Walk in Space for $15 Million (Plus Airfare)

avtchillsboro writes "A NY Times article has details on a news release by Space Adventures Ltd. (SAL). SAL has previously provided space trips to three wealthy individuals for (US)$20 million. The article announces the $15 million EVA 'upgrade', and quotes SAL chief executive Eric Anderson, who says that the plan has been approved by the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation; but the article also says that NASA has not been informed." From the article: "Fewer than 450 people have traveled to space, and the club of spacewalkers is even more exclusive. Just 151 people have stepped outside the relative safety of their craft to greet the void with only a visor to separate life and death. 'Spacewalk is the ultimate experience that we've managed to invent as humans,' said Tom Jones, a former astronaut and spacewalker who is an adviser to Space Adventures. Being outside the craft when 'there's nothing between you and the ground below but empty space,' he said, is 'incomparable.'"

Comments

Sure, destroy the environment for your kicks

[lawaetf1]

While I am all for man exploring the universe and getting off this lovely rock (we could use an off-site backup of our species), I find space tourism to be utterly repugnant. It's a gross example of environmental destruction in exchange for personal fulfillment. How many thousands of gallons of fuel will be ignited, leaving exhaust to circle the globe, so that some rich ponce can float about for a bit and subsequently be the toast of his next Manhattan cocktail party..

"Yes," he'll nod to his circle of gawkers, "when you're up there you come to appreciate what a marvelous planet we have, what an oasis of life in the sterile expanse of space." And everyone will murmur appreciatively, thinking themselves in the presence of a wiser man. Nevermind that this patrician ass has singularly done more to damage the world than 99.99% of the population.

I hold those who travel to the far corners of the world to a similar but lesser degree of contempt. "Oh, you climbed Kilimanjaro? How lovely! Good for you! That was only a few hundred gallons of fuel beween the flights, drives, campfires, etc. Plus as an added bonus you were able to dot the landscape with your feces! Now do give me a smug rundown of all your travels so I can be thoroughly impressed!" /rant

Re:How many times

[westlake]

We can send Billy Gates to space almost 3333 times;D

Very funny. It is to laugh. Ha ha. A joke truely worthy of Slashdot.

Gates btw has been spending his summer vacation in central Africa: Rwanda: Bill Gates to Set Up $900,000 Research Centre