyback on a reusable launcher.

However, note that the cost of a week long Soyuz mission (including the rocket and capsule) is about $10Milion, so if you can get 2 wannabees to shell out $6 mil each you are making a profit. The cost of a Space Shuttle mission is about $500Million, and I can't see NASA squeezing ~90 people in there to cover the costs. (Perhaps a partnership with Delta could help there....)

This is a big scam!

[President of The US]

These guys are going to get scammed! After all, we all know that they aren't going into space, but are just going to be taken to a sound stage in Siberia.
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