Russia Announces End to Space Tourism in 2010

epsas writes "On Cosmonaut's Day (April 12th 2008) the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) announced that they will cease it's $40,000,000-a-flight space tourism enterprise. Vitaly Perminov, the head of Roskosmos, elaborated on this statement by citing national criticism of the space tourism project; all the while reiterating Roskosmos's focus on the International Space Station and the new launch site at Vostochny Cosmodrome: 'Vitaly Lopota, the president of the Energia space rocket corporation, said he believes space tourism is a forced measure compensating for insufficient financing of the Russian space program.' This statement (made the day before) by Vitaly Lopota follows another announcement that 'Energia is ready to send missions to the Moon and Mars if told to do so by the government.'"

Comments

Public private partnership that works

[symbolset]

I don't care if they call it the Pepsi Cosmodrome and sell seats that defray the costs. I actually hope they get YouTube to sponsor streaming video of the entire operation, with product placement, endorsements, memorabilia, space scouts and the rest of "The Man Who Sold The Moon" experience. What I care about is that they go, and keep going.

The Russians pioneered manned spaceflight and it's not for us to tell them how to do it. If they like capitalism, so much the better.

Re:so??

[Jafafa Hots]

This is more about Russian national pride. They felt humiliated at the state of desperation they had sunk to, so now that their economy is doing better, they're looking to restore some of the prestige and remove the "Filene's Basement" aura now attached to their space program.

Russians are very proud, and theres a huge resurgence of nationalism currently. That's whats behind this.

Reprioritization?

[zappepcs]

I'm not really seeing the problem with that. Personally, I think that if politicians and world leaders (I'm looking at you over there in the Whitehouse) could stop their idiocy and work together on a few things, we might find resources (not jut money) to do things like exploit^H^H^H^Hore the solar system a bit, perhaps go finding things like more room to live, more minerals, and perhaps some mysterious substance that helps us to manage global climate change.

The more that we all sit here on this rock arguing about stupid stuff, the longer the Borg has to get here before we are ready, god damnit!

Seriously, the more we learn about space, the solar system, universe etc. the more prepared we will be to better care for this little rock we call home. I do not believe that there is any one country that has the resources to do this alone. I believe it will take huge cooperative efforts to find the answers that humankind actually needs.

Right now we are starving people for the chance to make weak fuel out of corn. When you look at the facts of biofuel, it seems astoundingly stupid to do what we are doing as a group. I think that if we are going to find something that will help serve our energy needs we will have to keep exploring. Only through exploration do we find things that change life as we know it.

Sadly, if Vladimir Smith found out how to create a zero point module (go Stargate) next week, it would be kept a secret and not released to the public until some whistle-blower feels guilty on their deathbed. ZPMs and other such 'free energy' systems/devices and those that do not make anyone any money will be hidden from sight. A sad fact, and not to seem socialist but if we don't all try cooperation to solve some of the very urgent problems, Armageddon sans god is all that is left us. Nuclear energy might become safer with new discoveries lately, and I'm all for it. If you are not using it, safety and discoveries to make it safer are hardly on the radar of those who need to be inventing stuff like that. With nearly free electricity we can carry on with electric vehicles.

The space agencies around the globe really need to work together as has been shown, space tourism really isn't going to foot the bill for the kind of exploration that we need to be doing.

Solar and wind power are not THE answer to the energy needs of the human race and the planet Earth. We need to expand technologically beyond what we have so far. Look at Monsanto? GM foods and people are still starving around the globe. If we don't get some socialist ideas in action soon, we're headed for a scifi nightmare ending. Space exploration thus far has embodied all that is generally good in humankind: Exploration, advancement, betterment, working for the common good. Even if it was a space race for bragging rights or dominance of the domain, it was done in a way that has helped us all in one way or another. We need much more of it.

Yes, you can believe the book "The day after Roswell" http://www.amazon.com/Day-After-Roswell-Philip-Corso/dp/067101756Xif you like, but the way that space exploration has changed our lives is without comparison. I hope that this is one thing that we, as the human race, end up getting right.

haha

[Nyall]

I bet this is just marketing.
sort of like how disney keeps saying that they are going to lock such and such title up in their vault for 50 years and not ever let it see the light of day.

Re:so??

[Cassius Corodes]

Like you have pointed out - these commercial space tourism joints only get a small taste of space. If you tag along with the Russians you get to experience a complete resupply mission. In my opinion you cannot compare the two.

It's basic business sense.

[jrhawk42]

By 2010 virgin galactic will have several flights, and a decent track record offering flights at a much cheaper rate(Virgin flights are only $200,000), and better suited for civilians (3 days training). It wouldn't make much sense to try to compete against them, and we all know how the Russians love business competition. Personally I'm not going to be too excited until we start getting flights to the moon, and really there's a ton of way cooler places on Earth you can go for a lot cheaper.

well.

[TheShadowzero]

I feel like this is a good thing. I wouldn't want the final frontier to suffer the same consequences as other tourist spots. Space is not something that should be exploited for commercial purposes, at least until we all have spaceships and can go wherever we want at will.