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Space Tourist Discusses His Vacation
mooneyguy writes: "In a report on cnn.com, the world's first paying space tourist is now saying that astronauts and cosmonauts spent too much time on mundane tasks and too little time on real research. Dennis Tito said, "Most science in space is being conducted by unmanned vehicles. In my view, there is limited amount of science that takes place on the international space station..." It reads as a rather sweeping condemnation of human presence in space, based on a very brief glimpse of life on a structure still under construction. Oh yeah, he's still publically feuding with NASA, too."
I see all these postings about how Tito's just some old rich fart who's sooo selfish and whining because Nasa wouldn't put him up there.
Tell me, if you had the money to burn, would you go up there?
I sure as hell would. Maybe Tito's not accurate. Maybe he's barking up the wrong tree into what the problems are.
But Nasa needs to get it's act together. Look at how old our freakin' shuttles are. When was the last time we did something really impressive, like land a man on the moon?
Spacestations aren't impressive anymore. Mir's been there and done that, well over it's life expectency, even through a few major problems (fires, the one time whatever it was hit the one module, drunken cosmonauts hiding the Smirnoff from the next batch of crew, etc.)
Why do we even have a space station up there now? It's not like it's going to be a launching platform for missions that are farther out.
What happened to Mars, 2005? Or did that become Mars, 2010. Or 15. Or never?
I hope more countries start space programs. Then, maybe our own would get the picture that, maybe, just maybe, we should be doing something worthwhile in space.
Frankly, I think putting a rich old geezer in space for a few days vacation was the most worthwhile thing we've done in a long time.
tito is missing the big picture, as he looks only at the experiemnts going on inside the station. however, if he had the vantage point from afar he would realize that the whole station is an experiment, and as such all those 'mundane tasks' are not so typical. the station is an experiment in international cooperation that has never been tried before on such an astronomical scale (no pun intended). even living and working in space is still an experiment. human exploraiton of space is not even fifty years old and it would be foolish otherwise to think that we know all that there is to know about just being there. there is a wonderful scientific experiment going on up there and it involves the whole station and the thousands of people making it possible. this experiment is more pertanent than any of that two days worth of science that tito claims the astronaut had told him she had performed. bieng a businessman, tito woudl naturally miss what is most relevant, and that is humanity itself...and what it means just to have the station up there. the space station is an experiment in life and an exploration of humanity, not just a satelite laboratory...
The first space tourist was, IMO, John Glenn, the most recent time he went up.
The people that foot the bill for Glenn's vacation in space were the American people.
You may remember at the time, he supposedly was going to study the "effects of aging in space." Did anyone buy this? Does anyone have ANY idea what kinds of rigerous tests were done on Mr. Glenn, or why this powerful Senator (who had been lobbying NASA for years for a last ride) was the most qualified "old guy" in the United States for these important experiments?
In case you think this is partisan-- I'm a lifelong Democrat, but if Glenns' trip was any kind of science, it was the science of PR for NASA. I said as much at the time, and even some NASA PR guy on one of the CNN chats kinda admitted it.
In short, considering a powerful Senator could get himself launched into space for no reason-- and even get the taxpayers to foot the bill-- NASA has no right to get on Tito's case.
The ISS is research into how to construct massive modular constructs in low gravity.
I know thats hard for alot of people to understand, but thats what the ISS is, it's a test bed for future construction and components that will be used later on. If someday we wanted to send men to Mars, or large unmanned probes to the outer planets or nearby solar systems, there needs to be background knowledge of how to build these things in orbit.
(Yea, I know I said nearby solar systems and I know how long it'll take for probes to get there, but it is a recently stated "vision" of NASA that in the near future we will send probes to the nearby stars.)
Do you think the first Intel CPU fabs were cheap and easy to build? Do you think they were constructed on time and on budget? The IIS is like any new contruction, over budget and over time.
Yes, probes are cheaper, but there is something about having a human there...that can't be equaled by a mechanical probe.
As for Tito, he sounds like a typical rich SOB that didn't get the treatment he wanted on his vacation.
I'll play opera music and let him take pictures out my window and let him do the dishes at my place for alot less than 20 million dollars.
Or, just as likely, an obscure religious group: i.e. the Raelians...
Goldin isn't neccesarily averse to selling rides-- it's just that his price would probably be about 60 million dollars-- whether this is more economically justifiable is beyond me. Of course, his largish price tag would be undercut by the Russians, who operate under different economic constraints.
Goldin has also been, strangely supportive of James Cameron, obstensibly because the director is not particularly pushy about a launch date. Of course, it is likely that Cameron will direct/produce a film stemming from his experience, both enhancing the reputation of NASA, and encouraging the profitable commercialization of space.
Pasting "billboards" on the space station isn't neccesarily crass-- after all, ceratin functional components already bear the logos of their manufacturer, but it is rather unimaginative. It promotes the idea of space as an exotic tourist destination, rather than as a a research and development center. Nasa has a website dedicated to commercialization.
Because without the CRV (Is it not officially canceled yet? Either way, don't hold your breath waiting to see one in orbit.) they'll be using two docked Soyuz capsules as the escape craft, and those hold 3 a piece.
Perhaps as more modules are added to the station they won't really need instant evacuation capability for every astronaut... but can you imagine the PR nightmare if something did happen? Or the morale torpedo of deciding before each crew exchange who would be the one to "go down with the ship"?
You know, that $1.3 trillion would have bought a whole hell of a lot of Russian involvment. How bout those SOBs in Congress send everyone a questionaire where we get to determine how we want a percentage of our taxes spent.
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
Fact is, we'll find ANY reason to keep people in space. Yes, there is valuable research going on in ISS, but that's just their day job.
I think, deep down, we all know that the real reason that we have astronauts and cosmonauts in space is to keep manned spaceflight alive.
Really. Politics and economics need a reason for us to be up there. But those are fallacious mechanisms we place on ourselves. we want people in the far reaches, wherever that might be. It makes us feel comfortable as a species - being able to do what the other beasts can not. That's really what this is all about.
I for one think that Tito's vacation was a very necessary distraction from the notion of science in space. We'd all speculated and maybe even fantacized of a vacation in space. Tito did what needed to be done. He demonstrated that there is tangible market demand for space tourism.
Think back to the 50's if you can (lord knows I can't. Correct me if I'm wrong). Air travel, especially on a jet, was for the rich. Look at the newsreels. How many yokels do you see? Thought so. But over the years, it became accessible to the common man. I can book a flight from San Francisco to LA for $40. You can't even take a family of 4 to a movie for that much nowadays.
So it will be with space. the market for space tourism and travel will increase. As such, spacecraft will be mass produced, and prices will be cheaper. Corporations, seeking more bang for the buck, will drive prices down even cheaper.
And as such, the price of research will drop. Dennis tito might have cost us a week of research, but he may have saved us billions in research costs.
The inability to recognize this long term trend is a black eye for NASA. They are smart people, they should have seen how this would further their cause. Instead, they chose to take it personally, and for that, they get negative brownie points in this voter's book.
NASA has gotten so entrenched in it's scientific mission as a survival strategy that it has forgotten why we even started a space program: People look up at night and know that the universe has more to offer than this planet, and they want to be part of it. If they grasp and nourish that simple fact, there's no telling the scale by which humanity can progress.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
So the only way for slashdot weenies not to whine and cry and bitch is for people to make degrogotory statements about Microsoft/Bill Gates/Steve Ballmer? If Tito would have said "NASA sure does give their astronauts the monkey jobs up on the ISS, oh yeah Linux rules!" everyone here would be applauding him. Everyone is defending NASA on the grounds that the ISS isn't finished or that he has a grduge. You've missed the point. Tito is 100% correct. We spend 10,000 dollars a pound to send people into space (on the shuttle, and yes I realize a Titan or Atlas rocket is cheaper, fuck you) and have them press buttons and practice their radio lingo. The question I haven't seen posed or answered is why do we do that.
What was the point of the Gemini project? To learn how to operate in space because we were heading to the moon. The Gemini astronauts learned how to dock with stuff and live for a couple days in a space capsule. They collected enough information to allow the Apollo engineers to devise a program that would get a couple of guys from sea level on Earth to the Sea of Tranquility on the moon. After Apollo everyone figured we'd be living on the moon by now with plans to head to Mars. Then Skylab ended up crashing into Australia and then almost a decade later Challenger turned into a fireball. A space platform where we're supposed to learn to live in space and a method for getting us into space cheaply both end up back on Earth. NASA has had to start all over.
Freedom (the original ISS idea without the international aspect) was supposed to be our Mars/Moon testbed. It would be coupled with a shuttle replacement and be a nice local platform to attach experiment modules to before we started any harcore progra mto get o Mars. Then for political reasons NASA has to get buddy buddy with the rest of the space faring community and join in the the ISS. Now most of our efforts human exploration efforts are being retarded because the ISS is costing way too much fucking money and too many aspects of it are being controlled by outside interests.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I also find it interesting that the Russians put him up there cheaper and easier than NASA could have, in fact their whole space program seems more money efficient. I think the problem NASA has at the moment, is that is used to having too much money, and have learnt mostly just how to burn money.
I predict that serious commercial colonisation of space will take place mainly with Russian technology, as they seem to manage budgets better and have more incentive to make their program work with commercial interests.
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
from a day trip to the Costa del Sol....
And what I thought was 'Damn.. there's a lot of Ferarri's here!'........... and Porsche's like they were volkswagens....
The restaurant was terrible. Took an hour to take our order, and my Paille was overcooked, and IMHO not worth the price. No more hanging out in Marbella for me.
The recent cancellation (oh, they say it's just on hold, but it's cancelled) of the X-38 derived CRV...
It's actually the recent cancellation of the habitation module that reduces crew size from 7 to 3, but the end result is the same.
In Goldin's April congressional testimony he was asked how NASA could do any science on the space station if the crew was reduced to 3 and it took 2.5 people full time to just maintain the thing. His response was: "That is the challenge before us".
Goldin gets a paycheck from NASA, but he works at the pleasure of the president. He does not look out for NASA's or the public's best interest. In his own words, "My job is to promote the policies of the administration, not defend them". I'm not sure that there is any "NASA Leadership" with the vision to do what is right.
One of the main purposes of this space station is to learn how to do all those "mudane tasks", and how to perform all "the daunting logistics of keeping numerous humans in space". The only way to learn how to do this is by doing it. Yeah, that's not science, it's boring engineering, but we've had the science to do this for a long time. It's long past time to reduce it to engineering. Once we learn how to live and work in space on a larger scale, we'll be able to do more science.
Yeah, it'd be better if the CRV, SSTO, and other things hadn't been proxmired out of the budget.
I suspect Tito is probably in more or less agreement with this, but I wouldn't be surprised if he finds the chance to tweak NASAs nose difficult to resist, after the full-blown tantrum worthy of a spoiled 2-year-old NASA management pitched about his trip. It's going to take NASA a while to overcome the PR hit they've taken from that -- assuming they ever figure out that they have taken a PR hit from their tantrum, and take steps to overcome it. Evidence that they have a clue is yet to become evident.
The Russian's are already doing this. Aside from Tito, they did a Pizza Hut ad on the ISS that is about to air.
:-)
Considering the Phallic shape of a rocker, I'd like to see a 40' high Trojan ad on the outside
Tito broke what rules? The Russian's are a partner in the SS, paying their own way, and it's up to them if they want to send scientists, tourists or monkeys. Kudos to the Russians for gaining some great PR, and helping fund their own program. Too bad that at $600M per launch for the Shuttle, that NASA were *UNABLE* to make money on taking Tito - for them it would have been a huge loss. NASA should concentrate on doing things efficiently and not wasting our money before they think they have any credibility in critisizing the way the Russians choose to do things.
BTW, where is the ANALYSIS of the pictures? Where are the CONCLUSIONS?
Just collecting data is not science. You have got to analyze the data and draw conclusions. Otherwise, every tourist to the Grand Canyon is doing geological science (they took pictures ;-).
Maintain a questioning attitude
I believe Juanita
Yikes! Did you catch that picture of Tito that went with the story? Now that gravity can work its ravages on him again, he looks twenty years older than he did floating around that space station!
There's the real killer app for the space program. Have rich, old geezers pay to fly in space as orbital servants (Tito said he served meals for the crew!) while trying to extend their own lives by escaping gravity.
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
To be fair, he actually makes a few pretty good points.
To quote an above posting, the article was rather bland and could have been written up by someone who didn't even ask Dennis questions, being that only 3 or 4 sentences were quoting him.
Now for my rants on the redundancies, most of the work is pre-determined for most astronauts before they go to space, so on most missions such as the one to attach an arm to the shuttle, it should be common sense to all that nothing more needs to be done, or is going to be done, once their initial tasks are complete.
Placing man on the space station is a costly job for NASA, and it's surprising no one raises a stinker about how much of it is actually overkill. NASA should stop beating around the bush, it seems one of the main reasons they likely didn't want Tito up there is because they kno(e)w he would raise questions about the lack of actual science NASA is doing. Meaning if he showed them up, on how much wasteless money they're spending, they'd likely go through budget cuts or something.
Personally I'm glad he went through the Russians since it boosts their economy when needed. Jealousy is a bitch and NASA it seems is nothing more than a jealous bunch of kids angered by the facts that they can't be the sole space travelers.
So what do you do when you can get away with it? Simple send an astronaut to the moon at the rate of a couple million, ask for more money and pocket it. If the government is too lack to notice the overblown amount of money being budgeted for these programs then that's their problem, however I wish they'd find a way to halt from using my tax dollars on such bullshit.
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Every second the ISS is manned is research on the long-term effects of exposure to weightlessness and radiation on human subjects.
I'd say this is pretty damned valuable if you expect someone to spend 600 days hurling through space in a tin can under the same conditions. Some of the most valuable research on the station is conducted on its inhabitants, not by them.
Tito is an armchair astronaut at best -- five days in space no more qualifies him to judge the space program than weekend touch football qualifies the average schmuck to coach an NFL team. For being an ex-rocket scientist he seems rather dense.
Treasure your snapshots, Dennis, and bore your friends with your home movies. I am sorry you did not get an "I went to the ISS and all I got was this crappy t-shirt" shirt, but the final design is still under negotiation between Energia, ESA, and NASA for future tourist missions, and the astronauts have not finished rehearsing their musical floorshow. This is the price you pay for being first.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
It's sad that there are so many people who believe this line NASA fed them. Dan Goldin threw tantrums about Tito and decided to sour the whole thing as much as possible when it became clear the Russians wouldn't let him dictate terms. Tito spent the whole time in the Russian segment of the station. He had two shepherd with him (the crew that launched him). The only alternative suggestion is that NASA is so incompetent it thinks that it needs 5 people to watch one person.
He didn't say it was boring. Too bad you couldn't be bothered to read the article.
His comments are that people aren't doing the research that Dan Goldin promised they would be doing. The reason? Because NASA has decided to cut funding to the CRV that would allow 7 people (enough to do science) to live on the station.
Three humans in a tin can in orbit is NOT the route to great science. Dan Goldin chose not to grow a backbone and demand something better then what we have now. As NASA administrator, it was his responsibillity to say 'look, if we are going to do this station, we need to do it right.' Instead, he let every budget cut come without any struggle. In fact, he actually THANKED congress for some of the budget cuts, suggesting that they would make NASA stronger.
Working backwards chronologically, these are some of the big mistakes made:
1. Goldin's public tantrums about Tito. He needs to do anything he can to attract US public support for space, even if it means whoring himself to celebrity. He's not a congressman who can operate on principle, he has a job: make space work.
2. The recent cancellation (oh, they say it's just on hold, but it's cancelled) of the X-38 derived CRV. Without this, there can never be more then 3 permanent crew on the station. WITH it, the crew increases to 7. 3 crew is just about what it takes to maintain the station. If there were 7, you could maintain the station AND do science.
3. Deleting the free-flying science module. You cannot do precision zero-g experiments on a rattling station that has to support a group of breathing, moving astro/cosmo-nauts. You need to be able to deploy a science platform and retrieve it as needed.
4. Not using the Russians enough. No matter how often clueless people rant about how inept the Russians are, the numbers are clear: They have cheaper, more reliable boosters with faster turn around times. We need to utilize this to its fullest, and if that means using some hard cash once in a while, so be it. Our relations are hamstrung by the need to 'barter' for everything.
5. The failure to push for developing our own heavy lift infrastructure. Cancelling the OMV and the Shuttle-C removed our ability to fly a true world class station.
These are not the sort of things that are only visible in 20/20 hindsight. This is all well known in the space community, and NASA leadership has shown an extraordinary skill for disregarding the obviously correct path at times.
after tito comes back from the space station the tv asks him a following question in the interview:
what russian words dir you learn up there?
da, nyet, uberi svoi ruki nahuj otsuda*
*yes, no, get your damn hands off it
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
A former NASA rocket scientist, Tito tagged along with two cosmonauts who delivered a fresh Soyuz capsule to space station Alpha. Besides listening to opera music and taking pictures out the window, Tito volunteered to serve meals to his crewmates.
The face of citizen explorer Dennis Tito looms over his son Brad as the younger poses a question at a conference in Atlanta
"That relieved them of about six hours of mundane work they would have done themselves," he said.
The solution is obvious: NASA needs to send more tourists up to space relieve to astronauts of their mundane tasks, so that the astronauts can spend more time doing science.
Well, he would basically be right. You see; Bill Gates is rich, and he got rich by selling software. I'm sure he has something interesting to say on the subject of producing commercial software.
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Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
"Why dont you go ahead and think about the whole situation a little bit more. It amazes me when people like you write in... you just seem to be mindless at best. Tito? The guys a doof."
A doof that just happens to be a former NASA rocket scientist. Maybe you should be doing a little bit more thinking before you go condemning someone you know little to nothing about.
"I'd gladly see Pizza Hut ads on all our rockets if it PAID FOR MORE MISSIONS. It's not like the scientific results are tainted by commerical money."
...yet.
http://www.bootyproject.org
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
I think what the esteemed Mr. Tourist does not understand is that even MUNDANE tasks in space are HARD. It probably takes a lot of effort just to keep the station from leaking, spinning out of control, catching on fire and re-entering the atmosphere. We have to develop a lot of technology just to get people there, and to let them do basic stuff like take a leak. That's OK; it's a learning experience. How much commerce did the very first boats bring in? How useful were the first airplanes?
I'm more than happy to help pay for humanity learning the skills of day-to-day existence in space, as those skills will serve us well down the line. And if any science gets done in the meantime -- bonus!
Typical short-sighted American, that Tito, doesn't like anything without instant gratification. And I can say that, because I'm an American, so save yer flames.
(on a posting frenzy tonight)
It's called "hyperbole," pinhead -- exaggeration for the sake of making a point.
NASA is alternately brilliant and incompetent. They can do great stuff, like say a space station... but then their charter is written so that they may not make a profit.
I'd gladly see Pizza Hut ads on all our rockets if it PAID FOR MORE MISSIONS. It's not like the scientific results are tainted by commerical money.
Frankly I think NASA needs to start whoring itself out. I'd love to see a tourist on the station all the time... at $20M a pop it would pay for another Mars trip, or something... Film Coke ads in there, anything. Film an episode of Friends in there. Make money, become visible to the public, become relevant, even if it's in a "silly" commercial way.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And for one thing, tourists are certainly not those you would spend a lot of resources launching.
So, while Tito is probably correct, he shouldn't have been there.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Since all space missions so far have been financed by a state (be it US or Russia or whatever) the astronauts are just state office workers. If everything is financed by the state (so the money is anonymous and no one would really ask how it was spent) and controlled by huge administration (the way NASA runs space flight) then there is no push for performance or real results. That's why no one thought that for example it might be a good idea to do something about just serving meals - 6 hours to prepare them is quite a time, even in space.
I think Tito's observations are very interesting, because he is really the first man in space who can openly talk about what he saw - he paid for his ticket, he has no obligations whatsoever towards a "space agency" for sending him there.
"Any responsible adult doesn't need months of NASA training not to push the wrong button. That's absurd," said Tito, who spent almost one year preparing for the trip with his Russian crewmates. "I was definitely over-trained for this mission."
That's because *nothing went wrong*. If there was an meteor hit, or an oxygen valve broke, or a fuel tank ruptured, or a million other things that could go wrong, you can bet his training would be useful.
Tito said he asked one of the residents how much research she had conducted since arriving at the space station months ago.
"'About two days,' was the answer," Tito told participants at a CNN World Report conference in Atlanta on Tuesday.
Of course. A) the damn thing's still under construction, and B) it's established that three crew members are needed to maintain the thing, that's why the final crew manifest will be seven.
And the CRV will happen, the Europeans are too heavily involved for it to just fall by the waysite due to US budget restrictions:
Yes, there are numerous things that NASA does wrong, and yes, there's a lot of space science that unmanned probes can do, but it's hard to learn about life sciences and what's it really like living in space without having people up there. And that's difficult, dangerous, and expensive.
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Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=353
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Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
His comments are that people aren't doing the research that Dan Goldin promised they would be doing. The reason? Because NASA has decided to cut funding to the CRV that would allow 7 people (enough to do science) to live on the station.
Er, the CRV wouldn't be ready in 3 or 4 years, anyway, so I'm not sure what your point is. No one was expecting to do much research at this stage of construction. (Except, apparently, Tito.)
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Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
But come the early - mid 70's and the money dries up. The remaining Apollo rockets were turned into lawn ornaments and the shuttle program was stretched out. The space station became Skylab. Mars? Forget it.
When the shuttle finally flew, it had no mission and it turned out to be a lot more expensive to launch than expected.
Eventually we get to SDI and the closing days of the Cold War. Finally a reason to build space station Freedom That will keep the commies from taking over low earth orbit. Toss in some more money problems and redesigns and, oops, down comes the wall and the cold war is over. Name change to International Space Station. Invite other countries to participate. Eventually it starts to get built.
OK, Now the "Mars mission supply" shuttle is used to build the international "stop the commies" space station which is used by the Russians as a hotel for "filthy capitalist running dogs" to raise the money to pay their rocket people so they don't go and work for Sadam & company.
Now what was that about doing science in space?
Is it just me, or do the pictures of Tito (especially this one: http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/06/01/tito.repo rt/vert.tito.son.jpg) look a lot like Lex Luthor? Now I'm beginning to wonder what exactly he was doing up there... :) heh
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Bah, humans weren't meant to be in space for science... they were meant to build multibillion-dollar overbudget space stations to serve as hotels for millionaire space tourists!
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Mmm... delicious white marbles...