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."

Comments

Oldest sales trick in the book

[EmbeddedJanitor]

"Buy now while stocks last".

Re:Oldest sales trick in the book

[Lachlan Hunt]

I've been saving my pocket money for this, and I was so close to having enough! I only need another $19,996,142 to reach my $20 million dollar goal, but unfortunately it doesn't look like I'll reach that amount before the end of the year.

Damn!

[A. B3ttik]

So much for my dream of posting from space.

Re:Damn!

[CannonballHead]

"first post from space"

Re:Damn!

[CannonballHead]

Well, if subscribers can apparently see articles in the future, maybe people in *cough* web space *cough* can see even further!

And then there's always the google "search tomorrow" function.

Re:Damn!

[doti]

first (post from space) != (first post) from space.

I don't get it.

[Futile Rhetoric]

This seems like a fantastic way to help funding the space programme, and Russia isn't exactly awash in cash. Seems stupid.

Re:I don't get it.

[oodaloop]

With rising gas and oil prices, Russia has a lot more money now than it did when it started the space tourism business. Maybe that's curtailed a little recently, but I think it will pick up again when OPEC cuts production. They could probably swing this on their own now.

Re:I don't get it.

[Futile Rhetoric]

OPEC has been cutting production, and the oil prices are still less than 30% of what they were half a year ago. Its stock market has lost 80% of its value. Russia has some reserves built up, but anticipates a budget deficit for next year (and possibly the years after that). They have a lot of spending to do, like the announced plans to raise pensions, retool the military, etc. Will the oil prices bounce up? Maybe -- it depends on how quickly we're heading towards recovery (and it doesn't look like we're in any hurry), and whether or not last year's high oil prices had been a bubble in the first place.

In light of this, it seems absolutely mad to cut off a pretty reliable source of funding. The only thing I can think of to explain the decision is that (as someone remarked above), they're simply playing hard-to-get, or that space tourism is not that profitable for them in the first place (which I frankly cannot imagine).

Re:I don't get it.

[DiegoBravo]

Ok, from that technical definition you're right. If you assume as definition the promised paradise of the communist future, of course nobody will say that some society archived it. The problem with this line of thinking are the following conclusions:

1) Humanity never "enjoyed" a real communist society, so we must try again (as if all the "experiments" done were not enough.)
2) The failure (after failure...) of a lot of vocal people arguing about the communist benefits, has another excuse for avoiding the ridiculous

BTW, China was named itself communist (Mao tried a lot of pretty weird schemes with its people), but Russians always sustained that they were the true revolutionaries (i.e. more communists.) Of course that byzantine discussions were totally silly (as in the Trotsky case) but illustrate the fat books that can be devoted to the insubstantial issue of the degree/realness/quality of the socialist/communist governments.

regards,

Re:And....

[oldspewey]

In Soviet Russia, jokes queue you.

Russia was a fantastically poor place in the 1990s

[rolfwind]

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.

Re:Space tourist rockets

[Karrde45]

Sending someone suborbital isn't quite the same as a multi-day orbital trip to the ISS.

Everybody hates a tourist.

[Cathoderoytube]

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.

TransHab

[camperdave]

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.