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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?
.. cause actually, I want to send every reality TV show contestant into space.
Any chance of crossover shows with other reality shows? Personally, it makes more sense to me that the winner should get to stay on earth.
"Old man yells at systemd"
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? ;-)
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.
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
Are we finally seeing space travel as "Reality TV"? Im all for expansion of space but do we really need MTV's "The Real World in Space" TM? :-)
Just you're average nitpicker.
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!
Y'know, maybe I'm biased, but having such a unique "grand prize" makes me think that losing would be devastating, in a way other "survivor"-esque shows aren't. If you're optimistic you think *maybe* this isn't "once in a lifetime", if we manage to make space travel a little less unique, but still.
...huh. I meant that to be funny, but now it just seems like a depressing commentary on the state of space exploration by the USA.
And how ironic is it that its the formerly communist governments that are making this stuff possible? I'm sure a scifi writer from the 1950s would still have the game show by those wacky Americans, but would probably soom that we'd do the space travel side as well...
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
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.
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.
The Danish TV station TV2 did a similar show about a year ago. Check out missionen.tv2.dk. However, this was not to go to the ISS, but to win a trip on a Space Cruiser. (the site is old, and it looks not very well maintained)
I believe it is also being done on the Norwegian TV2 (no relation between the two).
Are these the same folks who were trying to start a game show on the same premise, but the grand prize was a trip to MIR? The show idea got tabled after MIR started growing space fungus and they ditched the thing in the ocean, but it sounds like the exact same thing. /. posted a story on it at the time, I can't seem to find the link.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Crossing "talent search" and "big brother" shows seems to be popular in the UK (and elsewhere) right now - eg Fame Academy and Pop Rivals. Many people would agree with the sentiments expressed in this Guardian article though.
...just as soon as we get that elevator built! ;-)
One would hope that, in this sue-happy society, the Russians have considered the ramifications of a situation where something bad happens. Sure, sure, it's unlikely. But there have been enough situations where space launches have gone awry to make one think about it. (Challenger was one, but then again, that was NASA, not the Russian space program). Maybe the winner gets to sign one of those lovely "release of liability" forms? Just a thought.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
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.
Space is only for the elite, for now.
Y'know, maybe I'm biased, but having such a unique "grand prize" makes me think that losing would be devastating, in a way other "survivor"-esque shows aren't. If you're optimistic you think *maybe* this isn't "once in a lifetime", if we manage to make space travel a little less unique, but still.
I'd argue that that's part of the price of playing. If anybody goes into this program without *expecting* that they're not going to be picked, I have little sympathy for them (ditto people who put winning the lottery into their budget).
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.
Why haven't we been back to the moon?
:P
Where's the ships travelling to Mars?
We've done jack since going to the moon. We only went there because 'We can't let the Russians beat us!'
You know, I'd like to travel beyond Earth before I die. The Russians seem to be the only ones who have figured out the fact that I'm not alone in that wish. If not for them, I'm sure we won't have viable space tourism for a few hundred years.
In these modern times, where money can control everything, it is not uncommon to see a former communist government letting this happen and supporting. Perhaps this is a downside to capitalism and reality TV that we want to shoot desperate competitive into space. Reality TV is already loosing a lot of its luster in the United States of America so I assume that this show will be marketed in other area's where the demand is still high.
Also is this a setback for NASA? Possibility, but I think there is a larger issue for NASA here. Some Stories from Scientific American I believe shed light on the issue Has the Space Age Stalled? and Lost in Space.
A larger issue that is discussed in both articles is that many young Americans are loosing their attachment to NASA and the space race. This could be a costly mistake. This prize winner wont help NASA, but I don't think they are going to kill the space program.
Medevo
I expect that there are relatively few people in Russia interested in space these days, like there are relatively few here. So I expect they don't have an overwhelming quantity of cosmonauts. I think it makes sense to have a TV show of cosmonaut training: you'll get more people, you'll promote the concept of space travel, you'll make money. It's not like they aren't going to train the contestants in much the same way they'd train a non-contestant normal cosmonaut. And afterwards, the winner will probably become a regular cosmonaut, since it will be some basically ordinary person, with no particularly interesting day job, who has cosmonaut training and spaceflight experience.
This isn't really much different from how the American space program recruitment used to work: you look for prmising kids, fly them to Florida for Space Camp, and then try to get the best of them to become astronauts, meanwhile keeping taxpayers interested in funding the space program.
NASA has already sent up people who don't really belong. Politicians, for example. OK, they had some training. But, then, so do the people in the $20 million category. It's not like they're selling tickets on a Soyuz like, for example, airlines sell tickets on 747s. A hell of a lot of training goes with that ticket.
When Dennis Tito went up, I and others thought NASA's objections were at best disingenuous, at worst outright lies. The man had been an aerospace engineer and had received months of training before his trip. Yet NASA proclaimed how difficult his trip made things for them. I thought, what if something unexpected went wrong on the station not connected to that little trip? If the system was that fragile, it was a disaster waiting to happen.
NASA needs to develop technologies that are more robust. The country needs space technologies that are able to recover from at least minor problems. The Russians have done that to some extent.
And, of course, with each of these tourists Russia earns some badly needed hard money for their struggling program.
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- B. Franklin
Also is this a setback for NASA? Possibility, but I think there is a larger issue for NASA here.
The sad fact is that anything that is bad for NASA is probably good for the space industry. NASA is a massively inefficient bureaucracy and its gotten that way because it was always a prestige organization that never had to justify its existance economically.
About the best thing the US govt. could do would be to pay off or securitize NASA's debt, then sell it in an IPO. As a private company, it would be highly incentivized to both produce useful work and capture the public's imagination.
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.
I managed to catch a glimpse of the ISS flying over the UK last thursday at about 8:15 pm, you can get the times that it will fly over your part of the world from sites such as Heavens Above - it is very cool, if you're into that kind of thing, it starts off as a bright light like a star, rising pretty fast, getting brighter and brighter and then fading out as it enters the Earth's shadow. It faded out before setting. If you have a telescope, or even a decent pair of binoculars, you can make out the shape of the station - it's about 400km up. Apparently when it's finished you will be able to make out the shape with the naked eye :)
I can think of 20 million good reasons why the Russians are doing this.
The space industry needs cash, and it needs popular, populist acceptance and "buzz," so that it can get still more cash. Increase the number of flights -- for whatever reason, 'cause Lance Bass wants to write a sonnet, who cares? -- and the science will follow naturally.
"Every Tom, Dick and Harry... incompetent civilian... making a mockery... compromising the amount of scientific work that can get done..."
Your post reeks of elitism. The faster we can re-populate the space program's labcoat dilletantes with hard-hatted journeymen, the faster scientific work -- or any work of lasting value -- will get done. Arachnologists may be irritated by this, but one boy band singer is worth 12 Zero Gravity Spider Web Exepriments.
My daughter is four years old. She wants to be an astronaut when she grows up. If we all do our part to de-geekify space travel, her dream is much more likely to come true.
It's like Linux in a way (Kee-rist, I don't believe I'm saying this...). It will only ever enjoy popularity on the desktop rivalling that of MS or even Apple if it is marketed as something other than a "geek thang," if it becomes cool not because it is safe and reliable, but because celebrities use it and the media trumpets it. Of course, "we geeks" then lose one of "our own," but like any child whom we nurture through young and difficult years, the final proof is in its introduction to the "rest of the world."
The Space Program is moving out of its parents' basement. God Speed!
Might one argue that this is the opposite of the problem NASA has? It ISN'T thinking about the bottom-line - it is thinking of its pride!
Just think - if Bill Gates is willing to pay his way for a ride into space, why SHOULDN'T NASA let him do it? Now, it should definitely not cost the public a single dime - he should pay for all costs associated with the trip. However, to say that he shouldn't be allowed simply because it doesn't advance science is just pride. Basically you're saying that his money isn't good enough for you.
The Russians have opened space to the public. Sure, most people can't afford it - but most people can't afford a $14,000 plasma HDTV either... The Russians aren't afraid to make money on space travel, and neither should NASA.
If NASA wants to factor in the cost of lost opportunities (due to having room for one less scientist) or wear and tear on the shuttle, or any number of other costs - fine. But the cost shouldn't be "not gonna do it for any price"...
Besides, stuff like this makes space travel more appealing to the public, and probably would boost their funding anyway. (As if John Glenn's journey was really just for scientific value!)
I think NASA is doing the CORRECT thing by not allowing stuff like that, after all NASA is about science not shooting rich people into space. I was trying to imply that the corruption that is affecting Russia's space program has yet to spread, but I stand behind I belief that NASA need to do PR work and a lot of it.
Perhaps we need a Private Company that would allow people to go into space, and not interfere with science. The problem is that the technology for private corps is a few years away and people want to go into space NOW.
Medevo
About the best thing the US govt. could do would be to pay off or securitize NASA's debt, then sell it in an IPO. As a private company, it would be highly incentivized to both produce useful work and capture the public's imagination.
True, very true, but be wary as this could have negative problems. NASA should be privately audited, and have pieces of it split off to maintain cost/benefit. We still do need a solid PUBLIC organization for space and space related science, and NASA has done that (with a price tag). The conversion should be slow enough to not hamper research, but can still cut the crap off of NASA
Medevo
This is really a pretty good idea from a television standpoint. The producers get not one, but two reality shows out of this one venture. First they get the story of cosmonauts in training, then they get the most unique reality show ever to be seen...a regular person living on a space station. What could compete with that? The only thing that suprises me about this is that it is not some American TV venture. I was not aware of such an interest in reality based tv show in Russia.
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.
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!
It reminds me of how when the Soviet Union fell apart, Rosaviacosmos had to resort to shooting milk commercials and other stuff aboard Mir. It was embarrasing for the cosmonauts, to have the once-proud Soviet space program reduced to scraping by on cheap stunts.
--Ford Prefect
money... shot.
- passion
90% of what Hollywood makes about any country (including USA) is pure crap.
People who read this are probably familiar with computers to the degree that they can see how much nonsense the Hollywood depiction of, for example, a hacker is. As a matter of fact, any area in which I have special interests are treated with the same massive flood of factual incorrectness. Given this record, do we have any reason to believe that any of the subjects we know less about are treated with any accuracy?
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
being able to watch them burn up on re-entry and see that the charred remains crash into bewildered Backstreet Boyz.