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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.
This one's also at CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/10/08/russia.tv show.ap/index.html
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
There's a porn film "The Uranus Experiment" that supposedly has zero-g sex, etc.
Anyone ever read "Have SpaceSuit Will Travel" by Henlein? Only, the runner up got a space suit instead of the trip. OK, so it wasnt a tv show but it was a contest to win a space trip. Lets commercialize space travel, then we can all go!
"Get Moose and Squirrel!"
More info can be found here:
http://www.ortv.ru/ and here http://www.ortv.ru/
Remember to use Babelfish or some other translator if you can't read Russian.
Russian Show to Send Winner to Space
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:47 p.m. ET
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's biggest television station said Tuesday it was teaming up with the country's space agency to create a reality show that will be literally out of this world.
The show will follow contestants as they go through the rigorous training required for cosmonauts, and the winner will spend a week on the Russian segment of the International Space Station, said Channel 1.
The station said it planned to send the first winner to space in the fall of 2003.
A recent attempt to combine space travel and entertainment failed when pop star Lance Bass was excluded from the crew that is to fly to the space station this month.
Bass, of the group 'N Sync, was unable to come up with the $20 million fee, and Russian space officials said he would not be part of the crew despite weeks of training. A seven-part television documentary was planned around his flight.
The reality TV project will ``demonstrate the space achievements of our country and give the winner a chance to go to space,'' Channel 1 director Konstantin Ernst said.
Space agency spokesman Sergei Gorbunov said the agency had signed a preliminary agreement for the show with Channel 1.
Gorbunov said any television viewer would be apply to participate in the project. Through tests and competitions, the participants will be narrowed to 15-20 people, ``who will then undergo the medical examination necessary to be admitted to special training'' at Russia's cosmonaut training center, he said, according to Interfax.
In the past two years, Russia has sent two paying tourists to the space station as a way to raise money for its cash-strapped space program. California millionaire Dennis Tito and South African Internet tycoon Mark Shuttleworth paid about $20 million each for their trips.
Don't remember where I read this, but supposedly sex in Zero-Gs is very difficult. It is said to be difficult to "push off" properly.
...and yes, I AM being serious.
Well most of you may not get any idea of what Russia is. At least let me tell you one thing - 90% of what Holywood makes about us is pure crap. But I don't wanna write here about "what Russia really is". I'll just stick about this new story.
For the last years, there is a rising taste for "adventure contests". It started with some tasteless copies of similar programs in the West, but things went somehow "wrong". Right now Russian major channels are producing or trying to produce programs more near to reality. So they drop a bunch of people in a lost Caribbean island for a few weeks, play "treasure hunts" with real tigers roaming next to you, or make a huge show by closing a few people in an apartment and showing how they live there together for a few days. Part of it is pure showbiz with special effects, but a good part is real and that's what is driving people to it, as in Russia there is a crazy taste for adventure.
But as far as I see things are now going to the extreme. The real extreme. There is a show on "extreme sports", something completely crazy as many tricks ain't showbiz but real dangerous things.
So this new show is nothing special with the exception of sending someone to Cosmos...
On what concerns the practical aspects... Well what's special in Cosmos so that people can't go there? I frankly don't see the problem except for the money one has to pay. On what concerns the idea that ISS is being detoured from a "true scientific expedition". That started while Freedom and Mir2 were still on the paper and politicians were more worried more about superpower politics rather than Science. ISS is flawed and it is questionable from a technical and scientific point of view as it was cut, crunched and thinned every way possible. And here both Russians and Americans have their part on the blame. Russia did delay a LOT the main stage and some other components, due to its financial problems. But US is till now failing to fulfill its promises as it froze down a good part of the project. Presently ISS is mostly a show making a very little part of what was supposed to. And instead of making money, it is eating it up.
So if the agencies are able to save some money by sending turists there, let be it. The standups that some of you people are playing here are flawed from start. No money? No Science, no ISS... And that concerns not only Russia but also the US with its stubborn, count-to-the-very-cent Congress.