Posted on 10/04/2012 3:03:49 PM PDT by drewh
What's a rich space tourist to do? If you want to fly in space, seats are harder to find than a flight out of Chicago's O'Hare airport during a blizzard. So your only option is to bump an astronaut from a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft going to the International Space Station.
ABC News has learned that singer Sarah Brightman, of "Phantom of the Opera" fame, will be the next tourist in space, sometime in 2014 or 2015. To get her seat she had to pay the Russian space agency more than the $51 million NASA budgets on average to send its astronauts to the station.
To maintain its presence in orbit when Soyuz seats are limited, NASA had to agree to commit at least one of its astronauts to spend a year in space, instead of the six months they currently stay. Brightman's trip will be announced in Moscow on Oct. 10.
NASA says a year in space has great medical research benefits. Astronauts spending just six months on the space station in the past have suffered from radiation exposure, muscle mass loss, decreased bone density, and vision problems. The research from a year on the space station will help NASA plan for long flights to Mars or an asteroid. It does mean an astronaut will get booted from a flight to adjust for one less seat
For a singer like Sarah Brightman, who thrilled the world when she starred in "Phantom of the Opera," the inspiration should be out of this world.
Rumors flew earlier this week when author J.K. Rowling told an audience in England she had once been offered a seat on a space shuttle for a couple of million dollars. NASA quickly scotched that story.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
What...you mean she should spread the wealth at home instead of doing whatever she darn pleases with her money?
I should never have broken up with her......
Soyuz is a tight fit; since she's basically paying for the entire mission, she ought to get the capsule all to herself.
Sarah is my favorite, she has the voice of an angel.
/johnny
My favorite Bellagio fountain show is to that song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvP79a5mGnI
Sarah and Andrea Bocelli, Con te partirò >>>> the best!!!
Of course that’s not what I said.
I said I consider it foolish to blow 50 mil on a space trip when she could donate it to the heart or cancer assoc.
or too help animals.
Same for Bill Gates- giving billions to foreign countries when he could do so much to help his own country.
Good God I love me some Sarah Brightman!
Yes, I know she’s a moonbat, but I do not care.
She is British...so I guess you could argue it would be better spent in the UK.
You just have to be kidding?
Ok, then better spent to help her own country.
I am a big supporter of the privatization of space and you need people like she in the beginning to help jump start this industry. Soon it will be tourists in the USA, using USA space firms in space.
Perfect reply!
Truth be told, the STS was killed not only by Obama but also by several earlier presidents who failed to think about its replacement - and by NASA that failed to propose one, even though they knew or should have known that the days of the Shuttle are numbered. Obama just happened to be the one who witnessed the last flight. Obama is guilty of many things, but this is not something he could have changed. The program simply ran out of spare parts and out of safe vehicles.
I blame the mentality of "après moi le déluge." In the modern USA the President is useless at best, and is often harmful (see Obamacare.) Every President is focused on one and only one task - to get reelected and to keep his party in power. These games are not conducive to the decades-long work of building the state up like Chinese do. Massive political resets every 2, 4 or 8 years break the back of every long term project that fails to serve two masters at the same time. This is one of undesirable side effects of democracy; every tin pot dictator is more consistent and more predictable than the US government.
Note that the Russians have no problem with the old space fleet because they don't have it. They fly single use vehicles, and they update and upgrade them for every flight. Today's Soyuz is very different from what they flew ten years ago. STS was much harder to modify; I believe there was only one upgrade of control systems and one - quite famous - upgrade of the thermal foam. All vehicles had to be repaired more than once, but no major changes were possible. The STS was designed as a monolith, and it was retired as a monolith. Today we know that it was not wise to deny ourselves a chance of upgrades; but STS was very useful, so in the end it was not a mistake. The only mistake was not planning for a replacement, even though the period of service of Shuttles was known from day one. The politicians just wanted to keep kicking the can down the road, until Obama ran out of the road.
It is very socialistic and almost communistic of you to say where other people should spend their money...you have no right to say this. Are you sure you are on the correct board? I think you would be more comfortable on one of the leftie boards.
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