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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.
At least he's not part of a boy band.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
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 think it's still too risky. think about it, someone going up that's not an astro flowing around accidentally kicking some switch on a panel breaking something. I know it's prob not *that* unsecure, but still, the point is the ISS is supposed to be this great nation-free project, but the Russian's are trying to milk it for some rubles by gambling that this "tourist" won't break anything.
call me pariod it you wish, but the stakes are too high for this.
CVb
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Another "rock and roll" CEO. It's bad enough we have Richard Branson ballooning about as if he's a 20 year old.
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.
Business trip, be sure to keep the receipts. Oh, and he'll be entertaining a client for dinner when he gets to the space station, so his meal will be a write-off, too.
Hmmm... how many cents per mile is it for a space commute?
Guy: hey, baby, what's up?
....
Hot chick: get lost, loser, unless you got something interesting to say!
Guy: I'm going into space next month, gonna cost me $20 mil. I might not come back alive. Look, here's the clipping from the New York Times with my photo. So, want to come for a ride in my Porsche? I got a little time left and a lot of money to burn...
I reckon it'd be worth 2-3 months of one-nighters with exceedingly pretty but easily charmed women. In purely genetic terms, that $20m could be a pretty good investment.
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Well, this /. story makes it painfully obvious that you should always carry extra in case your luggage gets lost.
Rockets by SpaceX and others are all well and good, but not even Bill Gates has the cash to fully fund a competent space program. Assume private enterprise could and did, would it be any better than what's happening these days?
"Did you remember to close the door?" "Didn't need to, it fell off and drifted away."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
He sounds like an interesting guy - not your typical privileged millionaire.
If the $20 mil isn't getting him any action, I doubt the expensive vacation is going to help.
Guy: My penis has been in outer space. Wanna touch it?
Hot chick (while spraying mace): Eww! I thought this place had a lot of rich guys.
I wonder how much it ACTUALLY costs to send one person into space? From what I understand, the tourists are just tag alongs. In other words, the ship is going anyway. How much extra can that one person cost? $20 Mil for another 150-250 lbs? Chipping in for gas has never been this expensive. Or maybe the people that make up the prices for movie theatre food make up the prices for in flight meals on a space ship.
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 is a newsworthy story as the this guy is going to be one of the first to use ISS to test crystal growth (which should have a clear advantage in a ISS's microgravity setting), his company's infrared cameras. It really is a business expense for him. As opposed to the first space tourists which were just that tourists. He's testing ISS as the prototype for a space based manufacturing facility.
Thalasar
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.
The headline shouln't be that he's the "third space tourist", it should be that he's "the first space tourist to travel tax-free".
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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.
Did you notice that this time, the US reaction is more laid back? Perhaps the US will begin to take up tourists of their own (eventually).
Frankly, it surprises me that the Russians are the first to realize the profit potential.
So, here's a question... If the US and Russia started to compete for space travellers (and you had the money), which agency would you trust? Why?
It seems one is gathering experience catering their programs to the rich folks, yet the other would have some "whiz bang" technology. Tough call, really.
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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!".
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Let's all pitch in and send Linus.
Suggested experiments:
Installation of XP on one box, and Linux on another. Which OS os "lighter"?
Evaluation of the safety ramifications of space travel while carrying either a stuffed penguin or a window made of stained glass. Does a towel help?
Installation of dual OS's on all mission critical ISS servers.
Upgrade of Hubble OS to Linux so it'll run on just one Gyro!
Human sciences experiment where the subject must debug an OS kernel in weightlessness while under the influence of various hallucinogenics.
If we can afford it, send strippers, a pole, and a DJ to study and facilitate the development of weightless lap dances.
/me sips his coffee and ponders a new sig...
Am I the only one who saw that and thought Thirdspace. It sounds a little dangerous to me.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
but where is my flying car!
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!
At $20million a pop, the current crop (is three a crop?) of space tourists would have made a much bigger impact on the space industry by putting their money into John Carmack's, Rutan's, or one of the other X-prize ventures.
Less is more.
How much is he paying me in ISS room rates, for my share of the project as a US taxpayer? We'd better at least stick it to him on the room service - I hope he's a big tipper.
--
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Then a couple could publicly answer to what has long been rumored to have been secretly tested: what is a zero-gee sex like? What is a zero-gee orgasm like? Can you "do it" without pushing each other apart? Does cumming have a enough force to push a man backwards? Does zero-gee make it bigger? faster? more explosive? Do the hooters stop sagging and always point outwards? Does the Book of Tantra need several more chapters for zero-gee techniques?
It boggles the mind! You could probably raise the $40 mil from curious subscribers alone.
You might have missed this link, since it was in one of the comments. Quote of choice:
He also gave $15 million to his alma mater, the University of Virginia and runs a family foundation with his daughter Krista. (For the last ten years, Olsen has also personally mentored a Trenton, N.J., student through the Big Brothers-Big Sisters program.)
And besides, I see absolutely no reason why you have to crack on him like that about how he should be using that money in a "better way" according to you. Perhaps you don't think the way he is spending that money is the right one, but it seems like he disagrees.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
No Tito and Shuttleworth were the first 'paying' space tourist. There is a major distinction. Congressional and Senate memebers obviously were non-paying.
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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.