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No More Space Tourists After 2009, Russia Says
mknewman writes with disappointing news for anyone with the money that it would have cost to fly as a space tourist, excerpting a story that says "Russia's space chief says there won't be any more tourists headed to the international space station after this year. Anatoly Perminov told the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta that there will be no room for paying tourists because the space station's crew is expanding from three members to six."
"Buy now while stocks last".
Engineering is the art of compromise.
So much for my dream of posting from space.
They can say whatever they want - in reality, there's always gonna be enough room for Benjamin Franklin...(or enough of them!)
In Soviet Russia, space tours you!
Queue the "In Soviet Russia" jokes.
This seems like a fantastic way to help funding the space programme, and Russia isn't exactly awash in cash. Seems stupid.
A Kazakh cosmonaut would fly to the space station in the fall of this year under the terms of a commercial deal with Kazakhstan's government, Perminov said.
Very Ni-ice.
Headline a little pessimistic. I had thought that the space tourism industry would just be getting on its feet following 2009...
That's why rogue nuclear weapons became a concern, as cash was king. There were many things Russia was doing to raise money - you could vacation there and for a few measly thousands of $$$, ride in their tanks, shoot many of their weapons, and what not. An adventurer's paradise.
But, now, as Russia is flush with cash through oil/gas from pipelines to Europe and the rest of the world, I suppose those small time endeavors just aren't as attractive anymore. It's not even subsidizing it's oil to Ukraine any more after this year, as it used to give deep discounts to all it's countries behind the iron curtain.
By 2010 there will be several other companies offering rides into space for less money.
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
Typo in title. It should read: "No More Space Program After 2009, Russia Says"
Sure, suddenly russia is announcing that the doors are closing, and you'd better pay up NOW 'cuz there won't be any space flight later.
... but RUSSIA would NEVER do that. Nope.
Of course, later, they will suddenly find 'space' for the civilian spacemen.
I believe it is called 'manufactured scarcity'
Quartz Extreme and Core Image. Are there any other real reasons to spend all that money on generic hardware?
I'll send you into space.
Maybe this will encourage the Russians to apply themselves to developing private space travel.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Honestly you can't blame them. They had a slew of obnoxious tourists who got really drunk and trashed the aft section of the station. It was so bad they had to detach the entire section and crash it into the pacific ocean.
I have nothing compelling to say
Please take one more tourist into space for humanity's sake: the world's most dangerous person AND his crime sydicate.
Thank you for your help.
Yours In Socialism, Kilgore Trout
I think Messiah Obama is afraid of space, based on his lack of concern for space exploration.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Yeah, because quoting The Onion is funny, tasteful, and insightful. If I had modpoints, I'm mod you like +10 funny. You would've easily been a 15 if you'd included Xkcd, and heaven forbid you should link to Penny Arcade... they'd have to buy a new server just for the rating I'd give you!!!
The ISS... ah, forget it.
That is quite horrid, thank you for bringing it to our attention. With all that paper and plastic that's now in the Washington DC ecosystem, who knows what the repercussions will be. Have you ever seen a hobo trapped in saran wrap? It's tragic.
There were many things Russia was doing to raise money - you could vacation there and for a few measly thousands of $$$, ride in their tanks, shoot many of their weapons, and what not. An adventurer's paradise.
But, now, as Russia is flush with cash through oil/gas from pipelines to Europe and the rest of the world, I suppose those small time endeavors just aren't as attractive anymore.
http://www.flymig.com/
Looks like it's still in operation, high end jet flight costs $32K per hour. Actually more expensive per hour than a space tourism flight, assuming $20e6 for a week in space.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Really? Where I can get my share of the said cash?
Someone in Russia just got a new Mercedes courtesy of SpaceX ;)
It's because Richard Garriot had tremendous gas on his trip.
That means that Ninnle Labs CEO, P. O. Prune, will likely be one of the last to make the trip. He's already scheduled for sometime this summer, and will take the opportunity to do some communications testing involving some of the new wireless routers that run Ninnle software.
"we're tired of cleaning up the fricken mess from those party animals that came last time. NO SOUP FOR YOU!!!"
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
What? A flight costs a tourist about $20m. Even is this were pure profit (which I doubt) this isn't much. I don't know where the profits finally go, but I doubt that this makes any difference to Russia as a state. Peanuts, really. Russia is actually quite wealthy (the state, not the people), by the way. Building a launcher and a Soyuz craft for dedicated tourist flights seems to be out of the question.
The reason given (no spare seats when the ISS finally has a crew of 6) is totally reasonable and it has been known for a long time that this will be the case. They just had a spare seat now and then until now and sold it.
Anyway, if SpaceX and Bigelow get their way, there will be a commercial space station and commercial US flights for tourists in about five years.
That is when SpaceX will go live with crew capability. At that time, SpaceX and Russia will have plenty of room to take tourists. More importantly, I would be surprised if Bigelow does not go live by end of 2012. And in spite of what they say, their Second independent set-up (i.e. not attached to the ISS) WILL be used for tourists. The first will almost certainly be used for a free floating lab with occaisional servicing.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Anybody know what the status of those inflatable TransHab modules that were launched a while ago is? If they're running out of room on the ISS, maybe they could hook up a few of those.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Indeed. If you read the boards devoted to such thing back then, you'd find endless accounts of sexual tourism to Russia - and how wonderful and cheap it was (and how much Russian Mafia was involved in it).
Read those same boards today, and you'll find endless pining for the 'good old days'.
But the ratings system only goes up to 5.
Except that it isn't. It was good while it lasted for the last few years, but have you checked the oil prices lately? They're way below what was expect when Russia's FY2009 budget was approved, so now there is quite a fuss about it there, and there's certainly no free cash floating around.
Vladimir Putin will use his huge swinging Russian dick to catapault stupid Yankee paying tourists into orbit.
And the way he did it is with the brilliant "You Can't Come" technique...
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
With just the parent's mistake I wasn't going to bother ... but when I saw your reply, well.
Parent post, just like this one was posted from space - from third planet orbiting a yellow dwarf star in of the minor spiral arms of this galaxy.
Natives call the planet Earth.
Star it orbits they call Sun.
Spiral arm they call Orion Arm, and the galaxy Milky Way.
If you are reading this - you are probably on that very location yourself.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Bigelow Aerospace and SpaceX will soon field a complete system of commercial stations and launch assets. Bigelow bought the old TransHab patents from NASA; also has two test modules in orbit right now. SpaceX has their capsule-launching rocket on the pad (w/ test hardware) and a 1-3 track record on Falcon 1. When Falcon 9 works it will change the equation on American spacelift capability. Both these companies, their founders and workers, have the Vision Thing.
Together they will provide habitat and access for a price but they need customers (not just NASA)in the form of hoteliers, operators, integrators and explorers. This requires entrepreneurs to develop new applications for space. This is not something traditional Big Aero wants to do - Boeing doesn't operate cruise ships or 737s. Robert Bigelow has said that he doesn't want to be a hotelier - he wants to build ships. Elon Musk is on record as saying he wants to build rockets to fly other people to Mars and elsewhere. This is a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs of all kinds, especially with the proposed amount of segmentation of access - want to go for a week to someone's orbital or buy a whole stack of modules for Mars exploration? They'll sell you the parts, go do it.
Russia had an 18 year lead in developing commercial space systems but has stumbled with limited exceptions and notable exceptions. This gap is an enormous market niche for US companies to fill. The first Bigelow BA-330 and Dragon capsules will be a vastly more comfortable and reliable station for space tourism and that will probably go online around 2013.
Next year or the year after (assuming you the entrepreneur w/ a good idea) could fly a payload on DragonLab, recoverable rack-space capsule w/ 2-year duration. In a couple more years, time-share on the first or second Bigelow-based stations. This then becomes the basic platform to use in offering space services or as owner go where you want in space.
It has immediate applications for tourism and Bigelow's "international astronaut corp". It has further applications in beamed-power, server farms and antennae structures.
This picture is the power of space, we can do so much more from above:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/44.president/inauguration/mall.satellite/
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Now, SpaceX can offer the same service. They only need for one of the 'partners' on ISS to let them dock. Dragon was supposed to be able to launch by this time next year. Experimental, of course.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
People talk about this as if it was a major disappointment, but all it is, is that the ultra-rich .2% of the population or so have lost one of their toys. It's not going to bring my piss to the boil.
The purpose of the space station is research - it is nice to see that getting priority over making money on silly publicity stunts for once; I'd like to see more of that. And while the microgravity of that environment is a very valuable scientific resource, it is hardly out in space, actually. If you have a look at one of those photos of Earth, you can hardly see the atmosphere - it's that thin a layer - and the space station almost skims along the top of that; you wonder why it doesn't leave a wake in the Pacific. That doesn't count as "in spce", not in my book. The Moon, yes, Mars, definitely, but not something that close.
I guess it's time to try the Mexican space program. Space, si. Fly. 200 dollars.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Great, now space has too many immigrants.
Really? Where I can get my share of the said cash?
Well, first you need to personally know the right people. But if you did, you wouldn't be asking, so apparently you don't, so there's no share for you.
Well, you might get a small share by starting a business geared towards those who directly get a share of that cash. But even then, to get the rich customers, you'd need to know the right people, in which case you'd already know this, and wouldn't be asking... So again, sorry, no share for you.
But lucky for you, the cash might be a bit less available in the near future, since energy price is going down. It might be a few years before oil starts to go up again (next time going well over $200/barrel for sure). So start trying to get to know the right people now, and in a few years you just might get a share of the next cash flush. Just make sure you get to know the right people, not the wrong people, or ending up in jail as an enemy of the state might be a lucky outcome.
Well now what do i do with the four million dollars i've been saving?
I have no idea how anyone figures the marketing of these kinds of things, but is this good news for the American-based private space companies?