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.

Comments

Re:Kick in the teeth.

[evilviper]

The russians are hemmoraging money to send these average joes, and the fatality rate is much higher. These average joes are taking a big risk with their lives, and they aren't always going to win.

Who ever said the US doesn't have the ability to launch and return people? In the US, when there is a fatality, the space program stops pending inquiry. In Russia, it's about as common as a fatal car accident, so they just brush it away and move on, like a non-issue. Their rockets aren't reusable, so they have to build a new one everytime anyhow.