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Come on Up (to the ISS) You're the Next Contestant
Ender writes "The Voice of America and the NY times (Free registration, yetti, yatta ...) are running articles informing us that the Russian space Agency Rosaviakosmos has an agreement with Moscow to send a TV contest winner to the International Space Station. All contestants would train for space flight during the programs and this would show the audience how cosmonauts are trained prior to their space flight." Boy bands are ineligible.
They could have Bob Barker as the host! Come on up!
Do they get spaced?
Can't wait until the Russians finally figure out that a PORN STAR in the ISS will make for better ratings. Zero-Gee sex will have millions throwing $$$$ in the direction of the Russians.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Is part of the prize the return flight or is this another one of those scams we keep hearing about? ;-)
Taking a cue from the "Survivor" Reality show.
A Boy Band star is "voted off" the space station and stuffed into an air lock.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
That's one small step for television, but one giant leap for degrading space travel.
Dr. Joseph Hairston
Superintendent, CCBC
Monty Hall: "Would you prefer to take one more tour of the station, or would you like what's behind door #2?"
Contestant/Winner: "I'll take Door #2 Monty"
Contestant/Winner: "Wait...that look like an airlock....WHOAAAAAAA!!!!!"
Monty Hall: "Should have taken the tour".
Unlike clueless NASA, the Russian Space Agency knows what happened to Contour. I would much rather have them send me to space than NASA if I were going into space.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
It's alot better than their last game show.
Russian Roulette!!
It wasn't a bad show until they ran out of contestants!
I heard ISS is really unstable and full of holes. Who would want to go there?
Oh wait, that's IIS.
daed si luap
Though I would pay money to see that little twit from that boy group (nstink^H^H^H^H^H*sink^H^H^Hync) jettisoned into space because he couldn't come up with the money for his training...
of 5 people...
and an airlock.
...just as soon as we get that elevator built! ;-)
I think they should play this like survivor, but with survival being the actual goal. Instead of giving the contestants any training, make them go into to space and try to not die. The last one to not die is the winner and get's a trip back to earth.
If it looks like more than one person is going to survive, they can have competitions - who can survive outside without a suit the longest, who can survive Bass's music the longest, who can drink the most tang without peeing or throwing up (Road Rules reference), who can ride the ISS's Robotic arm as a broncing bull for the longest, etc. This could be the ultimate in Dead Reality TV - and since it is in outer space, don't need to worry about lawsuits, or murder convictions : )
First Falcon-1 to orbit, then Falcon-9. Then I can die a happy man.
Zero-Gee sex will have millions throwing $$$$ in the direction of the Russians.
Up until people actually watch it. Take a minute to try and visualize sex in an environment where there's no "up" or "down" and where astronauts/cosmonauts actually have to be strapped to a wall in a sleeping bag in order to get a good night's rest.
This is approximately what would happen: they'd get naked. Some fawning over the appearance of zero-gee boobs and thingies. Oral sex to start things off, natch. The sixty-nine position is interestingly easy when you're both floating, but they're not watching where they're drifting, and the two partners keep banging their feet and backs into walls and boxes while they float through the compartment. Plus they have to hold each other's legs tightly the whole time, because there's no gravity to keep them pressed against each other.
Then they actually try intercourse, missionary position to start, and quickly discover the woman has to wrap her arms and legs around her partner to do anything more, because the least brush causes the two floating bodies to drift away from each other.
So they've got that worked out, but after a few minutes the woman's legs are getting tired from doing all the work. And the audience wants to see different positions, right? So the man tries to get on top -- no good, there's no "top" or "bottom" in space and he keeps pushing her hips away.
He tries doggy style. Same problem. He tries it again, this time holding her hips in a death grip, which kind of works except that her legs keep bouncing away from his, causing her torso to drift upward and away. So doggy style with his legs wrapped around hers again, except that makes it impossible for him to get any decent leverage.
The video camera focuses on her zero-gee boobs. It has to, there's nothing else interesting to watch. Finally it's determined that if she grabs ahold of two straps on one wall with her hands, wraps her ankles in another strap on the floor, she can keep herself at a kind of ninety-degree position so that he can take her from behind, albeit twisted ninety degrees to the left.
They finish the act in that position, too frustrated to try and figure out any others right now. The ratings have already plummeted anyhow, seeing as MTV offers more action in any given half-hour of programming than this.
This is a strange comment from a space.com article on the contest. It explains why a Russian show might be a bit more economical:
Previous attempts by U.S. companies to organize a TV reality show and send the winner to space on board of a Russian Soyuz capsule failed due to the lack of funding. However, Rosaviakosmos traditionally charges domestic customers a smaller fee than that paid by foreign clients.
"Traditionally?" A couple of years ago there was no such thing as space tourism. Now we're told there's even a tradition of targeted price structures!