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Space Tourism?
Cave_Monster wonders: "With the successful return to earth by Gregory Olson, the US businessman who allegedly paid around £11m for his trip, what are people's thoughts on continuing with this trend? It is definately favourable towards generating extra funds for space programs, and with Mr. Olson preferring to be labeled as a 'flight participant' rather than a tourist, it definately begs the question as to how much input can these paying people have in space research? Experiments that he participated in included further investigation into how the human body deals with weightlessness and the possible causes to lower back pain and nausea, yet are these activities simply carried out so as to 'entertain' or is there real scientific purpose behind them? With the next 'tourist' expected to be Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto, should paying people have a real scientific background or is money simply enough?"
What about it?
It doesn't matter whether or not your intentions for space flight are for science or not. All you need is enough cash and noone will care.
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
With the next 'tourist' expected to be Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto, should paying people have a real scientific background or is money simply enough?"
Money is enough.
Definately!!
Seriously, this is getting pathetic.
If the space program can accomodate it and want the extra money, the extra passengers need contribute nothing more than money to the mission. If they meet the requirements of any other tasks in the mission, perhaps they should get a discount, or extra charges for the "extra fun". Whichever the mission planners can accomodate and negotiate. The exciting news is that we've reached a stage of space industry development where we have enough "discretionary resources" and minimized risks that we have the flexibility to engage in substantial nonessential mission components. Which means frivilous Moon trips are now in sight.
--
make install -not war
Anyone willing to spend $20M to go to space MUST be a nerd/geek of some sort. Non-geeks prefer to spend that kind of money on beachfront properties.
Space travel is expensive. No space agency has all the money they need to accomplish their goals. We no longer have the public support we had in the 60's so private enterprise is required to help send us further. If the revenue from these tourists helps fund further space missions then it is justified.
There are a lot of people who have more money then they could possibly need for basic living - why should some of them not want to take a ride into space? There is (was?) company in California that would allow you to join the mile high club for 5 or 10k dollars. More money then sense - more money then time... might as well do something interesting
This message was brought to you by "Lack of Sleep."
DADDDDYYYYYY, I wanna trip to mars!
flight participant. check.
investigation into how the human body deals with weightlessness. check
possible causes to lower back pain and nausea. check and check.
Do we make sure anyone who wants to bankroll the first commercial car knows enough about cars' scientific purposes before we deign to allow him to use one?
Of course you should "let" rich people buy access that later funds democratization of the new technology.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Should paying people have a real scientific background or is money simply enough?
That should be up to whoever is behind the trip. Maybe if the tourists are completely useless, they'll have to pay more to make up for their dead weight. But we're not talking about buying your way into heaven or something. Sure, traveling to the moon was a big step for mankind, and it takes on mythic, almost religious significance for us for someone to go into space. But bottom line, it's just a new place we can go.
If you've got a rocket and I've got a sack of cash, why shouldn't we be able to make an arrangement? You can't do your science without funding anyway. There's no need to be elitist.
i mean what's the point if you are not a climber or a geologist. But they got the money to burn and want the "label" of having been there. More power to them - and same for these "flight participants" regardless if they just float around or do some little "fun" experiments. Perhaps in the future we would have these floating hotels in space and we would get up there via Charlie's Glass elevator.
If letting a space tourist go up can attract media attention, then that's great. Its even nice that the customer pays the organization to create good marketing for the organization.
Besides, I'd bet the economics of space flight are such that the cost of filling an empty seat aren't that high. The average cost of putting a pound into orbit may be extremely high, but the cost of adding another pound of person and supplies is probably not bad. It's like the airlines -- if you're going to fly anyway, why not fill every seat.
Creating the idea that space is accessible to an increasing number of people -- not just a few astronauts that spent their life in the program -- is the key to the future of space funding.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I use SpellBound for Firefox. As for space tourists/flight participants, if they can positively contribute to experiments in a safe fashion they should be encouraged to help further defray the costs of their trip by working.
The simple experiment of under trained (out of shape?) personal is valuable for anyone who hopes to see orbital hotels in the next ?? years.
NASA, and for that matter the DOD, seem hopelessly technologically disfunctional to this untrained observer, but if some private companies (go Virgin) or national economies devolving into private companies (Russians) can bring the cost of humans to low orbit down slightly we inch towards an economy of scale while the rising powers of the 21st century play catch up. I fully intend to visit the (probably Chinese) space station in the future if I can afford it. Ni hao!
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
$11,000,000 / 700,000 km. per day x (howevermany days he was up) = probably less than you would pay per km. in a taxi.
(I couldn't find the pound thingy on my keyboard so I typed $)
Face it, most of what people want to do is socialize. Science or other knowledge-acquiring endeavours are fringe activities for the small geek subpopulation. That being said, when technology becomes mass produced and sold to people in order to socialize, that lowers the cost and makes the science much cheaper to pursue.
I say make space travel mostly a entertainment/travel industry for now. As the general public finances it, there will be investment and competition by private industry. The cost of space travel will become so cheap that it will be feasible to manufacture in space, and also to throw a few experiments up there.
Forget about the science-and-engineering oriented utopia promised us by science fiction. As a general rule, people want bread and circus. It would be much more effecient to throw a few experiments on the bread-and-circus rockets than the way it's currently being financed.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Who here hasn't dreamed of seeing the Earth from orbit!
Anyway, a passenger doesn't necessarily hinder a flight by simply being ballast, so to speak. I have no problem with paying tourists hanging off a government-funded space flight - it provides extra funding, boosts the image of space science (and, er, tourism), and gives us latent space nerds a possibility of making it there ourselves (once that website really starts pulling in the cash, right).
I'd personally, expect to have to stay out of the way of the real astronauts, but as long as I could take a peek out the window occasionally, that's fine!
Are you kidding? If I had several million to blow on a trip to space I sure as hell would do it.
I'd want to do stupid stuff too. Like put a tether on and fly around with a fire extinguisher rocket. I'd also probably be an idiot and shoot at the moon some. Then all us astronauts would run out and place space ball. I'm sure that'd be a sweet EVA.
I'd make most of my money back plugging Coke and Virgin Galactic. Then I'd make my own cereal called Space-O's which would really be fruit loops with different packaging and a charicature of my mug on it.
Eventually some aliens would catch my message in a bottle upside the head and be like...oh man, damn earthlings.
- Jack Handy's step-brother
The amount of scientific research necessary to make regular space travel useful is tremendous. It actually gives companies an incentive to invest research money into pure research because there is soooo much we have to figure out before it can really become part of normal life.
Let's cut the idealistic bullshit on something too. There is something about the government-centric approach to space that needs to be brought up. Who do you really trust to spend money wisely, an eccentric businessman who is getting involved directly like this or Congressmen and government bean counters? The government chose to lock us out of space travel on a private basis for a while and then did nothing to advance it.
This is just more evidence to me of why socialism cannot be trusted to provide for new and edgy research or art. This businessman doesn't have to think about the greater good, he only cares about his ability to fly into space and maybe advancing this for general society. I remember asking a socialist friend why a government owned media outlet would publish counter-culture works and small-time art/literature since there was no proven audience and it was all based on tax funds to produce it (thus an obligation to not be wasteful in publishing art). She couldn't give an honest answer. I think here we see the clear superiority of the free market. There is a lot of money to be made in space so there is a lot of reason for people to support research in this area.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I'll just start my own Space Tourism agency with hookers and Blackjack!
In fact, forget the Space Tourism.
Slashdot = -1 Redundant, Asperger, kdawson FUD, Libertarian, and Linux
Given that the space station itself doesn't have a real scientific purpose, using it to host tourists is perfectly appropriate.
Archaeologists need more money than they can come up with from governments and colleges for their digs, so they solicit contributions from people who get their Jones from wanting to be archaeologists. These contributors get to go along, camp with the real scientists, get briefings from the head guys, and such. They do not, however, under any circumstance, get to actually dig, which embitters some of them.
Selling rides to rich people is not a new thing, it seems.
There are two elitist clubs that might get to go to space:
:)
(1) Professional Astronauts
(2) Rich people
At least (2) is a possibility for we great unwashed masses to contemplate! True, this is a selfish perspective, but hey, I want to go to space
What does this stuff always need some justification or "higher purpose". Some people say that space tourism is good because it helps fund the space program science... well, that is a good reason too. But, what is wrong with people going to space just for fun? Even if, in the long run, it did absolutly nothing for science or humanity?
I mean, I understand it is kind of lame that only multimillioniares can go into space for fun... it would be much better if everyone could afford space travel... I can understand people having a problem with the cost. I can also understand the concern that maybe it is costing the taxpayers money (although from what I understand, the tourists pay their own way so that is not a concern) But why is going into space for no other reason than the thrill of it wrong? What is with this anti-fun neo-puritanical attitude people have? Why the need to pretend there is some grand purpose, or grand goal to everything? Why not do things just for the joy of it?
It is definately favourable towards generating extra funds for space programs, and with Mr. Olson preferring to be labeled as a 'flight participant' rather than a tourist, it definately begs the question as to how much input can these paying people have in space research?
Isn't that totally spam? It's lubricated! Well, I'm phasing.
test test test
I've seen this coming for a while, it will get more common and cheaper and accessible to the common man..
1) Space Tourism, trip to The Moon Disneyland with the kids..
2) Profit!
Share your Knowlege - Kung-Fu Geekery
Who the hell cares if the tourist has a scientific background. He can still be the guinnea pig in an experiment done by the real scientists that are up there with him.
Or he could get in the way of the real scientists while they do experiments that don't involve him, but they'll put up with him being in the way. Why? Because he paid for most of the trip, making the experiment cost that much less. Or they're allocating the money for the experiment from the research budget and taking the tourist to earn some capital, however you want to consider it.
Things have changed, right?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
In Space Daily a few days back, there was an article titled "Japanese Whiz Aims For Space - In Cartoon Uniform". Here's a snippet:
... If he gets Russian approval, Enomoto said he wanted to dress up on the trip as "Char Aznable", a character in the popular "Gundam" hero robot series of animation whose name is inspired by French singer Charles Aznavour. ... Enomoto describes himself as a "Gundam otaku (geek)".
A Japanese Internet whiz is tipped to become the world's fourth space tourist - and he wants to orbit the earth dressed as an ace pilot from a hit Japanese animation series.
Other people might consider that a sacrilege or making space less "dignified," but I think it's actually pretty cool. In any case, it's also humbling to know there are people out there far geekier than me...
Look up "beg the question" and find out what it actually means. Thank you.
If he looks it up in a "Dictionary of Current Usage" it will probably say what he thinks it means.
I can have sex in a bed at home.
The whole point of the mile high club is to be discrete while packed in around all of those people.
Or do they supply the partner?
..I'm an astroNOT. Don't get me wrong, I get jazzed talking about the possibilites for the future of space travel, space tourism among them. But no one should kid themselves into thinking that anyone that goes up in the shuttle is accomplishing alot of science - including the astronauts. Look at it this way, fly to NYC. Once there get into one of their lovely cabs. Instruct the cab driver to drive you by all the important landmarks; WTC site, Empire State Building, Central Park, etc. Have him stop on one corner so you can get out and grab a Nathan's. Now go back to the airport and go home. Did you learn alot about NYC? Did you get a feel for it? That my compatriots is what our space program is, a bunch of people that go round and round and then come home. And from what I hear the food isn't the greatest.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
No. It costs a lot of money to go to space. If tourists who can't afford it still get to go, that means someone else is paying their way. Why should I buy your ticket?
Things cost money. It's not elitist to sell an expensive item for a high price; it's realistic. What's elitist is to refuse to sell to someone who has the money just because they don't meet your standard.
I don't understand why anybody would ever think these people shouldn't be allowed up. It seems to me that this smacks of elitism, and I don't think that attitude has much of a place anywhere.
Also, if someone thinks participating in scientific experiments is fun (and I would likely think that about some experiments) then more power to them. I don't understand the question here either. Does the fact that someone paid money to go on a trip somehow invalidate the data?
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
With the next 'tourist' expected to be Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto, should paying people have a real scientific background or is money simply enough?"
Honestly, what kind of dumb question is this? Did you end with it just because you felt you needed to end with some sort of point?
The question is posed with the assumption that space travel is "owned" by someone (in your mind it must be governments), must be guarded, and thus people ought to be selective and have "scientific background" for the betterment of mankind or some sort of similar bullshit. Stop watching so much star trek.
Who cares about scientific background, space isn't owned by anyone. It's manifest destiny time with space. If you have the money, build your own rocket company and go up there.
Space tourism is great. The more people who go the faster prices will come down and the sooner I can make a trip. However, the first people to pay to go are real risk takers. Those space trips are not safe, yet. Anyone who has the bucks can go. Who cares? Its their money, and the people giving the ride must need the cash or they wouldn't provide the service.
... if there is somewhere to go.
Its all good fun and games until someone gets hurt. The first time one of these billionaires gets blown up that will hurt the industry for a while. But it will come back. Airplanes were a fad for the rich too for a few decades. But eventually volume went up, technology got better, and prices came down. Same will happen for space flight.
I'd rather space agencies sent real scientists rather than some worthless millionaire with a bunch of excess cash and no other real function, but since our governments seem more interested in funding The War on $Concept than advancing the boundaries of human knowledge, we're stuck with it.
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
So I think we're behind schedule--- we should have been sending rich people up there to die twenty years ago. If things had gone according to schedule Challenger's cargo bay would have been refitted for passengers by then and 30 people could have died that day in 1986.
Right now it doesn't seem to be a problem, but what happens when scientists can't get a ride on a rocket because all the places are taken by tourists? Space then stops being a scientific endeavour and becomes a joyride.
When this happens, space travel may cease to advance due to lack of research. Perhaps progress towards interplanetary travel will cease because all the time in space has been bought by tourists? We will have hit a 'local minima' where there is incentive to put lots of people in orbit but no way fo developing the technology to get them further out.
I don't want to be a downer and I like the idea of progress through private sector space travel. Unfortunately, there is a ton of crap up there already. Perhaps there needs to be some regulation for what you can leave in orbit?
Face it, most of what people want to do is eat. And breathe. Socializing or other carnal-knowledge-acquiring endeavours are fringe activities for the large non-geek population. That being said, when technology becomes mass produced and sold to people in order to eat, that lowers the cost and makes the socializing much cheaper to pursue.
I say make eating mostly a entertainment/reality-show-stunt industry for now. As the general public finances it, there will be investment and competition by private industry. The cost of eating will become so cheap that it will be feasible to manufacture while socializing (fern bars and such), and also to throw a few social encounters up there.
Forget about the social friends-oriented utopia promised us by tabloid magazines. As a general rule, people want bread. and air. It would be much more effecient to throw a few kitchen gossip encounters in the fern bars than the way it's currently being financed.
So, in summary, no more gettin' it on unless it involves food production in some way. Because making friends just for friendship's sake isn't enough.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I can think of no downside to space tourism. For one, the space program in question gets more money; money that would not be used for anything else terribly useful, anyway. This means that this particular space program now has to request less government or entrupreneurial funding, and they can get more done. Tourists "displacing" "scientists" isn't really a problem, either. Those scientists can't go up if their spaceship doesn't fly because of lack of funding, and there's very little research up in space that requires an actual "scientist" to be present. The effects of weightlessness can be tested just as readily on a layman as on a PhD, any data collected in space can be analyzed earthside, and we get to see how space affects people who aren't elite air force test pilots who bench 350, have perfect hair, and date supermodels.
Besides, where's the bad in sending a rich old dude off-planet?
I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
The closest you can come to making a scientific justification is that random Guinea Pigs are needed (except that they are not needed). However, in that case, assigning an arbitrary value and selling it is just stupid marketing. Much better to do it as a lottery with the grand prize an orbital trip for the winner (or assignee, if the winner isn't healthy enough). This is not a rational business model, which is all the more reason to exploit the suckers by selling lottery tickets. After all, lotteries are just a tax on people who are bad at math.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I'm just waiting for the price to come down. When it becomes affordable, I'll be there!
This in a world with only three TV stations and way fewer alternative modes of entertainment.
No freaking way space tourism can payback. Now if we're talking fractional-orbital flights to get you from New York to Tokyo in 15 minutes than space tourism becomes interesting, with the zero-G being a nice side benefit.
I am so disgusted with the thought of someone spending $20 Million on HIMSELF! When there are so many people in our country in need. This disgusts me on how the media portrays this as a luxury when it should portray this as a SHAME! How can anyone with that much money think of nothing else but spending it on HIMSELF! $20 Million will go a long way helping people in poverty, single moms, homeless, etc. Excuse me, but I really don't want to hear the privileged talking about going to work, get off drugs and welfare, etc, because the reality is, there are way too many WORKING POOR! This is a real problem in our country and the media glamorizing this extravagence disgusts me, as it should any socially conscious person in the civilized world!
empty space... We will get to the larger amount of empty space in a tick...
The fact is, space tourism is a reality and it is a joke in its current incarnation. Basically, these people are rich bastards who dreamed of being an astronaught (nothing wrong w/ that). Whenever I watch video of these guys up in space, they always look like some little kid yelling 'whopee!' as they go for a ride. Do these guys really think they are astronauts? More like preschool children to me...
Since space tourism is here, and probably here to stay, a more valid question is, is this a good thing?
I think it is if it generates more interest in space exploration. It is not if it supplants manned space exploration. It could happen...I can see space travel evolving into a rich man's vacation...something to brag about to other rich people. It could be very profitable, which would direct space efforts toward missions that enable more profitable tourism. NASA missions would be about looking for more ways to make money, not to explore, understand, and one day colonize.
Basically, many Americans now have given themselves over to artificial 'experience' rather than actually DOING something for themselves. The pioneering attitude that made America great has been supplanted by a spectator attitude.
An analogy to the European settlement of North American: Imagine if people had taken this spectator attitude at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Instead of colonies, they would have made condos. Lewis and Clark would have been sent to look for better vacation spots instead of mapping the west for modern habitation.
Space tourists get to do something cool, yes, but they are truly 'spam in a can'. Spectators. We should make sure they know that, and that the cutting edge of space research is devoted to fruitful scientific and explorational missions.
Thank you Dave Raggett
an overlooked area of usefulness is the possibility of using these space tourists in the ongoing research into muscle loss, bone density loss, and other physiological changes that take place after spaceflight. Even with their relatively short spacetime, they could provide useful data to biomechanics folks. Perhaps including a stipulation that by agreeing to go to space, they agree to some post-flight study in the mountain of paperwork they presumeably have to wade through before blastoff?
they might be useless in flight, but their bodies are still experiencing zero-g environments and so they're of clinical use when they come back down.
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
Should I spend my money on 1 $20 million dollar hookerbot, or 20 million $1 hookerbots...
One way only...
Gordon Cooper: You know what makes this bird go up? FUNDING makes this bird go up. Gus Grissom: He's right. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
What is your penile percentile?
Yah. More please. Virgin Galactic? Get up there already. Elon Musk, Steve Bozzos? We're routin' for ya guys, get those payload boosters up to human safety levels and strap on a space ship. John Carmack? Dude, you show so much promise, good luck, and I hope you make it.
Oh, and before anyone replies to this post saying that SpaceShipOne isn't scalable.. who the hell says you have to have a powered ascent to orbit? There are alternatives to rockets.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"space" has to pay for it to become the new frontier. There simply must be viable economic paths to orbit and beyond. Rand Simberg has said for years that it isn't the technology or even politics, but lack of good business plans that have kept commercial development away from space. Telecomm is the obvious exception, because it has a good biz plan, and tourism seems to be finally taking off. Good news for the future. I get a kick out of otaku in Gundam clothes.
Also, what better measure for getting into space than paying a set price? The price is high, but anyone can work hard with that goal in mind. That it is an open, priced product puts it on the level playing field for all. Being a government Chosen Hero of the State is in no way egalitarian, but an act of status. It allows NASA to fly senators and Saudi princes, but stick their nose up when asked about paying customers. John Denver BEGGED them to let him fly on Shuttle, as a paying customer, they said "screw".
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
If I had several million to blow on a trip to space I sure as hell would do it.
Peter Gibbons: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Lawrence: I'll tell you what I'd do, man, two chicks at the same time, man.
Peter Gibbons: That's it? If you had a million dollars, you'd do two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I had a million dollars I could hook that up, cause chicks dig a dude with money.
Peter Gibbons: Well, not all chicks.
Lawrence: Well the kind of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do.
Peter Gibbons: Good point.
Say what you will about Paul Allen (and given that he helped create Microsoft, there's probably not a lot of love lost for him here on slashdot), but rather than blow $20M on a narcissistic joyride, he funded Spaceship One and the first private venture to make it to space. That's cool. Damn cool.
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
You could have said much the same thing about John Cabot, adventurer, who while seeking the rich reward of a sea route to China discovered North America in 1496. Indeed, more than a century was to pass after Columbus and Cabot before anyone even thought about getting serious about living in the New World and planted a colony here, and it took a further century after that before a viable colonist civilization emerged.
Early exploration is always touch-and-go, just getting in and out for a quick look (and, yah, its motives are often crass, personal and quite unrelated to any collective social good).
But probably that's a good thing. It seems sensible to take brief quick looks all over the place before we begin a grand plan and giant investment, so the grand plan has a better chance of being a grand success than a grand flopperooni.
I mean, doesn't the present sad history of the Space Shuttle program or ISS itself demonstrate the dangers in an ambitious, costly, grand plan? Maybe it's a good idea to let random crazies --- um, I mean enthusiasts, of course, yup -- just noodle around in space doing whatever they feel like, until some clear trend worth general investment emerges.
Just wondering how many years worth of carbon credits Mr Olson used in his little jaunt. Pity this isn't factored into the price. I would guess it is a few centuries of personal allowances.
Science will come - but science isn't going to give us a colony on mars that we can go and visit. Industry will and capitalism.
I say bring it on.
It is time for the scientific strangle hold on manned space flight to end, and for our childhood dreams to come true.
"should paying people have a real scientific background or is money simply enough?
Either or IMHO. If you have the funds to go, then go! If you're have a scientific background then you more than likely won't get into the program unless you have something of real interest, or serious financial backing. If you look at from the aspect of the rich person that wants to go, hey.. if they are willing to pay for it, then it benefits and pays, plus possibly allows that scientific person / project to go on board at a latter date. Can't really argue with that!
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
The Russian space program obviously has SOME qualifications... they didn't take *N-Sync's Lance Bass!
www.space.com/news/bass_russia_020529.html
I guess to make NASA happy, the Russians will only let people on with some minimal IQ. You don't want to be floating around in a vacuum with a guy who likes pressing shiny buttons.
Let's let these incredibly expensive and wasteful junkets sit on the back burner until, say, 90% of people on earth have enough food to eat.
The idea of the super rich entertaining themselves at the expense of untold amounts of fossil fuel, and contributing to the global warming crisis, all so that they can sit up in space for a while oooh-ing and aah-ing at the earth so tiny down below-- this makes me want to vomit.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
I prefer NASA's terminology: Payload Specialist.
... means finding out if you can eat whale in space.
...
Or if it tastes OK.
Or if there are any whales in space
You know, as an anime otaku, I can totally understand that. You need to be Japanese in order to make it really big, get lots of money, be taken seriously - and then blow $20M on a space joyride, dressed up as an anime character you admire. I wonder, if he paid another $20M, would they paint the rocket red and call it "Zaku II Custom".
There aren't enough rich morons to make this work as a business model, and the cost-benefit ratio is being total distorted by this kind of foolishness.
;)
I never said that it was a good business model, but consider this: these "rich morons" are in a position to help space programs. They have money to invest in aerospace firms, education, and advertising.
If the only motivation they need to spend that money is a few days of freefall, then send 'em up by the dozen. Of course, the trick would be figuring out which ones would try to help after their orbital vacation.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
I mean, what's the point of going in to space if your just another space tourist, carted round in rockets, surrounded by sweaty, mindless oafs from Kettering and Coventry in their cloth-caps and their space suits, with their IPods and their Sunday Mirrors, complaining about the tea, "oh they don't make it properly here, do they? Not like on earth. And stopping at russian space centers, selling fish'n'chips and Watneys Red Barrel and calamaris. And being herded into endless Hotel Cosmoses, and Earth Views', with their Modern Galactic Luxury Capsules and draft Red Barrel, full of fat german businessmen, pretending their acrobats, forming zero-gravity pyramids, and frightening the children And barging into queues, and if you're not at your table spot on seven, you've missed the tube of Campbells Cream'n'Mushroom soup, the first item on the menu of intergalactic cuisine. And every Thursday night the space station is a bloody cabaret in the bar with some tiny, emaciated nasa geek with nine inch hips, and some bloated fat tart With her hair bryll-creamed down to her big arse presenting flamenco for earthlings an adenoidal typist from Birmingham with flabby white legs and diarrhea trying out pick-up lines on bandy-legged astranaughts called Manuel and once a week there's an excursion to the local asteroid, with bleeding Kool-Aid, and ice-cream and Watneys Red Barrel. And one evening you visit the so-called space resteraunt with local quaint atmosphere with a party of people from Lyndon humming the Star Trek theme , and complaining about the food "It's so greasy here, isn't it? And sending tinted post-cards of earth, "To all at number 22, weather lovely, our ship is marked with an X....." "Food very greasy, but we found this charming place in the international space center where they serve Watneys Red Barrel...
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Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth was the second space tourist.
Marvelous as it is, manned space flight serves no purpose. Since the ISS cannot operate unmanned, we are stuck with it. With the Shuttle grounded until at least 2006, no replacement design confirmed and if the scheduled life does terminate at 2010, I expect Russia will become the stock carrier until at least 2015. All with 1960's technology. There's a lesson for us all there. By that stage the US may have developed some horrendously expensive alternative to meet the same end. It's showbiz, folks. I'm fascinated. I marvel at it. And no American who struggles to educate their kids would miss it.
Sadly, the real motivation for the original investment was a combination of chest thumping to beat the commies and crazy paranoia about what the commies could learn or do if they "got there first". The fact that there were massive profits from the technologies that were developed was only an incidental aspect (though not enough profit to defray all of the expenses--or they would already be a successful business and wouldn't need any additional tax money now).
In the current situation, I'm convinced their main rationale is some sort of publicity, though it's tainted by twisted hope. Most of the people working for the space agencies and making the decisions about tourists know their odds of making a lot of money are much higher than their odds of getting a flying role in the program. Therefore it makes more sense to hope they could go as a wealthy tourist some day.
They are all good mathematicians, so they are unlikely to be suckered by the lottery tax. I'm only raising it as a more rational economic model than space tourism. I suspect they would reject it for the same reason I would: I regard it as basically immoral to exploit other people's stupidity. (Shucks and darn, now I can't join BushCo.)
So why have a space program? Because there is still stuff worth learning. However, maybe we (America) can't afford it now.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
In the end, do you not WANT space travel do be something many people can do as a frivolous venture? I do, I see nothign wrong and everything right with getting as many people into space as possible to really get the Big Picture, as it were.
To that end I say the earlier we start thinking of space as a place you can pay to go if you like with no other requiremnet, the sooner we drive down costs so that more people can go.
As a side note I don't think sub-orbital space tourism will big a big hit, I can't see paying much for that compared to a real overnight stay in space.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think , that also by sending in space tourists, the risk of a casualty arises, as a tourist might not be able to handle a crisis in space, as good as an astronaut. Of course , he/she'll be trained, but that does not bring them to a level. On the other side though, with the number of tourists going upto 3 and expected to be 4 now,i guess its a good idea economically, to carry someone if the money he spends is good enough to fund the project. This money would be much better than use of a taxpayer's money.
If there is a queue of people waiting to travel to space and not enough capacity then you could select on the basis of scientific background etc.
But this is not the case, hence only money will have to do!!
Does any one see the correlation with the move Fight Club here and the comment about deep space exploration? Because I really would like to head over to planet Starbucks right now and get a cup of java. Or swing by the Microsoft Galaxy and file a buy report about my space ship's blue screening all the time.
So an American pays the Russian space agency in British Pounds? That seems hard to believe. And what is £11m to mean? 11 millipound? I could probably afford that too. And while we are at it - the name of the guy is Gregory Olsen.
So yes, send up anyone with the cash.
When early human built ships to sail the seas did they knew that the horizon would have treasures of new land? There were many doubtful people that couldnt think beyond the flat world. When recent human built airplanes to fly high above the ground and in great distances did people know that one day people will be flying to romantic honeymoons on a pacific island as a tourist?
I early pioneers didnt know the term tourism. Since today humans still do not have the almost magical power of escaping earths gravity we cannot be tourist. Today rocket flights to space is only pioneering. So lets continue the evolution of our space future and salute those people who are marking their names in the book of early space travelers!
Once the Hilton's start to build hotels floating in earths orbit we will truely grasp the age of Space Tourism. But till then if a lucky Trump can take early flight to fund this development let them have it because in this time of our history only the wealthy can pioneer the fronteir of space.
The space construction business is yet to be born!
Pioneering in Progress!
So no tourist please!
Aloha from Kauai.
John Sydney Yamane
Well, I'd say that it's pretty clear that the price needs to drop well below $20 million per flight before "rich morons" will buy space rides in quantity. And you apparently haven't heard of "economy of scale". Let's put it this way. Suppose 20 morons a year buy rides to the ISS. That significant a launch rate means that fixed costs like launch infrastructure is spread out over a large number of launches rather than a few, and we are ignoring the revenue from these launches. Ie, this increased activity lowers the launch costs for everything that uses this infrastructure. And that means lower costs for those scientific missions. Ie, a better cost/benefit ratio for scientific missions. But you apparently don't like that sort of "distortion".
The balloon tourism industry isn't comparable. No one uses the same balloons or the same support infrastructure for tourism and for science projects. But they do for space.
The closest you can come to making a scientific justification is that random Guinea Pigs are needed (except that they are not needed).
You may need a scientific justification for some reason, but I don't see the point. Even so, I can grant your wish in a way. Manned space flight currently doesn't have much of a scientific justification, but then again neither does space science. Space tourism would justify that investment in space science. After all, the people mostly likely to care about space science and to value it are the people actually living in space.
Much better to do it as a lottery with the grand prize an orbital trip for the winner (or assignee, if the winner isn't healthy enough). This is not a rational business model, which is all the more reason to exploit the suckers by selling lottery tickets. After all, lotteries are just a tax on people who are bad at math.
It amazes me how you can claim to know that a lottery is "irrational" given that there are rational reasons for entering a lottery. Eg, ten million dollars isn't necessary ten million times as valuable as one dollar to a rational investor. If ten million dollars is fifty million times as valuable as one dollar, then spending that one dollar on a one in twenty million chance to win ten million is a rational decision.
Conversely, funding of scientific research isn't necessarily rational either. I believe the manned space program with its thin veneer of scientific rationalization is a good example. Further, "basic" scientific research rarely funds itself. That is, scientific research doesn't turn a profit. Economically, we'd say that the cost-benefit ratio is totally distorted. That puts a considerable amount of said research at the mercy of people who might decide that funding is better spent on a state-approved religion, feeding the hungry children and other vague social causes, or throwing kickbacks to their cronies.
They should take a whale embryo genetically reengineer it so that sunlight is converted into oxygen. Then do the same thing with a bunch of fish,... then allow the fish and the whales to swim around in outer space.
We as the ONLY eKNOWN LIFE in the universe should try and preserve our own unique brand of life. Not just for the preservation of our species but for LIFE ITSELF.
"should paying people have a real scientific background or is money simply enough?"
Could be. As far as I have understood there are duties to be performed on a spaceflight that require no expertise and relatively little training. Those can be assigned to the "tourist" so freeing the professional crew to more demanding tasks.
After all, scientists need monkeys to do their experiments on. The fact that these particular monkeys can pay for the mission is just a bonus!
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
I read about how most people that travel in space get a flu-like sickness, it is pretty miserable experience for the first few days.
I am not sure how much people are going to enjoy space travel unless significant advances are made in providing for people's comfort.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I don't argue with fools. I don't even encourage them to waste their time studying math. I just ask them to mark me as a foe, and we can happily ignore eath other forever.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
... between the rich and poor has become a LOT larger. ... and what is this "should we let them" stuff? Might just as well ponder how high birds should be allowed to fly.
If you have enough money you can *buy* a scientific background.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
If the people can actually be actively helpful, that's another bonus, nothing more.
Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/35 56116
http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/35 56116
I can see it now: The physicals, the training to perform a few tasks in space, practice with zero-grav eating, and the rides in the vomit comet. It would be a wonderful way to expose the world to the life of an astronaut. Right there on prime time. A way for anybody to get up there.
Is anybody in Hollywood reading this? Simon?
To a politician, one email equals one voter.
In the long run, can we continue to justify paying professional astronauts when there are people willing to *pay* to do their jobs? If people were willing to pay millions to do my job, I'm sure I'd be thrown to the curb in an instant.
-Rich
it is "d e f i n i t e l y",
NOT "definAtely".
get it right, damnit!
Yep, it's a perfect slash topic!
Moderation -1
100% Troll
What a vicious TrollMod of that perfectly reasonable post. The Russians have been screwing up the ISS for over a decade, over budget (which they underfund), late, failing parts. It's obvious the Russians threw the US an anvil when we asked them to help with the ISS to subsidize their space program. Instead, the Russians gave us their worst, took the subsidies, and spent it on their own projects, like the solar sails now speeding out through the system, spreading the Russian flag at our expense.
I suppose we now see on Slashdot the evolution of the TrollMod, their miscegenation with astroturfers, in a space story no less: AstrollMods! I think that first "s" should be doubled.
--
make install -not war
How about doing something with that excess money that will really change the course of history? Amass a fortune to offer to the first person to make a 80% efficient photovoltaic solar panel that is cheap and easy to manufacture?
The prize offerers could get limited royalty-free patent rights and the inventors could get, say, a billion dollar prize plus license fees.
Plus, the world might actually reverse the trend of dumping CO2 into the atmosphere and start turning excess photons into low entropy electricity.
And even if the prize goal is not met for decades, even partial successes might change the balance of energy policies in the world.
Not to mention the history-changing aspects of cheap, portable electricity in quantities suitable for shipping around as much information as wanted. Google? Nobel prizes are so last millennium...
All I gotta say is that Daisuke Enomoto wants to dress up like this guy: http://theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page /0,5744,16904403%5E29677,00.html
http://theaustralian.news.com.au/common/imagedata/ 0,1658,5060658,00.jpg
from Gundam. Cosplay, it's more than just a trend for the Earth... it's for space too...
peace,
A
There is nothing to prevent someone without a scientific background from conducting good science. The tourist in question is not designing the experiment. He is conducting the experiment, and acting as an assistant to the scientists who did design the experiments. In some cases space tourists will be able to offer useful suggestions. In other cases they will just be the eyes and arms of people on the ground.
And also for the last time: it raises the question. "Begs the question" means something entirely different.
I wish people would either learn how to use English or shut the fsck up.
Every now and then my 6 yr. old daughter decides she will be an astronaut (We recently saw Magnificent Desolation and that kicked up the idea again). Whenever she says that, besides telling her she can, all I say is "Just remember to take me with you."
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
Should the person who pays the piper be required to take dance lessons? Or is it enough that we get to enjoy the music (and laugh at the occassional MS exec)?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I'm for anything that gets humans populated and self-sufficient into space as fast as possible. The faster we have colonies on our Moon, Mars, and space stations, the better. Of course, there is a balance so as to keep things humming right along here on Earth. I think privatizing the exploration of the frontiers of space and space colonization is giving it a good kick in the pants, where NASA has become complacent.
Serenity Now!
It is definately favourable towards generating extra funds for space programs,...
A guy pays $20M and suddenly this sounds like extra money. Forget that taxpayers paid several billion dollars to put the ISS up there and billions more to keep it working. For what, to have an unbelievably elitist amusement park ride? What fraction of the investment is paid for with $20M? Is it realistically scalable to actually have a meaningful fiscal impact? No.
But wait! say slashdotters, they're doing science up there! The parent points to a favorite claim of useful science:
Experiments that he participated in included further investigation into how the human body deals with weightlessness and the possible causes to lower back pain and nausea, yet are these activities simply carried out so as to 'entertain' or is there real scientific purpose behind them?
To his credit, he provides the answer in his question. Yes, it is bullshit, not science. It is of practically no scientific interest.
Please, please, please! Aren't slashdotters supposed to be science and engineering geeks? Aren't we supposed to question things and demand hard evidence and clear justification? Why then this childish infatuation with manned space flight?
- Its preposterously high cost diverts funds and resources away from science exploration tasks to simply keeping human beings alive and reasonably comfortable. Many people claim that the central drive for manned space flight is the human tencency to explore, and most bring up some variant of a comparison with Columbus pushing aside doubters and naysayers and forging ahead with his historic quest. I can't emphasize this enough: Manned space flight inhibits space exploration. Robots do it better, cheaper, and on a vastly greater scale, and they perform useful science as well.
- It is very short range. Manned probes travel the solar system and explore other planets and their moons, while manned flights dabble in high school science projects in low earth orbit.
- Contrary to a common side-belief, mining asteroids, planets or moons is not economically feasible. This is a favorite theme. For some reason many people think it is cheaper to bring thousands of tons of minerals from asteroids, moons, or other planets than to bring it in by train from the Andes. Baffling, unless the only motivation here is to pretend favorite sci fi stories are actually realistic.
- We will never leave earth en masse as insurance against a major asteroid impact or whatever. It is not even remotely feasible economically, and the amount of vehicles, resources and logistics is so immense as to be physically impossible for generations to come. There is nowhere to go, either, which seems not to bother people. In more general terms, this is little more than a modern version of ancient myths about life after death. A shining fantasy that provides humanity eternal life in the face of potential physical obliteration. It is a magical-religious belief with no factual or physical basis.
Manned space flight is a scam. Its core purpose is to channel billions of dollars from the federal budget to aerospace companies and their contractors, with a secondary purpose of hiding military expenditures in ostensibly civilian projects.Wake up, slashdotters.
But the reason why everyone can't figure out the benefits of space tourism is old men keep being the ones to go up in space. That's pretty uninteresting, what are they doing?
:-P
But if we could interest Paris Hilton in taking a trip (come on, like she can't pay the $20 million) we could get the first real Zero-G porn action happening. A huge video market -- NASA could do Zero-G PPV.
Although, this would imply that Paris could actually concentrate long enough to go through her flight training. But in case of sudden decompression, her head is already a vacuum, so she'd be OK.
I mean, you send up Paris Hilton, and every little girl who idolizes her will think funding for the space program is a good thing. We just need to exploit the commercial opportunities of civilians in space. And the space-program needs a whole lot more short-skirted floozies being interested in it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The money can be far more intelligently spent, and people will still buy clothes, food, etc.
There are certain things in life that should have a 1000% "too much freakin' money for your own good tax". Included in this category are 10,000 dollar mobile phones and space tourism like this. Anyone with enough money to drop 11 mil on this should be forced to build a school or a hospital wing first. Oh, and it should be a departure tax (rather than a return tax) so that if the blow up along the way they still have to pay.
Can I buy duty free? Do I have to take it with me when I go or can I buy it on my return?
Just some thoughts.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Second, while I value greatly scientific research, it's pretty clear that human society doesn't value it as much. We can talk about the value of the scientific research done with weather balloons, but economically, that activity is dominated by recreational ballooning. Perhaps, this does indicate some sort of mental deficiency on the part of humanity, but the fact remains that your priorities don't agree that well with society.
Finally, I was particularly bothered by the term "rich morons". As far as I can tell, all three people who went up so far to the ISS are self-made, successful businessmen, and who understood the risks involved in their space flight. Ie, they were rich, but they weren't morons.
I disagree with this, though I know I'd buy "space lotto" tickets. The question you have to ask yourself is, "Would I spend $15 million to go into space if I had the money?" I know I would. Then ask yourself what separates you from the Mark Cubans, and Richard Bransons and other uber rich guys out there? is it attittude? or just money.
Ira
It does not beg the question.
Here is a nice web site that discusses Space Tourism : http://space.cc/
"Not enough rich morons" is an understatement. One other example I think is relevant is how Apollo 13 was tanking in the TV ratings - apparently after people had visited the moon only twice the public got jaded and moon missions were considered routine.
"Tanking in the TV ratings", how appropriate is this for an explanation of American culture.
Catering to the fickleness of the American public (AKA lowest common denominator theory) is a bad thing. Most of the TV-watching public are idiots or sheep.
I think, for the time being, while some folks are still paying millions to ride on government-sponsored flights, they'll be perceived as space tourists, no matter what they do to aid the goals of the flight. When Private Spaceflight really kicks in, we'll have Real Space Tourists; plus, real space industry, etc., etc.....
Alexander M Zoltai Benevolence In Dharmic Exploration