What's wrong with "International " Space Station

[Eagler]

The Russians have included it in their travel agency brochures. Seems like we do all the work & expense while mother Russia makes the dough ....

I hope they don't answer the door or put a "No Solicitors" sign outside the station.

Next the democrats will be shipping their high $ donors up there as a perk..

Zillionaire Tourist Gets to Visit Space Station

Thursday, April 12, 2001
WASHINGTON (UPI) – Russian officials Wednesday approved U.S. multimillionaire Dennis Tito for a flight to the International Space Station on April 28, making him the first space tourist.
The Interdepartment Commission in Star City, Russia, approved Tito for a stay of six to 10 days on the station on Wednesday. The Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos said Tito would blast off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome and fly to the station along with two other cosmonauts, commander Talgat Musabayev and flight engineer Yuri Baturin.

"He's going to open up the door for a lot of other people," predicted John Moltzan, spokesman in Arlington, Va., for the space tourism company Space Adventures, which booked Tito's flight. "This shows people around the world that this is something that's really happening, that's not science fiction."

However, Tito, a former NASA engineer, faces strong opposition from NASA. NASA officials are concerned that an amateur could the jeopardize the safety of the station and its crew given the hectic work schedule planned for astronauts and cosmonauts this month as they get the research outpost operational.

"He's neither trained on the U.S. flight systems nor has he had an opportunity to train with the crew already in orbit," said NASA spokesman Dave Drachlis.

"Even career cosmonauts who fly with us to the International Space Station have trained with us approximately a year on both shuttle and U.S. International Space Station systems, regardless of the duration of their stay."

NASA plans to meet with space agency heads from the station's 15 other international partners early next week. The agency suggested it would be open to an October visit for Tito after six to eight weeks of astronaut training in Houston, which would emphasize emergency procedures and routine housekeeping tasks such as communication with ground control. Agency officials said this six-month delay would also give the station's partners time to develop a legal framework that accounts for civilians on the orbiter.

"NASA and the partners do not oppose flying nonprofessional crew members to the International Space Station on a commercial basis as long as the safety of the crew and the protection of the critical international asset are the primary concern and are in no way being compromised," Drachlis said.

Rosaviakosmos objects to NASA's claims that Tito poses a safety hazard, having extensively trained him for eight months at Gagarin Space Center in Star City, near Moscow. Russian state news agency Itar-Tass also noted that Rosaviakosmos could not meet NASA's postponement demand because Russia would have trouble refunding Tito's $20 million contract with the Russians for the flight, given the nation's ailing economy.

Tito, who founded the Santa Monica, Calif., investment firm Wilshire, would make a trip to the station during a routine "taxi" flight. The mission would fly up in a new Soyuz spacecraft and fly down in the old Soyuz docked at the outpost. Tito originally hoped to fly to Mir space station, but those plans were canceled last year when Russia announced it would scrap the orbiter, which plummeted to the Pacific in March.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

what a joke, hope he craps his pants

Eagler

[Boroda]

So I an supposed to say that Russia now can reject any US astronaut just because he wasn't trained in Zvezdniy and can't read Cyrillic, thus being a hazard to Russian part of a station?

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With respect,
    Pavel Pavlov,
    Commissar 25th IAP WB VVS

[miko2d]

 

Originally posted by Boroda:
So I an supposed to say that Russia now can reject any US astronaut just because he wasn't trained in Zvezdniy and can't read Cyrillic, thus being a hazard to Russian part of a station?

 Judging from the Russian's space program accident record (the real one), the training you mentioned may be a disqualification...  

 It is ironic that Russians cost several years of delays to the ISS which cost other partners lots of money because they broke contracts and diverted money/production to keep alive the Mir station. But once that peace of junk finally went down in flames, they are the first to make money of the new station.
 I guess they have the right to do it if there is nothing in the contracts preventing it.

 Come to think of it, The station is there and tourists may bring some cash to the project and help popularize it. As long as it brings more money (to all participants) then it costs to manage risks, where is the harm?
 Just make sure to check those russkis for vodka when they enter the station...  

 miko

[J_A_B]

The ISS is a complete waste of resources and money.  It has no real mission, and no purpose, and will accomplish nothing.  It is a black hole from which our investments will never return.  If the Russians figured out a way to make money off it, then they're smarter than the USA.


J_A_B

[Boroda]

Miko, Russia made all the key life-support systems for ISS, the thing that Americans can't make at all. Russian cosmonauts said that Space Shuttle "stinks as a railroad toilet".

Remember how Russian cosmonaut "repaired" space shuttle on the orbit?

BTW, Soviet and American training concepts are completely different: cosmonauts are to make the main decisions themself, while astronauts act only according to ground control orders.

As for accident record - it's slightly bigger then US one because Soviet cosmonauts spent about 100 times more in space then US astronauts. If you'll bother counting - 10 Americans died in their spaceships, and 4 Soviets... We still have the cheapest and most reliable launch vehicle, the good old R-7, almost 45 years old and mass-produced since 1957.

------------------
With respect,
    Pavel Pavlov,
    Commissar 25th IAP WB VVS

[loser]

damn straight JAB.  I think 80 percent of folks who post their views here should grab their dictionary (its that big heavy book under the stack of TV guides) and look up the word: Ethnocentrism.

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how do we know clams are really happy?

[Daff]

"The ISS is a complete waste of resources and money. It has no real mission, and no purpose, and will accomplish nothing. It is a black hole from which our investments will never return"

Yes..I guess we should never have bothered building ships...and Colombus should have stayed home.

Daff

[Fury]

Actually I don't have a real big problem with the fact that someone of the public will go onto the station.  Of course he would require training (which he apparently has); of course he will hopefully not break anything (we'll see).

The only problem that I have is that the US and Russia could not come to an agreement on how this could be handled, so Russia decided to do it anyways.  Neither country should have the right to approve whoever they want to go on board, and neither country should have the right to disallow someone to go on board.  It's called "work it out".

Cooporation just does not work sometimes.

Fury

p.s. If I had money to burn, you can darn well bet I'd try to get up there too.  I'd work with my country though, instead of bypassing them like this guy did.

[This message has been edited by Fury (edited 04-12-2001).]

[J_A_B]

The first manned orbits were good.

The moon landing was good.

The space probes were good.

The first space stations were good.

The Hubble telescope is good.

But what is this new space station suppoosed to do?  It will do NOTHNG that hasn't been done before.  The main reason they are building it, is just so they can have a space station.

I am all for manned trips to Mars, or building a Shuttle replacement, or even sending probes to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.  However, the ISS represents a step backwards in space exploration--rather than pushing the envelope farther out, they're content to stay at Earth.


It's a waste.  If they hadn't of wasted their money on it, they might have some REAL exploration.

J_A_B

[Azrael]

The funny thing about this thread is that the capitalists [tm] complain about the capitalistic lessons the ex-communists [tm] have learned.

SCNR

Az

[StSanta]

For long term survival, humans must look to the stars. There is no other way.

For some, it's a sign of human ingenuity and craftmanship, of the human drive to explore.

For others it's a big hole in the sky that shouldn't exist and the tax dollars would be better placed in the hands of citizens

For yet others, those tax dollars could've gone to help the less fortunate.

I'm for 1 or 3  

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Von Santa
Staffelkapitän 9./JG 54 "Grünherz"
"If you return from a mission with a victory, but without your Rottenflieger, you have lost your battle."
- D. Hrabak, JG 54 "Grünherz"

[Pongo]

 

Originally posted by azrael:
The funny thing about this thread is that the capitalists [tm] complain about the capitalistic lessons the ex-communists [tm] have learned.

SCNR

Az

The capitalist angle would be to put a 10 passenger pod in the shuttle and move 200 million worth of people a month up there.Of course there would be no room for russian customers at that point so I guess they would be out of luck.
Who paid what % of the cost of the station. Divide the revenues in that ratio..

How many potential applicants did the soviets reject on medical or other reasons befor they let this guy pay? If Rosanne Arnold applies does she go? Make new hatches or something.

[LePaul]

Funny how the point quickly got lost as the flames began.

To our Russian friends, its nice you have more time in space than we do.  But your system of goverment in the past didnt exactly allow for the general public to say "Whoa, you are spending too much money on the space program".  If you did, you got to meet the AK-47 and a nice retirement villa in Siberia, correct?

Here in the States, NASA is making due with what they have.  Everyone in the space program has ideas where THEY would like to see the money go.  Some want a probe to Pluto on a rare chance to see it up close as its closest to the Sun and has an atmoshpere.  Others want to see us eventually land men on Mars.  Others, a space station in orbit, or the moon.  

Or, in the general public, others want tall that money NASA uses to go into other ventures...cures for cancer, Aids, leukemia and much more.  Mother Russia didnt have a Congress, Senate and public to answer to when it sent folks into orbit.  

With that said, the ISS has been largely funded by the USA.  We've tried to keep it international to spread the cost, and keep it less of a hit to the US taxpayers.  Russia largely went broke and added 2 years to the program, late building the main module.  Many here wanted it back here to be finished and put into orbit in time, but we bit our tongues in the spirit of an International Space Station and ate 2 billion in cost overruns and gave Russia the funding to finish it (so you see, Russia built it, we paid for it...so their contribution is??).

Now the station is up and becoming operational.  The real slap in the face is the Russians selling it off as an expensive hotel.  The crew on the station arent sitting up there gawking at the moon, but busy doing work and research.  But, the Russians do not seem to care, its abusing the spirit of the ISS to make quick money.  And what's more embarssing to me is its an American being sent up.

That's my rant, I have on my asbestos underwear, so have at.  Meanwhile, Ill be at Space.Com    

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Paul J. Busiere

Aces High Arena handle:  BD5Pilot
 http://bd5.checksix.net
BD-5 "T" (TurboProp) 90% complete, first flight in 2001 (We hope!)

[This message has been edited by LePaul (edited 04-12-2001).]

[mietla]

 

Originally posted by Boroda:
If you'll bother counting - 10 Americans died in their spaceships, and 4 Soviets...

Vostok 1, Vostok 2, Vostok 17, Vostok 18, Vostok 33 ...  

[funked]

Hehe and don't forget the N-1!  There's a word that sends the older Russian rocket engineers running for cover.