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Singer Reportedly Outbids NASA for Space Tourist's Seat
RocketAcademy writes "ABC News is reporting that Phantom of the Opera singer/actress Sarah Brightman outbid NASA for a seat on a Soyuz flight to the International Space Station. Brightman reportedly paid more than $51 million. If that story is true, there may be some interesting bidding wars in the future."
Now she can re-shoot "I Lost my Heart to a Starship Trooper" .... in space!
Remember to feel sorry for those poor starving artists when the RIAA hits you with a multi-million dollar lawsuit for downloading a CD.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
.... Capitalism Defeats America?
ex-husband...so that means the round trip price is $102 million
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
No doubt she make good money selling records, but its also no doubt she's making pennies on the dollar for those record sales. 30 million records does not come close to 30 million dollars. Which is why so many Aging Rockers are still playing Indian Casinos these days.
More worrying is that NASA, a MORE THAN EQUAL partner in the ISS, having built 7 of the 10 modules of the station, is being shut out of seats by Russia simply as a money grab.
Total estimated costs:
U.S.: $100 billion plus 38 billion to build the Shuttle.
Europe: $14 billion
Japan: $10 billion
Russia: Unknown, but estimated at 45 billion, mostly launch vehicles.
Canada: $2 billion
Maybe NASA should have planned ahead to make sure they'd have a launch vehicle to reach their expensive ISS?
It's like building a beautiful vacation property on a remote island, then you find out that your 30 year old yacht is too unreliable and expensive to get there. You've been paying a Russian freighter for rides to your island, but when someone else pays them more for your seat, you realize that maybe you should have purchased a more modern yacht before you retired your old one.
That might make sense if the Russian Freighter weren't booking these passengers into YOUR Vacation Home, and paying nothing for the privilege.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
To the moon, Sarah!
What's this obsession with charity? The $50 million can also pay for hundreds of jobs in the Russian aerospace industry. Those people can then use their salaries to buy houses. Granted, she's quite literally going to be burning a lot of the money, but it's not like it will all just disappear from the economy. Even the rocket fuel is employing oil industry workers.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It's very simple... NASA offers $51 million. Another party offers several million more. U.S. wants Russia to embrace capitalism; so, they do. How can we argue with that? We'll just have to hitch a ride on the next bus. Remember when you were a kid and had to borrow your parents car? You don't like the rules, buy your own.
How?
The wonders of capitalism, that's how.
Shouldn't every American commenting in this thread be celebrating that communism is dead, and the invisible hand of the market is guiding the Russians?
Or does that only apply when it benefits the US?
That's OK, the Soyuz capsules dock on the Russian side of ISS (which is also the side with most of the command and control capability) Think of ISS as the self contained Mir 2 with US, European and Japanese modules attached. The Russian side is fully capable of operating without the other components, the US side not so much (as congress cut several key US modules)
No its ridiculous (and yet another example of the idiotic entitlement mentality destroying this once great nation) to think that somehow the US deserves seats on the Soyuz because we helped build the ISS. We (the US) had a ride to space. It was our own pimped out space taxi. We no longer have that ride... by choice, by design, by policy, yada yada. It's not Russia's job to drive us to work just because we decided to scrap our old ride BEFORE building a new one. You want to do something (possibly) productive? Write to your representatives in .gov and tell them NASA needs more $.
I ate my sig.
we might as well build our own space station.
With blackjack! And hookers!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I don't suppose we can take this as an example of why we shouldn't ever pay someone whose job is singing or acting or something else that doesn't matter enough money to fuck something like this up?
You realize this dumb bitch bidding up the price of a seat like this is going to force NASA to outbid her, costing the taxpayers (who provide NASA with the money they're going to need to spend to outbid her,) millions of dollars just so she can go play astronaut for a few days. There's a simple solution of course, and that is arrest her, charge her with... whatever, I'm sure she's done drugs at some point... and freeze or confiscate her assets, and then we (the People of the United States,) won't have to try to outbid her.
OR, just fine her the difference between what NASA ends up paying and what they would have paid. Solved.
It's called capitalism. Russia is a hotbed of capitalism.
If you don't like it in the communist states of america, start your own space program.
Again, a bad summary... Sarah Brightman didn't "outbid" NASA, as they weren't in competition for the same seat. Nor did she "bump" a NASA astronaut from a bought-and-paid-for seat. She paid for a spare seat more than NASA does for it's scheduled seat, in the same way that someone who buys a ticket at the last minute pays more than someone who bought a ticket three months in advance.
So no, this is no indication that there are bidding wars on the horizon. Just more bad journalism and more bad summaries.
...So you want NASA a non-policing body, to arrest a Foreign national, for being involved in a transaction in a second foreign country, which is perfectly legal in all three countries ....
Do the words "outside your jurisdiction" and "not illegal" mean anything to you?
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Lots of things are a waste of time and resources - or worse. I drive automobiles, despite the horrific toll they take on the environment and our lives. And this is mostly just to improve my standard of living. I keep my house heated to about 70 degrees, when I don't need anywhere near that amount of heat to survive. I eat meat, which costs something like 7 times the amount of grain that is necessary for me to live comfortably. I run the A/C sometimes in the summer, for no reason other than comfort. Occasionally I take a boat ride, for no reason other than pleasure. I just re-did a perfectly livable room in my house because it looked "dated", and I'm going to pull out a perfectly serviceable bathroom for the same reason. I wash my clothes just so they smell nice. I have clothes that I only wear on special occasions. I buy toys that I don't really need. I use disposable batteries. I post on Slashdot. My engineering job is in the microelectronics industry, which is almost entirely composed of sales of consumer toys. You are playing with one of them right now. I waste resources all the time - who the hell am I to judge Sarah Brightman?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.