agger
November 18th, 2005, 07:25 AM
Physicist Bob Park holds a not very favourable opinion on space shuttles, space stations and space tourism - here from an old edition of this "What's New" column (http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN02/wn042602.html) for the American Physical Society:
TOURIST CLASS: ANOTHER GUEST CHECKS IN AT THE ISS SPACE SPA
South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth paid the Russians $20M up front for a week at the resort. Dennis Tito, who became the first space tourist a year ago, was snubbed by NASA. He was not allowed to train at the Johnson Space Center, or permitted to enter U.S. modules on the station unless accompanied by an adult. To make his vacation truly lousy he had a sick stomach the whole time. Shuttleworth, however, could train at Johnson and will even be allowed to play with the computers. You might think tourism would be a great way to pay off the cost overrun on the station - - just another 200 guests would do it. Alas, the transportation is not free. The budget for the shuttle is $4B. For that, NASA manages to launch a shuttle about four times a year. That comes to about $1B per launch or 50 times the going rate for a week at the ISS. Using the space station as a fantasy adventure for the too rich is not what taxpayers thought they were buying, but there's really not much else you can do with a space station.
TOURIST CLASS: ANOTHER GUEST CHECKS IN AT THE ISS SPACE SPA
South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth paid the Russians $20M up front for a week at the resort. Dennis Tito, who became the first space tourist a year ago, was snubbed by NASA. He was not allowed to train at the Johnson Space Center, or permitted to enter U.S. modules on the station unless accompanied by an adult. To make his vacation truly lousy he had a sick stomach the whole time. Shuttleworth, however, could train at Johnson and will even be allowed to play with the computers. You might think tourism would be a great way to pay off the cost overrun on the station - - just another 200 guests would do it. Alas, the transportation is not free. The budget for the shuttle is $4B. For that, NASA manages to launch a shuttle about four times a year. That comes to about $1B per launch or 50 times the going rate for a week at the ISS. Using the space station as a fantasy adventure for the too rich is not what taxpayers thought they were buying, but there's really not much else you can do with a space station.