Sarah Brightman's ISS Trip In Peril 105
RocketAcademy writes "Actress/singer Sarah Brightman's trip to the International Space Station may not happen in 2015 as scheduled.
Space Adventures works with the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) to fly private citizens like Brightman on Soyuz taxi flights. Those taxi missions normally last eight days, but NASA and Roscosmos are considering a plan to extend the 2015 taxi flight to one month, so it can carry a scientist to perform some additional research aboard ISS. If that happens, Brightman will lose her seat.
This situation points to the need for more flexible transportation options and new orbital facilities which are not subject to the same operational restrictions as ISS. SpaceX, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada are working on the transportation problem, while Bigelow Aerospace expects to begin launching its Space Station Alpha in 2015. So, the era of citizen astronauts visiting ISS may be drawing to a close."
Re:With good reason (Score:3, Funny)
ISS is a research platform.
Flying privately should only be done at great expense as it is since time and space is limited there.
And in other news, thinking of starting Space Flight Auction house.
Coming soon to a theatre near you!
No, the ISS is, was, and was always intended to be a corporate welfare platform to keep defense contractors in business during the waning period of the cold war.
As the old joke went, "What is the purpose of the space shuttle? To build the space station! What is the purpose of the space station? To give the space shuttle somewhere to go!"
The real problem with space tourism going to the ISS is that the Russian space agency is getting the money, not the US taxpayers.
Re:subject (Score:5, Funny)
Well in space we wouldn't be able to hear her sing.
Actually on second thoughts, can we launch the entire pop music industry up there?
There's the element of uncertainty (Score:2, Funny)
In 2015, they don't know if they'd be shipping the fat Sarah or the skinny Sarah up there, and they can't calculate the fuel requirements.
Re:subject (Score:2, Funny)
I'm setting up a Kickstarter for Celine Dion.
Re:With good reason (Score:5, Funny)
It's actually been quite a while since I've seen a webpage quite as long as the list of experiments they've carried out
That's because NASA isn't breaking articles up into pages to increase impressions.