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ISS Space The Almighty Buck

Axiom Names First Private Crew Paying $55 Million For a Trip To the ISS (theverge.com) 32

Posted by BeauHD from the orbital-vacation dept.
An American real estate investor, a Canadian investor, and a former Israeli Air Force pilot are paying $55 million each to be part of the first fully private astronaut crew to journey to the International Space Station. The Verge reports: The trio will hitch a ride on SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule early next year, with a veteran NASA astronaut as the commander. The Ax-1 mission, arranged by Houston, Texas-based space tourism company Axiom Space, is a watershed moment for the space industry as companies race to make space travel more accessible to private customers instead of governments. Private citizens have trekked to the space station in the past, but the Ax-1 mission marks the first to use a commercially built astronaut capsule: SpaceX's Crew Dragon, which flew its first two crews to the ISS last year.

Larry Connor, an entrepreneur and nonprofit activist investor; Mark Pathy, the Canadian investor and philanthropist; and Eytan Stibbe, the former Israeli fighter pilot and an impact investor, were revealed by Axiom on Tuesday morning as the company's inaugural crew. Connor, 71, is president of The Connor Group, a luxury real estate investment firm based in Ohio. He'd become the second-oldest person to fly to space after John Glenn, who flew the US space shuttle Discovery at 77 years old.

The crew's flight to the space station, an orbital laboratory some 250 miles above Earth, will take two days. They'll then spend about eight days aboard the station's US segment, where they'll take part "in research and philanthropic projects," Axiom said in a statement. Living alongside working astronauts from the US, Russia, and likely Germany, the private crew members will roll out sleeping bags somewhere on the station. [...] The Ax-1 mission will have to be approved by the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel, the space station's managing body of partner countries that includes the US, Russia, Canada, Japan, and others. That approval process kicked off today...
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Axiom Names First Private Crew Paying $55 Million For a Trip To the ISS More

Axiom Names First Private Crew Paying $55 Million For a Trip To the ISS

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    • Re:Exactly what the world needs right now (Score:4, Insightful)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @03:03AM (#60995966)
      Of course, most of the things that humanity does makes sense as a private activity.

    • Private space travel.

      Remember when we groused about the cost of manned space programs? Privatization is the answer.

      • Private space travel.

        Remember when we groused about the cost of manned space programs? Privatization is the answer.

        Turning going into space as a publicity stunt? I remember when heading off into space was considered so reduced to practice that we decided to have a regular schoolteacher teach some classes from space. Then reality intervened.

        So anyhow, my vision of privatization is not that the most wealthy pay a lot of money, then fly off and do pretend research. But I suppose it will be like the new jet set, because they do have a lot of disposable income. This ain't no space for you and me.

        • This is an early adopter mission, priced for those few people who just want the space experience and are willing to take the risks attached to this status. As competition brings the price down, it will come to a level that can be written into standard research grants and corporate project expense calculations.

          • This is an early adopter mission, priced for those few people who just want the space experience and are willing to take the risks attached to this status. As competition brings the price down, it will come to a level that can be written into standard research grants and corporate project expense calculations.

            I suppose if we have a whole lot of space stations to visit. At present, the station can hold 7 people though. In that case, I would expect the competition and demand to drive the prices up not down. As well, who would get priority - the billionaire fronting cash, or me with my grant application? I think we know the answer.

            Privatization means doing it for a profit. My grant might be for 50 K -

  • Good (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @03:08AM (#60995976)

    Hopefully SpaceX is making a fat profit from it so they can fund Starlink and Starship development.

  • An Air Force pilot? (Score:3)

    by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @03:58AM (#60996004)

    Are they hiring? Seriously, how does one get $55mil as a pilot, or anyone else in the Air Force for that matter? I doubt you could even sell state secrets for that much.

      Going to space (though ideally to the Moon, not just orbit) has been one of my long-term dreams, so maybe that's the best way of getting there.

    • Seriously, how does one get $55mil as a pilot, or anyone else in the Air Force for that matter?

      Eytan Stibbe [wikipedia.org] was a fighter pilot from 1976 to 1984.

      That is not how he made his money.

      After leaving the Israeli Air Force, he worked in the defense industry and invested in international infrastructure projects.

    • Seriously, how does one get $55mil as a pilot, or anyone else in the Air Force for that matter?

      Think Hunt for Red October [wikipedia.org] but with a stealth fighter.
      China will probably pay you more than enough. Try not to get shot down.
      Good luck !

    • He's a GME investor.

    • Seriously, how does one get $55mil as a pilot, or anyone else in the Air Force for that matter? I doubt you could even sell state secrets for that much.
      Supposed he made it himself, then wages, living on budget and clever/lucky investment is enough.

      If you earn > 200k a year and are not a multi millionaire after 30 years, you made some mistakes.

      • There's no way anyone in IAF makes >200k/year, except maybe a few of the top brass, and even then not for 30 years. A millionaire, sure, but 55 million? Not unless he's extremely lucky.

  • Gorilla costumes (Score:5, Funny)

    by rantrantrant ( 4753443 ) on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @04:10AM (#60996016)
    Just before they come back, we should all wear gorilla costumes, pretend we have no idea who they are, & ridicule any references they make to flying. It'll only work if we all do it. Who's in?
  • $55 million for a couple of weeks in outer space?

    I suppose some people have money to burn!

    • They must have more than just money to burn. It may also be their "$55 million cremation" when something goes wrong.

  • great, so now ISS has become a tourist attraction. I always thought it was paid for under the pretension of scientific research.

  • Guy Laliberté went up in 2009 and it cost him about 40 million. Now we're 12 years later and it's 55 million per? I thought spaceflights were supposed to be cheaper these days...

  • Space has gone the way of the West.
    The taxpayer pays for the expensive beachhead while the wealthy subsume the whole thing once the expensive bits are hammered out.
    How does an Israeli Air force pilot get $55MM, did he sell his jet?

  • That's a good salary for a pilot. Assuming he's completed his 45+ years of working life that's got to be a well over of 1M a year if he spent his entire life living in a cardboard box and eating out of the bin

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