Taking a break from space travel
The U.S. software mogul who has now made 2 trips into outer space without having to resort to a single Payday Loan in order to pay for tickets, may be the last paying passenger to head into space for several years. Believe it or not, things are tough out there too. And it’s not only because of the economic crisis that fewer are willing to stump up the $35-million that Charles Simonyi paid for his second trip to space.
Sold out
Visitors are banned because it is planned to double the crew on the International Space Station from three to six in May, meaning there will no longer be a spare seat for a tourist on future missions. In other words, the Space Station is full, sold out.
The Space Station
The Space Station is “managed” by Russia’s space agency Roskosmos and the U.S. firm Space Adventures since 2001. The joint venture between the two organizations had always seemed unlikely, with the young T-shirted employees from Space Adventures standing side-by-side with the grizzled aeronautics engineers from Roskosmos.
“We have no bookings for visitors at the moment but things can change,” said the CEO of Space Adventures, Eric Anderson. Interest has been expressed by the Russian-born founder of Google, Sergey Brin, who has put down a deposit for a future flight. “We have several people who are interested in making a trip, people from all over the world, people who take the long view,” said Anderson.
It’s still science fiction
Dreams of space travel for general tourism are still science fiction. To date, those who have gone into space as tourists have been super rich and have undergone months of training. The cost of such a trip is astronomical. Simonyi paid $15 million more than the $20 million forked out by the first space tourist, Dennis Tito in 2001. The economic crisis is hitting the space flight industry as well.
A developing industry
Space travel for the layman is a developing industry. The main problems at the moment are developments in the space program itself. The Space Station is out because of the crew size and the U.S. is wholly dependent on Russia for manned launches when the shuttle is taken out of service. Space Adventures is talking about renting a space capsule that could take two tourists into space along with a professional commander.
Looking ahead, he said that partnerships other than with the Russian space agency were feasible, with China and India pressing ahead with their own space programs. “My belief is that within a decade there will be five or six different ways to go to orbit,” predicted Anderson. “There’ll be competition and there’ll be a lot of people who will have the ability to fly in space. We’re trying to work with all of them.”
Richard Garriott, the multi-millionaire computer game designer who flew to space in 2008 and now works for Space Adventures, says the next decade will see a “privatization of space” as more outlets emerge offering space travel and the cost of tourism to the final frontier plunges.
“I think that you will soon see a real renaissance of discovering the potential that space offers,” he said.
Unfortunately I cannot go – I have an arrangement with the Personal Money Store which keeps me firmly glued to Mother Earth.
I don’t know if space is ever going to be privatized. Travel to space, for sure, but I doubt that we’ll see the day where, say, IBM claims Mars. If so, then the movie Fight Club may well prove to be right. “When deep space exploration vamps up it’ll be the corporations that name everything. The Microsoft Galaxy, the IBM stellar sphere, planet Starbucks.” I hope we really don’t allow ourselves to become that shallow of a species.