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Lord British on Personal Spaceflight
FleaPlus writes "The Space Review has an interview with Richard Garriott (aka "Lord British"), best known as the creator of the genre-defining Ultima series of role playing games. In the interview he talks about his current work as the vice chairman of Space Adventures, and his thoughts on private-sector spaceflight in general. It includes an anecdote about how he funded the initial Russian studies which opened the door for Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, and Gregory Olsen's flights to the International Space Station, but was unable to go himself after the late-90s stock market bubble burst."
Clearly this isn't some off topic first post troll. It is more likely an alien race trying to communicate to us via well known alphabet letters about the perils of space travel. Clearly on topic.
I think that 200k is a fair price. They do bring up some interesting points. If 10% of American's want to go there should definitely be a market...
But the Russian answer was more interesting. They said something like, "Well no! To even see what would be involved with that kind of mission would cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars just to see how we would do it, then to actually do it would be millions more!" So, the door was opened.
Of course the US says no way no how if its not our way its the highway. The Russkies say rather slyly, oh no we could never it would cost this much... We couldnt afford that, and come on who could our fine American friend? There is nothing that the right amount wont get you in Russia. Whether legally or illegally or that lovely gray area in-between. Some might call it corruption (i tend to call it that when its illegal or hazardous) but i like to call it the TRUE land of opportunity!
...and it should be known by now