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

so??

[caffeinemessiah]

italy 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

And this is bad...why?? If space programs are languishing in funding for either development or research, why not charge rich suckers (with dreams just like us) huge amounts of money to fund it? If you have the infrastructure, it sounds lucrative. And I'd be willing to bet that the market would support even more ridiculous prices than $40 mil.

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.

Tourists

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:
"Tourism is a forced activity. I am sorry, but we have built the
ISS [the International Space Station] not for space tourists but for
serving the needs of the people of Earth," Lopota said.

Ah finally! It's nice to have confirmation from officials that tourists are, in fact, not people. Now if only i could get that hunting permit ...

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.