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Space

First 'Space Tourist' To Bring Money Back To Mir 122

Posted by timothy from the please-keep-your-hands-and-arms-inside-the-car dept.
Mugwamp writes: "An American man will soon become the first "space tourist" by paying $20 million to get one week aboard Mir. This will most likely become part of a growing trend, at least in the Soviet Union as Mir is funded by a private company rather than the government and needs money desperately to keep the station running. Additionally, in the same story is an interesting bit about how Mir will start hosting an "Internet portal" that will allow people to access cameras mounted on the tin can...er, I mean space station. Story courtesy of BBC News." That is an expensive vacation, but no crowds.
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First "Space Tourist" To Bring Money Back To Mir More

First "Space Tourist" To Bring Money Back To Mir

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  • Bill Gates in a recent press conference announced that he has decided to move into mir instead of canada. This new development was brought on after he realized he could buy anything he wanted from the russians, and canada sill charges tax. Who has jurisdiction in space? No intergalactic IRS yet... This all has come about after the release of information on Windows Solar system Explorer, planed for release in early 2010, with new advances such as warp drive and faultless operating system. If anyone could get up there and get a G.P.F. I'm sure Bill Gates could...
  • Los Angeles (AP) -- The next release of the Linux computer operating system will include a paying passenger - a businessman from Los Angeles, U.S.

    "I've always loved computers," said entrepreneur Malcom Lyle Jacobson-McGraw, "now I get to be in one!" Last month he made a donation of $20,000,000 to the Free Software Foundation in exchange for a place in one of its more common programs.

    "Starting with version 2.3 of the kernel, the ls command will be renamed malcomlylejacobsonmcgraw," said Linux creator Linus Torvalds at a press conference Thursday.

    Like churches that name pews and windows after patrons, the free software community seems to have avidly adopted this new fundraising model. "rm and chmod are still open," hinted Torvalds.
  • So, you're a fag? okay, thanks.

    Impressive.

    Not since the Bene Gesserit have we seen such keen powers of observation.
  • I was personally disapointed to see that you had taken out the part about the pot roast. I don't think the three headed newt fit, simply because I can't imagine it.
    But the pot roast was a sheer work of genius.

    ---
    Jedi-Bene Gesserit
  • The only proper analogy I can think of is someone paying an obscene amount of money to stay onboard a '77 El camino floating in the middle of the pacific.
  • This is too damned funny, i think the /. effect could maybe take care of him.

    on a side note, doesnt this have the makings for agrewat varient to the I LOVE YOU virus. everytime you open it, your browser hits this page.

    oh humm. what can you say?

  • I disagree. I think without REALLY in there, it comes off sounding like the first part ISN'T wierd at all, and that's just funny.

  • Mir is past it's lifetime and still runs around with enough health. Americans should be quiet about such matters since their beloved SpaceLab was a huge flaw. Next time you want to bash at something pick your election system or your non existant health system.

    DISCLAIMER: Yes this is a flame.

  • God, I wish I hadn't already posted in this talkback so I could moderate this up.

    All I can say now is, God Bless the Internet. (hell, even if it's a prank, the sheer laugh value is worth it...)

  • Mir (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This should catch on fast with the current crop of Dot.Com Millionares weaned on Star Trek. It just might work. By the way, I have heard that you can go up in a Russian Jet fighter for the price of $5,000. That means if you are willing to pay, say $10,000 they would let you shoot live ammo!!! How much for a guided missle? Or maybe a Nuke? Food for thought.
  • Gotta agree with ya there.

    The sheer number of people that risk (for example) climbing mount everest is quite amazing (even despite the large fee (I think it's about 40k USD) simply for the privelidge of being able to climb the mountain).

    Similarly, people do lots of crazy things. Don't forget how many different teams that attempted to fly around the Earth in a balloon. Each one of those attempts cost many millions of dollars and all of them contained a very substantial risk of death. Nevertheless, they continued unabated until someone finally did it.

  • Soemeone made a mistake:

    "at least in the Soviet Union as Mir is funded by a private company rather than the government and needs money desperately to keep the station running."

    Soviet Union has been dad for some time....
  • Nice to see that Slashdot has such a firm grasp of world affairs....
    This will most likely become part of a growing trend, at least in the Soviet Union
    I think you'll find that the Soviet Union ceased to exist by the end of 1991. There is no such thing as "The Soviet Union" in the world today.
    Back on topic. Good luck to the guy. If I could do that, I would.

  • I'm glad someone else is disgusted by this pathetic display of disposable wealth.

    It sickens me that someone with that kind of money to throw away wouldn't do something to help those less fortunate.

    One word: Loser.

  • I wonder how the food on the shuttle is...


    ---
  • probably more than 20 million, and it wouldnt matter if it wasnt, the SR-71 is about 5 times too slow to make orbit. Orbital velocity is mach 25 or so (at sea level), wheras the SR 71 has an official top speed of "somewhere above mach 3.5" and probably can get up to mach 5

  • This was before ICBMs. The thought of Russians orbiting over the US scared many people. They could simply drop the nukes without even having to fly them from anywhere. We didn't want the Russians having an ability to make war that we lacked, so we struggled to catch up.
  • Oh, but it's not just the transportation cost! As many a high class restaurant will tell you, you're not paying for the food. You're paying for the atmosphere, or in this case, the lack therof.
  • Ok thanks -
    The pot roast is back, better than it was before, if possible. however, I do agree with some of the other posts that a really is needed.
    The reason this needs to be added is not from grammatical neccessity, but it adds to the punchline.
    (a) That's when things really got weird
    vs.
    (b)That's when things got weird
    Version A implies that there was already something weird going on, lending depth to the statement. Version B just doesn't go as far as A; it is redundant because it describes what we already know to be weird as weird.
    Just my $.02

    ---
    Jedi-Bene Gesserit
  • By engaging in space tourism, more and more people will think of doing so. This has the ability
    to bring down the insanely high cost of space travel to the point where it will allow ordinary
    people to eventually travel into space, allowing economic development and colonization of space.

    I think that has the ability to improve the lives of billions (and after that trillions and quadrillions)
    in the long run.

    Arun
  • You don't get rich by working, you can only get rich for making other people work for you and exploiting them and their creativity. People who create generally do not benefit much from their work, most of the rewards go to people who have never worked a day in their life but who have got a lot of cash by making other people work for them. Take Bill Gates for instance, how many original ideas has he had? None whatsoever. Most technologies which his company controls were developed by other companies who were swallowed up. Call me cynical, but I think that is why wallstreet types love open source. Here you have a bunch of saps (from their viewpoint) who do not need to be bought out, but who can be exploited without monetary gain. Some American professor said that slavery was the most effective economic system, well he is right. Modern slavery is here!
  • I would rather watch the cosmonauts scream in terror as their space station falls apart around them.
    They could market it as a new "survivor" tv show.
  • It also created a huge market for American companies. Before WWI America was a minor power, the results of the two world wars made America into the major player it is now. I sincerely doubt that America entered WWII out of purely altruistic motives. I think you were more worried about the Russians and Germans carving up the world and some of your government saw it as a way to get more power. And BTW you did not lose millions of people, in WWII the US lost 270,000 people, in WWI it was about half of that. The deadliest war in US history is one with which the rest of the world had nothing to do with, it was your own Civil War that cost 900,000 lives, which was the most American lives lost in any war you fought. Well, thank you. But without Europe there would not have been an America, try to remember that next time you think your conduct in WWII gives you the idea that you own the world.
  • Nuclear weapons work the best when they are detonated far above the ground.

    Not that that is going to save thousands of people if it would happen.

    But really an atomic bomb is not a very user friendly device and trying to make one yourself if you had your hands on some plutonium would prove detrimental to your health. Apart from that it would cost a few tens or hundreds of million bucks to make one or buy one. Not all terrorist groups have oil millionaires backing them and even for those who do money is not something to be lightly spent.

    I think a chemical or biological attack would be much more likely. Cheaper to make, easier to smuggle and just about as deadly.

  • that everything goes well, or else the capitalization of the space program is screwed. If that dude doesn't make it back, then who is going to want to take the risk? No one. Back in the 60's, the space program kept going because it was a war, the Cold War. Getting into space was a matter of national security. But these individual citizens are doing for the thrill and excitement. No one is going to throw their life away just because it will be exciting if they live.
  • I forgot the all time classic

    Leave a "floater"

    (yep a floating turd)
  • Someone's taking a hint from Prince Sultan Salman Al-Saud [friends-partners.org] who bought a space shuttle ride in '88.
  • Hmm, i can just imagine it. An MP3/cracked DVD server running in space, no sort of copyright restrictions.. charge $1 to download a full DVD movie off of it.. fund the station for damn near ever...

    ------------------------------------------
    If God Droppd Acid, Would he see People???

  • What a fucking moron. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    what a waste of fucking money.

    wanna help the poor?

    no.

    wanna see the world?

    no.

    So what do you wanna do with your money?

    I wanna spend my week in a SHITTY DANK CRAMPED OLD SPACE STATION, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY FROM ANYTHING!

    Well, FUCK ME, where do I sign up?!?!?
  • 10. zero-g vomiting is a must.
    9. that low-pressure scene at the end of Total Recall looks fun... maybe I could fiddle with the airlock.
    8. save all the used food tubes and make some zero-g cheese.
    7. tape record my snoring.
    6. propel myself about the cabin with a water weenie.
    5. try to stick pencils in the ceiling.
    4. Play lots of UT.
    3. import encryption software from the US.
    2. troll Slashdot heavily.
    1. Atomized Dubage.


    :)Fudboy
  • Actually that is a good deal. If he is up for exactly a week he would orbit the earth 112 times (assuming it takes exactly 90 minutes). Now lets say, for grins and giggles (I am not sure), that it is 50,000 miles to orbit the earth. That means he travels 5,600,000 miles. Now 20 milllion divided by 5.6 million equals about 3.571 dollars a mile. Not that bad considering the price of gas and the fuel economy of vehicles these days. And look on the bright side, it has a much better view than your new gas-guzzling SUV.

  • That space aboard Mir could be occupied by Science, but no, they chose to pimp it out instead.

    --
    Here's my mirror [respublica.fr]

  • I'll make the note to readd it now. Better?
  • hmm... how much would it cost to be the '|' symbol?

    ---
    I'm not ashamed. It's the computer age, nerds are in.
    They're still in, aren't they?
  • No, but I was hoping that it would be! :~)

  • The article doesn't seem to say anything about what the tourist will be doing up on Mir. Will he actually be doing the work that a normal cosmonaut would do, or will he just be sitting around... er, floating around for a week watching the other two do stuff?

    Even if he does do some work, exactly how important can it be, given that he his expertise is in investing, and he's only going to be up there for a week. Now, if I were paying $20 mil to go up there, I'd want to do something important. I'd want to stay up there for months and help in the construction of the next space station, or help in the construction of a moon surface habitat. Something so after it was over I could look back and say "Damn, I did something up there"; just experiencing zero g for seven days just wouldn't cut it.

  • while the moderators are being generous - don't mod this down either.
  • While I am interested to know if the mission will be a success, I'm also interested to see what the space administration will do with the money. I'm all for cheaper propulsion techniques... If we can find a way to get up to space with a fraction of the cost, I'm sure we can see more of these trips, as well as a better chance of colonizing the moon sooner, which is something I'll celebrate.
  • rabid, racist, non-sensical and, unfortunately, typically american.
    i pity you.
  • AFAIK silicone and silicon are different things. If they weren't though, yes it's funny. Hey it's my First ever post to Slashdot!
  • Actually this is a really cool idea. I would love to just be able to visit a website and catch a real time shot of the earth from space


    Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
    NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
    www.npsis.com [npsis.com]
  • That reminds me of the saying "I went to the graveyard today. Kind of dead, but very crowdy." :)
    --
  • Well, at least from the space station, you can see the whole world all at once. Might be actually cheaper then seeing the whole thing from ground level.

  • Wait til you see what Paul Allen is planning on next. He is going to move the Portland Trailblazers into an orbitting space stadium.
  • Personally I think it sucks that the home of communism in the world has scored a first by offering the first paid seat in space.

    Clearly the guy who is pouring money into the russian system is a lefty-pinko communist at heart. I mean he's proven it by first amassing wealth and then giving it to the Ruskies.

    It's also a crime that the space shuttle can't even begin to compete with the price that is being offered either- I mean everyone knows that American technology is the best in the world, and that backwards Russian stuff is incomparable, even if it does literally cost one tenth the cost, with similar performance. It must be something to do with that 'partnership' between the Russians and the Americans we hear so much about. Clearly communist symps have infiltrated NASA, and are holding her back.

    I mean sure the Russian launchers are ok, but can they land on their wheels? Can you fly it like a plane? Does it have all these cool tiles everywhere? Nah! American tech rocks!

    I say the guy should be refused a passport and be forced to fork out 150 million to use the Space Shuttle like God intended; oh yeah and then chain him to a pc with a microsoft operating system to show him real capitalist AMERICAN technology. Its only fair.

  • Ending the nuclear menace once and for all through negotiations is much cheaper and guarantees world peace much more.

    Yes, let's make the world safe for napalm, white phosphorus and cluster bombs.

  • Probably it'd cost just as much (If this is possible with a SR-71 anyway), and then they probably wouldn't let you in without a huge bribe ;)

    ---
    Tip: Sick and tired of these tips? Type "set tips 0" any time.
    > set tips 0
    Error: Unknown option name "tips."
  • That space aboard Mir could be occupied by Science, but no, they chose to pimp it out instead.

    $20 million buys a lot of science.

    --
  • Should be 'thats just before things got wierd'
  • It sickens me that someone with that kind of money to throw away wouldn't do something to help those less fortunate.

    The money you spent to buy that computer, and spend every month for your Internet connection, would buy a lot of rice.

    The $20 million he's giving to space research (minus the few thousand dollars of fuel that will be spent to send him up in a shuttle that was going up anyway) will buy a lot of science.

    Science that will continue to improve our ability to feed the poor, etc., as it has in the past.

    --
  • I wonder if it's the same guy who offered Britney Spears $12M to sleep with him. She rejected the offer thoug. ;(

    da w00t.
  • AFAIK the ls, rm and chmod programs which come with the (GNU/)Linux distributions are actually part of the GNU fileutils package and their names have nothing to do with the Linux kernel...
    ---
    Tip: Sick and tired of these tips? Type "set tips 0" any time.
    > set tips 0
    Error: Unknown option name "tips."
  • Maybe one day we will really see Rob and Hemos in space...

    Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too"
  • You have a good point, but I think there is one big difference:

    This guy is just going to be sent there (as a passenger)...
    The "I'm better than all those who have died trying to do this before" way to think doesn't work in this case...
    If he dies you probably can't say that it was his own fault... (it's of course not sure it'd be anyones fault!)
    I think that's a way many of the people who are going to climb mount everest think...

    (btw, from what I've read the way up to the peak of mount everest is full of corpses, but that doesn't seem to matter to the ones who are climbing the mountain - so they must be thinking something like that)
    ---
    Tip: Sick and tired of these tips? Type "set tips 0" any time.
    > set tips 0
    Error: Unknown option name "tips."
  • Well, at least now I understand why it was modded down. Thank you for the clarification.

    - Michael
  • So let me get this straight...some guy is paying $20,000,000 to go 200 miles (roundtrip). Let's see. That's $100,000/mi. Compared to my SUV, that's pretty damn economical!
  • Funny you should say that they need money desperately since they're funded by a private company rather than the government. In Russia at the moment, being funded by a private company is probably a safer bet than being funded by the government. I lived in and around Yekaterinburg, Russia (in the Ural Mountain region) for two years from '95 to '97. At that time (and it's pretty much the same now), people's wages were late up to six months, and the elderly's pensions were similarly delayed. All ultimately traceable to the government and the central bank, which are virtually broke.

    For Russia these days, the only real prayer they have of keeping up any kind of space program is private enterprise.

  • Its an expensive vacation, but no crowds...

    Yeah... sure..now there aren't... but isn't 2030 just around the corner? I know I'm off by a few years, but according good ol' star trek...we're going to have warp drive soon.

    :)

    ---
  • Personally I think it sucks that the home of communism in the world has scored a first by offering the first paid seat in space.

    First of all, Russian Federation (NOT Soviet Union) now isn't "the home of communism". Now we are "going to capitalism" (sic).

    I mean sure the Russian launchers are ok, but can they land on their wheels? Can you fly it like a plane? Does it have all these cool tiles everywhere? Nah! American tech rocks!

    Hmm... Maybe Americans launched first sputnik (satellite)? Or maybe Americans launched first man in space? Though Russia made Shuttle analog Buran ("Snowstorm" in Russian) [nasa.gov] too late (1988), first development of it was made in 70's.

    "And after all those guys learn me to pick in nose"... And I know that it is a flame.

  • You mean NetBSD hasn't already been ported to it?
    What a shame :)

    Arun
  • You'd be cooped up with some Russian cosmonauts that might not have showered for several days (or weeks? - sorry I'm not intimately familiar with the bathing facilities on Mir) and there ain't that much room in that space station either. But what the hell, if I had a hundred million or so I'd probably pony up the $$ and go too. Any possibility that this is Bill Gates going up? I guess not, he'd just start a MS space program with mission control running on Win2000.
  • Hey, NBC needs a hit too, so why not launch a dozen contestants into space and put them on Mir. They'd need two tribes... astronauts and cosmonauts? Teambuilding challenges... spacewalk relay races, zero-air-pressure endurance marathon, how many "space ice creams" can you eat without adding water before your mouth dries out?

    Of course, the losing team votes off a member each week. "Please exit through the airlock of shame."

    "What I cannot create, I do not understand."

  • Tourism may be the first thing that people pay to go into space for, but I can just see it being the next fashion in business management to have "team building" exercises in orbit.

    Actually, it's probably the only "team building" that would require teamwork to succeed -- somehow I doubt that a disorganized group could last more than a day or two in micro-gravity!

    --

  • Internet Portal? (Score:3)

    by fremen ( 33537 ) on Friday June 16, 2000 @09:09PM (#996828)
    Mr Manber said: "We have great plans for Mir besides the guest cosmonauts. It will be an internet portal. From a website you will be able
    to look out of Mir's windows and watch the Earth drift by."

    So, when's the IPO?
  • Okay fine, but the 100 miles on either end of the journey require a great deal of effort (and fuel!) whereas the time orbitting the Earth is a byproduct of the Earth's gravity well and would be like coasting down the mountains in my SUV (much more fuel efficient than actually driving it normally at less than 18mi/gal).
  • Advances in the space industry help fuel advances in other fields, fields that eventually become useful in their own right. Example: Integrated circuits were not produced cheaply or in quantity until weight considerations forced the computer equipment to be light at any cost. Result: the beginning of the computer industry as we know it. I would hazard a guess that computers have been helpful overall to society.

    Another benefit of space travel: satellites for communication. There are likely to be useful side effects of increasing space visitation, but who knows what they are now?

  • Or $62500 kilometer for those of us who have a sane measurement system. $62.50, a meter and $0.625 a centemeter. (All you Americans are turning green with envy at my metric poweress... Bwa ha ha ha.)
    .
    63 cents a centemeter!?!? I wouldn't want to be the first man to ride an elevator at that price!?!?
  • Does anyone know who this person is?

    Who knows pretty soon they are going to have the 100 mile high club...


    Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
    NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
    www.npsis.com [npsis.com]
  • No one is going to throw their life away just because it will be exciting if they live.

    There are plenty of people like that on Earth. Although they tend not to be the same people who have $20 million to spend on a trip to space.

  • Read the article.
  • Well the future is going to be a bit different than in Star Trek. For starters, Khan Noonian Singh didn't start a war back in '92. Or maybe I slept throught he whole thing. Dam!
  • Your sig is rubbish.

    The RIO constantly falls out because Diamond designed the battery compartment poorly

    I have to tape it shut with sticky tape every time I use it and oh, you must remove the battery after you used it or it will go flat in a few hours.

    What a pain. Does anyone know an MP3 player with a built in battery, that you can charge up easily?

    Yeah, I know...offtopic, but I just had to vent my frustration about this...

  • At least the Russians got it up there in '86 and it has stayed in use for nearly three times as originally intended. It was meant to be replaced somewhere around '91 but certain political events prohibited that from happening.

    Whereas you Americans kept saying, yes...ooh, but WAIT TILL YOU SEE OUR SPACE STATION, it's gunna be great! Well you finally launched the first module 5 years after was originally promised (Mr. Reagan said in 1984 that America was going to have a spacestation in ten years time). And it had to be turned it into the International Space Station because you didn't get enough money from the politicians.

    I think it is just an example of how sore losers Americans are. They expect to be the winners and if someone else beats them they try to put the other guys acheivement down. I once saw an athletics event on TV when I was in the States and the best American got the silver medal, he was treated by the commentators as the winner and the guy who won the gold medal was completely ignored.

    Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you for having a winner's mentality (I wish my own country had it more) but why do you need to dis everyone else's acheivements to feel better, especially because you already acheive so much yourselves?

  • NASA hasn't made any really useful space missions in a long time,

    That's not true, they've had a few excellent science missions, but that's basic research, so obviously nobody's interested. E.g. Chandra [harvard.edu].

  • 100 mile high club...
    ...solo astronaut division?

    :)

  • What does IPO stands for?
    *** SIGNATURE WANTED. BIG REWARD. Its name is "Bubba"
  • I don't know if you are aware of it, but the ISS is originally an American space station (they were going to call it "Freedom").

    But I agree, it doesn't really add anything new, it is basically an updated version of a Mir type space station (Mir+?).

    Now if they would build a space station like the one in 2001 then you would have something to talk about.

    NEW SDI??? Hasn't that lark been going on for 20 years now??? Now if you want to talk about a waste of money, you have one there. Chances are that it won't fully defend America during a full scale missile attack (if it knocks out 90% of the missiles the remaining 10% are still able of rendering the USA into a nuclear wasteland) and so you're buying into false security (besides, can this thing keep fallout from spilling over to the USA if the rest of the world gets nuked???).

    Ending the nuclear menace once and for all through negotiations is much cheaper and guarantees world peace much more.

    OK so you still have to worry about countries like North Korea and Iraq, but with this SDI thing you risk pissing off Russia who have much more nukes.

    This technology this increases the chance for war, because it threatens the security of other nations and because it makes the USA more likely to use nuclear weapons first because they feel "secure" that they can't be touched (like the people on the Titanic decided to sail at full speed through an iceberg area because their ship was "unsinkable").

    But really, ANYTHING to keep the generals in the Pentagon amused with their new toy, right?

  • Wasn't that Al Gore's idea? To mount a camera in space and broadcast the image of Earth on cable TV?
    --
  • right on pope baby!
  • First off your totally correct about or shitty space station. But we see who is doing all the work in the suppose Internation Space Station.. As far as our healthcare system goes you foreigners just don't get it. For the tax's that we would be paying for a health care system, any half smart person buys somthing we call health insurance, and thanks to captilism we can shop around for the best deal which is a hell of alot better the paying 50% of what we earn for a shitty health care system.. Thats why you see people from Canada and other foreign contries come to American to get operations done. Because they have to wait months to get routine surguries done in there contries such as Gall-balder removal etc. Besides who fucking won the cold war. Face it American isn't the ownly nation on the earth, were just the best.
  • Just like Russia, it's had everything thrown at it and it's still there. They've a right to be proud.

    Alpha or whatever they're calling the international space station now will look like that after 15 years of continuous residence, storage of mostly used crap, and space weather. After Skylab and Mir we now know that space station corridors clog up like fatty arteries.

    (fulfills on-topic content requirement)
    I hope the guy realizes they'll put him to work whether something breaks or not.

  • We all hear about somebody winning some lottery and winning $10^6 to $10^7 as the prize. Now what the heck are they going to actually DO with the money? After making a donation to the taxman, of course :-( Sure, the first million will pay bills and buy some excellent toys. Then what?

    Without any clear picture of doing anything in particular with the remaining millions, I'll bet most lottery ticket buyers are not thrilled and excited as they could be if the prize were unique and glamourous like (you guessed it) a trip to space...

    Now picture a lottery where the prize includes the obligatory couple $million, but most importantly, a round trip ticket to some space destination. Let me tell you, money is nice but it doesn't get the blood pumping like the idea of getting off this planet for even a little while.

    Now, who wants to buy tickets?

  • It costs 500 million to launch a space shuttle. This guy is paying 20 million. Do your own math.
  • Take it easy. It was a moderation error, not an example of American stupidity. Believe it or not, most of us DID notice that the USSR fell in '91.

    Perhaps you should spend less time being bitter about Americans...we're really not that bad.
  • No it won't. It will fund the shananegans of whatever oligrarchs control the Mir now. In modern Russia being wealthy pretty much guarantees you are in some way associated with the mafia. All this money will do is fuel more corruption.

    Besides, I hope you understand that the trickle-down is propoganda, because money is only lost through innefficiency.

    Consider that a "fat cat's" bank account enables loans to be made, so that people can buy houses, start businesses, etc. And afterwards it can still be exchanged for an equivalent amount of work or property.

    An expendable rocket and it's propellant are used once and then become garbage. Add to this the fact that the tourist will be a useless crew-member, who does nothing but consume resources on Mir and get in the way of whatever real science and engineering is going on.

    So, which use of $20 million is more efficient?
  • So what America is just as crappy? You can't say their worse, all of the governments suck equally... oh yeah We're so much richer but you know this "new economy" with everyone making big cash on the net, it's not going to last... The stock market can only go up for so long. We're going to have a big ass crash soon, and then those Russians are probably going to be laughing at us for getting too confident in our economy. It's not prejudice if you hate everyone equally.
  • last i checked, the 'soviet union' fell quite a few years back...
  • why would you pay $20 million to fly on a russion space station....i think i saw Russia on e-bay...the last bid was i $4.6million (reserve has been met)


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • Presumably the russian goverment is going to turn a profit of some sort on this deal.

  • What would you plan to do on Hotel Mir for a week? (Score:3)

    by yuriwho ( 103805 ) on Friday June 16, 2000 @09:14PM (#996855)
    10. Bring a few good books
    9. Bring a good sock
    8. Hassle the concierge relentlessly
    7. Scratch your initials on one of the windows
    6. Flip all the switches you can find
    5. Commit suicide
    4. Videotape your pranks on the sleeping astronauts and then sell them in an infomercial
    3. Piss everyone off with your incessant comparisons to Holiday Inn.
    2. Assume the personality of Boris Yeltsin and pretend to be drunk the entire time
    1. Drop a few hits and enjoy the view
  • You said:

    Even if he does do some work, exactly how important can it be, given that he his expertise is in investing, and he's only going to be up there for a week.

    In the article it says:

    "The president of MirCorp, the commercial company that now operates Mir, told BBC News Online that the businessman is Dennis Tito, 59, a former scientist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory."

    He's a former scientist at JPL so investing is probably not his only field of expertise.
  • But what about huge number of russian geeks that hate his guts? Some of them will find a way to blow up the station ;-)
  • Short term destination for rich tourists? Instantly running through my head:

    "A three hour tour..."
  • On a serious note, it is a good space station. America used to have a space station. It had a problem with a solar panel the day it launched. Where is it now? Lessee, I think it crashed either in Australia or somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Mir, on the other hand, is still up there, still hosting missions, and now even generating a little income. So what exactly are we making fun of?

    --
    grappler

  • If you work in the number of centimeters the tourist would move while in orbit (relative to his surface launch point), the price per centimeter becomes MUCH more reasonable.

  • I had always thought it was an urban legend, but the Sea ttle Times [nwsource.com] and other sites briefly mention singer John Denver's attempt to do the same thing in the early 1990s. He was quite the space fan.

    From SPACEVIEWS UPDATE [seds.org], 1997:

    • John Denver: Singer/songwriter John Denver, a longtime member of the National Space Society's Board of Governors, died in a light plane crash in California October 12. Although best known for his hit songs in the 1970s, he was a founding governing member of the National Space Institute in 1976, along with Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Bob Hope, Alan Shepard and others. He stayed on the board after the 1987 merger of the NSI with the L-5 Society, which created the National Space Society. "He personified the deep desire of many of our Society's members to someday travel in space," said Board of Governors chairman Hugh Downs. "We will miss his vision, his talent, his perseverance and his unique ability, through his words and music, to help others understand the fragility and beauty of this planet we call home."

    As I recall, he asked NASA, who refused him. Not to be spurned, he then asked the Soviets in the same year, which didn't go over too well with American patriots. The jokes were talking about a real "Rocky Mountain High."

  • Amateur SSTV has been operating for a while... (Score:3)

    by cvoid ( 13211 ) on Friday June 16, 2000 @09:19PM (#996877) Homepage
    The amateur station aboard Mir (R0MIR) has been transmitting Slow-Scan Television (SSTV) for the past 6 months or so. Check out the following links for some great images received from the station (the second link includes a lot of links to other archives of Mir SSTV images):

    http://www.qsl.net/wb8erj/mir-pix.htm [qsl.net]

    http://home.t-online.de/home/mrensen/m ir.htm [t-online.de]

    The cool thing about SSTV from Mir is that it is largely controlled by the station operators aboard , and is much more dynamic content-wise than stuff like weather satellites and stuff. They occasionally turn the camera on themselves, visiting shuttles, etc. Check it out, it's neat stuff. It is also fairly easy to receive and decode SSTV transmission using a soundcard, some freeware code and a radio capable of receiving the 2-meter amateur band. The following link has lots of info on SSTV (aside from the blink tags):

    http://www.mbnet.mb.ca/~rraimb/ [mbnet.mb.ca]

  • I'll admit that why one person might pay $20M to spend a little while in Mir isn't entirely clear to me. But two people paying $40M would make perfect sense!
    --
  • I wonder what it would cost to just, you know, go there on your own? How much is rental on the SR-71 these days? *wink wink*

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