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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".
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
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.
It is also noteworth because he will be the first to carry his own significant research up with him. He's not going to just "stay the hell out of the way". This guy isn't some boy-band wannabe. He's a real scientist with real experiments he want to carry out.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
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.
The third time we went to the moon was boring too, eh? Seems like today once something has been done once it isn't worth paying attention to after. For some reason people watched how many years of Friends episodes though? 30 minutes of peoples lives, gone, every week for years.
I, for one, live north of the Cape and watch every shuttle launch I possibly can. Most people don't any more. I guess it depends on your interests.