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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.
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
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".
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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!)
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!