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Third Space Tourist is Set
Sgt York writes "Space Adventures announced yesterday that Gregory Olsen will be their next private space tourism client. He paid $20M to hop on a Soyuz, sometime by 2005, and go spend some time on the ISS. The cool thing is, he's not just playing tourist. He's the CEO of Sensors Unlimited, has a MS in physics, and a PhD in materials science. He's planning on using the trip to 'help inspire today's youth to dream big' and conduct a few experiments, including testing out some of his company's equipment. SA is billing him as his own 'private space program.'" There's also a space.com story.
In other words, it'll be a tax deduction because it's a "business expense".
Hate to sound like a troll, but is this news? He's the third guy. The first was newsworthy, the second really wasn't, and this even less. The only noteworthy thing is the guy went from rags to riches, and now into space. He'll train, get on a rocket, go to the space station, stay the hell out of the way, return, write a book, make money on said book. The End.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I'm really not sure what I feel about this whole Space Tourism thing. I guess the space agencies are doing it as a source for some extra cash, but how much does profit do they actually make on these trips? I think for now space technology should be kept for scientific research only. There is still a lot that can go wrong, and even more that we don't know about.
This looks very interesting. He's the head of a real company that's still fairly small. Small companies, being much less bureaucratic, are friendlier environments for creative work and pioneering investigations.
Olsen looks like a remarkably intelligent man with a good background in the kinds of science he will be exploring up on ISS. He's also led the development of products that the real world wants and needs.
The space business needs more Olsens. Today there are entirely too many bureaucrats with no vision and no ability to connect with the larger world.
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- B. Franklin
I'm a Tivo fanatic, and I've got a Hidef "ready" TV, so, in my blood, I'm itching to get the new HiDef DirecTV Tivo when it comes out in the next few weeks. Trouble is, it's MSRP is going to be $999. It's just too rich for my blood. Under $500, I could manage, but $999 is just crazy. I expect this price to fall like a rock-- perhaps faster than any other Tivo unit has so far. DirecTV is getting ready to go on a major HD push, even launching a new satellite. This device has got to be part of it.
I wonder if "Space Tourists" will look back to when the going price was $20 million and shudder. I hope so. I hope that visiting space will be an attainable expense within my lifetime.
Surely, the first few are so rich that it doesn't really matter, and the "honor" of being one of the first will be worth the price.. but it's numbers 10-100 that I wonder about. Is it really going to seem worth that price, after the fact?
This guys a scientist. Pretty good chance he's not going to be going around hitting switches or being any more careless than any astronaut.
This guys also running his own successful business.
Consider that every $20 million injection into space flight will help insure that there will be a 'next' space flight.
I read a great article after the first guy went into space where the writer summed up the "sour grapes" reaction from so many who were disturbed that a rich guy could buy a trip to space - it was jealously.
People were envious that one person could actually buy his way into space. Surely, space should be left to scientists, intellectuals, dreamers, etc. rather than a memeber of the "wealthy elite".
The reality is when ship,car,train and airplane travel debuted, the passenger list comprised government-sanctioned types or the very wealthy.
After a time, all forms of travel become accessible to more people from other walks of life and eventually become commonplace.
I say good for this guy. May space become even more accessible to those willing to buy a ticket.
Oracle playboy Larry Ellison is "multi-talented, not only is he an acute business but he is also a jet pilot, marketing genius, sports enthusiast and world champion yacht racer"
Nietzsche once said people who aspire to lofty ideas ( like "help inspire today's youth to dream big" ) often have very simple, direct, greedy drives that propel them. A scientist might say he's out to prove the hardest theorem, but perhaps all he wants is fame ( eg. Dr. Watson says in his book on decoding DNA that he simply wanted to beat the competitors & become famous ). A philosopher might set out to "find the truth", but perhaps all he wants is tenure at some ivy league institution. Looks to me like Dr. Gregory Olsen simply wants good PR for his firm with this stunt...claiming to inspire American youth seems outlandish.
Pretty sad when the Russian folks are able to send average Joe for a joy ride in space with a return journey...and we (here in the US) don't even have the ability to launch and return the pro's with the whole state of NASA these days. And we are looking to go back to the moon and Mars??
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
First of all, there is no such thing as extra space in a space launch. Every ounce of payload is examined and scrutinized in order to determine if it's worth the cost of launching it.
Furthermore, we're talking about going to space here , not Fresno. I bet his support equipment alone weighs more than "150-250 lbs". He has to bring every single item he'll need to survive for a week. The water alone is probably more than 50 lbs, then there's food, oxygen, extra underwear, etc....
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
Simply put, Russia cannot afford to keep sending Soyuz up there time after time again. They don't have the riches the US apparently does. So they fund their flights anyway they can.
Looking at the alternatives (neglecting ISS and letting it fall apart because we won't go up there with our crappy Space Shuttle anymore) I certainly have no problem with some jet-set millionaire travelling up there.
Plus, I think 6 months of training will make sure they don't accidentally kick any switches marked "Self Destruct".
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Obviously someone beat me to the punch (the submit button punching that is). Anyway, I wonder if this could be an acceptable new trend, to ship scientists up that are not professional astronauts to conduct research (since, sadly, no one person, not even an astronaut, can be a top-noch scientinst in everything). As a non-astronaut scientist, my head is saying "hell yes!".
---- Take the Space Quiz!
What was the reason for using my money to send him into space again-to study the effects of weightlessness and the elderly? That seems like a useful study at this point in our space program.
Really, what's the difference between sending up a wannabe musician or a rich CEO (who would both pay for their trip) or sending up an elderly former astronaut/senator (at tax payers expense). Sending Glenn back into space was just as much a marketing gimmick for NASA as anything anyone else has done.
He wants to inspire kids to become astronauts. How nice.
With his $20 Million USD, he could fund approximately 20,000 $1000 one-time scholarships.
Let's say he uses the $20 Million USD to establish a trust, which uses earnings on the principal to fund science scholarship programs. Let's say this trust only earns 5% annually. That would be $1 Million USD annually, which could fund 1,000 $1,000 science scholarships annually.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Sure, it had marketing benefits. It also had scientific benefits, and not just those of studying the effects of weightlessness on the elderly.
The more attention NASA can get, the more funding it's likely to retain. These days, anything that doesn't help put a polititian(and not just John Glenn) in positive light isn't safe from being axed in favor of pork barrel spending.
And personally, I'm in favor of NASA retaining its funding.
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How about take $20 Million endowments from rich people who want to tag along for the ride, and spare ourselves the humiliation of putting on dog-and-pony shows to keep up interest for the sake of public funding? Get enough clients like this, and NASA could actually operate in the black with no taxpayer funding at all!
Government spending on space exploration was one thing, when Sputnik was beeping along overhead and scaring the bejeezus out of Americans, but now that the space program is no longer part of an arms race, it's much more difficult to justify the expense to taxpayers, especially in tough times like the recession we just went through. Instead of putting Ohio Senators in space, let's collect cash from as many of Sam Walton's heirs as we can in exchange for letting them ride the roman candle for a few days each... and let's do it before we completely run out of current-generation space shuttles.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
1: Senator Jake Garn
2: Congressman Bill Nelson
3: Senator John Glenn
4: Dennis Tito
5: Mark Shuttleworth
There is no scientific or operational need for members of congress to fly in space, thus they should be remembered as the first space tourists. Tito and Shuttleworth were the first "non-government-employee" space tourists.
The thing is: Shuttleworth wasn't selected because he was the "right" person to do those experiments-we was selected because he had the checkbook to buy that job. In this case, the pretense really does sound different-the company needed someone to go up and do some experiments-and the CEO decided he wanted to do that job himself-and is properly qualified.