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 First
Space Turist
The ticket is expensive, $20 million, but many would say it is
worth it. Dennis Tito, eccentic american millionnaire, has become
the first paying passenger on a spaceship. No doubt, he will not
be the last.
NASA was not impressed, and tried to stop the mission - organized
by the russians - until the last day.
This story begins some years ago. During the last year of life
of the legendary Mir Space
Station, the Russians were desperately looking for cash,
to keep the aging space station and the entire space program alive.
They sealed a deal with an eccentric billionaire, to take him into
space for a week for money.
Dennis Tito, founder of Wilshire Associates,
agreed to pay 20 million dollars to the cash-sripped russian space
program. When 60-year-old US businessman Dennis Tito had already
paid part of the ticket for the trip to the Russian space station
Mir, the station was de-orbited.
Tito had placed a multi-million dollar deposit on the flight, and
had legal rights. Without Mir working, the russians agreed to take
him for 1 week to the International Space Station, as part of their
quota of cosmonauts.
Since then, Tito has trained for almost a year in Russia for the
mission. NASA tried to prevent the flight into space of the first
tourist.
Last month, NASA prevented him from joining his cosmonaut colleagues
in training on U.S. systems to prepare for the flight A Russian
government committee that gives clearance for cosmonaut missions
has already approved the trip of Dennis Tito to the international
space station, after he succeded a flight test on a Soyuz simulator.
Also other NASA partners in building Alpha, opposed the mission.
They include Europe, Japan and Canada. Tito a former NASA rocket
scientist who became an investment tycoon, is now the first turist
in space.
Disasters
and Accidents in Manned Spaceflight
by David Shayler
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