Singer Reportedly Outbids NASA for Space Tourist's Seat 242
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."
Re:More important... (Score:4, Informative)
It would seem she can't afford to go to space.
Re:More important... (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe NASA should have planned ahead to make sure they'd have a launch vehicle to reach their expensive ISS?
that's ridiculous. if the US is contributing almost 2x the cash of all the others together it should buy them something. if they're going to be denied seats over a few million, screw the ISS ... we might as well build our own space station.
and also screw sarah brightman.
If it's true that NASA is missing out on a seat that they need over a few million dollars, they should just pay the few million dollars. A space shuttle launch cost $450M ($1.5B if you count the cost of the shuttles themselves). Assuming a 7 person crew, that's $64M/person. But since a typical ISS crew rotation flight only carried 3 ISS crew members, it's closer to $150M per person to get someone to the ISS (granted, there were other mission specialists and equipment/experiments on the flight). So if you look at the per-person cost of sending astronauts on the space shuttle versus Soyuz, NASA is saving money even at $50M/person.
we might as well build our own space station
If it's true that it cost $175B to build the ISS in the first place where do you think NASA is going to come up with another $175B to build their own? That's almost 10 years of 100% of NASA's current budget. And NASA still has no proven heavy lift capability to launch components into space.
Is spending the next decades NASA budget on a low earth orbit space station really a good use of their money? I'd rather see more exploration farther from the planet.
Re:Music Video (Score:5, Informative)
Relevant: Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip - I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper [youtube.com]
Warning: Extremely cheesy.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Re:Np. 90% docking fee. (Score:5, Informative)
Again a bad sumary... (Score:5, Informative)
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.