Tourists To ISS Two At a Time Starting In 2012

Matt_dk writes "The US firm Space Adventures said on Friday it will be able to send two space tourists into orbit at once from 2012 onwards, on Soyuz spacecraft. 'We have been working on this project for a number of years,' said Sergey Kostenko, the head of the company's office in Russia. Each Soyuz will carry two tourists and a professional astronaut. One of the tourists will have to pass a year-and-a-half training course as a flight engineer. Space Adventures has been authorized by the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos to select and contract candidates for space tourist trips." Meanwhile, the AP has a look back at the delays and disappointments in the commercial spaceflight industry since Burt Rutan captured the Ansari X Prize 5 years ago — no space company has yet announced a date for commercial availability.

Comments

Re:Glad we can provide a new fun park for the rich

[HanzoSpam]

If you bring in commercial interests they become more important and the same science doesn't get done.

Given that no practical, useful scientific knowledge has emerged from the ISS yet, giving it over to the commercial interests suits me just fine. Explain, exactly, why scientists should be entitled to taxpayer support for essentially nothing but to indulge their own curiosity?

Let them pay for their own circle-jerk.