In all the reading I’ve been doing about private citizen’s buying a trip to the space station, I’ve found it curious that the Russian’s are taking the money while NASA refuses. It seems to me that NASA has such a haughty attitude (“We’re a scientific organization. We couldn’t possibly think about money.<sniff>”) that they’re missing out on a golden opportunity. At $25 million a pop, NASA could fund more missions than they can now. No wonder commercial space flight isn’t taking off. The one US organization that could capitalize on marketing and promoting a get away for the rich can’t be bothered. In looking at the history of air flight, air travel was once considered only for the rich. Airlines catered to the rich and important. Eventually, the infrastructure and capital costs made it possible to lower fares within the reach of the masses (with a little bit of de-regulation thrown in but that’s another discussion).
So what is it about the US space program (or most other Western space programs, for that matter) that prevents them from promoting commercial space flight, even it’s only to the rich?
They don’t need to. I think you have to look at the different motivations. The Russians are out to make money, pure and simple. Coming late to the Capitalism banquet, they desperately need the cash, hence their unwillingness to wait while Lance Bass puts together his “deal”. They need “cash on the barrelhead”, and they need it now.
NASA doesn’t need the money, so they don’t sell tickets. They get their basic funding from the American taxpayer, enough to pay for a Mars or comet probe every year or so, and pay the rent on the ISS and maybe buy a few new trinkets for the Hubble, so they’re happy enough.
But the Russian space program, AFAIK, is basically on its own, funding-wise.
Granted. However, NASA’s budget continues to shrink and the number of missions of various kinds has been cut to accommodate that shrinking budget. Although I’d hate to see NASA become the next Amtrak, I do think there is an opportunity to make up some of the budget cuts through private funding. Russia’s participation in the ISS is strictly political but the fact that they desperately need the money has forced them into a capitalist model…people are willing to pay millions of dollars to go into space and Russia is more than willing to let them pay it. Why won’t NASA put a price tag on a seat and open up one seat per ISS launch to whoever wants to pay it?
I can’t find a direct cite from NASA, but most estimates of the cost of a single shuttle mission (not including original R&D costs) seem to be around $400-500 million. NASA’s entire annual budget (shuttle, ISS, interplanetary missions, observatories, etc.) exceeds $10 billion. An extra $25 million per shuttle flight is relatively insignificant.
But, you say, any money is that much more for other projects, which is true. However, given the risks inherent in sending a undertrained (relative to the astronauts) tourist along, coupled with the absolute PR nightmare if something went wrong because of that passenger, I don’t think that it’s a sensible move for NASA.
They don’t allow any corporate names to appear on the shuttle. This absurd homage to alleged propriety costs NASA millions each launch. Throw in a passenger at, say, 40 million a pop and you are talking real money. Why 40 million? Have you seen the interior space of a Soyuz module? Cramped is a compliment. By comparison the shuttle is spacious and luxurious.
By my guesstimate - and based on some figures I heard from an unnamed*United Space Alliance Corporation representative - NASA could raise hundreds of millions, or billions, each year. Remember the old saw, “A billion here and a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.”
As for safety, everyone would have to be screened and trained. This is all you can do even with astronauts. Asking someone to sit still and do nothing is not that taxing. Given the price tag it seems unlikely that a total screwball will spring for a ticket. Not that the extremely rich are not insane or unstable, but weeding that out is not impossible.
Agreeing with most of what’s posted above, with a smile to Beagle’s “a billion here” quote.
As an ex-NASA contractor of many years, it never occurs to NASA people to put advertising in space – commercialism offends many engineers, and even more scientists. They don’t sacrifice their careers by going into underpaid, frustrating jobs in NASA, working in trailers and drab military-style offices to also have the intellectual integrity of their profession subordinated to advertising. That, one can get that anywhere, and earn more money!
NASA isn’t hard up. NASA is supposed to be forwarding the cause of science, not $200 haircut bozos on Madison Avenue. When a NASA engineer asks for money for their project (I’m speaking from experience), people are looking for the greater good of mankind, and the advancement of science. Everyone knows it’s going to cost money. That’s not the issue.
Astronauts are chosen (although you can’t tell when they’re purposely being “folksy” in front of the camera) for their exceptional intelligence, and their ability to reason quickly under terrific pressure. Putting a paying customer in orbit (unless they really were paying their way, which would cost 100s of millions not a couple million) is just getting in the way of science. Dead weight.
And NASA has the whole military payload/research thing going on as well which tends to blur the respective budgets somewhat.
As an aside, I was reminded the other day of an old story of which the veracity was never established (at least for me): Those special write upside down pens that were all the rage years ago and were developed to function in zero gravity at a huge cost.
Did the USSR really confront the same problem by issuing cosmonauts with…pencils ?
They may have done, but perhaps NASA thought that little flakes of graphite floating about was too much of a risk to the instruments on board. My WAG anyway.
Yep, London_Calling, that’s correct, they used pencils. [Evil mode on], of course, that could have had something to do with their need to constantly fudge the books in communist USSR… heh, heh, heh. [Evil mode back to normal]
On the early Russian space stations they were at a loss to keep the walls clean. (I suppose they had less airflow than space stations today.) They tried various paints, woods, varnishes… and then hit upon leather. Apparently one space station was all done up that way. Now there’s something you don’t see on TV…
Paul C. Fisher developed the pens, not NASA. NASA used pencils first, then bought Fisher Space Pens when they became available, paying the huge cost of $2.95 each.
Whether or not 25-40 million per passenger, per flight augments the coffers of the Shuttle program is IMHO not the point.
The Space Shuttle and previous programs have cost the American people trillions of dollars as well as several lives. By letting a few idle rich and idle famous who have idle cash take advantage of this tremendous expense is wrong.
So letting some hotshot pilots go and play (yes, play) in space is OK, but if you can pay your freight, it’s not? Can you elaborate on that? What is the difference between hiring NASA to put a satellite in space vis-a-vis a person? I would think the difference would be more in price and requirements than some indefinable abstract principle. Note, nobody has come up with any rationale beyond “it’s just wrong” so far. Or, my favorite, “the science.” As if one passenger is going to cut into any science missions that matter. What’s next, how do chickens lay eggs in orbit? Or, have they done that one already?
This I agree with. Putting private citizens in space could significantly help the first one. It generates interest in a moribund space program also. As for the second, going into space is very risky, always. What does this have to do with the topic? We should get a really good waiver signed is all I can think of. “I (space tourist) hereby assume the significant risk of blah, blah…”
Guess what, money is the point. The commercialization of space began dozens of years ago. NASA has a budget slasher in charge right now. They are going to need every penny. In case you haven’t noticed, the so-called ‘wealth effect’ has become a ‘poverty effect.’ Taxes are not going to generate more revenue any time soon.
Capitalism is too good for us, but not the Russians. I find the irony so delicious it is fattening.
Beagle, I understand your comment about “hot shot” pilots. There’s certainly a lot of “The Right Stuff” in our astronauts. But that’s just a common background many of them share. It’s really not fair to label them as “playing games” – they are space hounds – sworn advocates of man in space – willing to spend the greater part of their lives preparing for missions that may never happen, or which may kill them.
The astronauts do “mug” for the cameras. It’s unfortunate in a way, because those are extremely sharp people. The woman astronaut I worked for was so quick in her thinking sometimes my mouth dropped open when I was talking to her. She was really that good.
NASA is always interested in economizing, but that isn’t the same as making one of their central “points” earning money. Making some kind of economic return is important – but it isn’t important it happen this year, or in the next ten years. If you wait for a predictable return on investment, how many years before mankind lands on Mars? 100? 200? I’d like people to go there before I die, and yes, I’m willing to pay with no expecatation of me ever seeing a financial return.
Well, for one, since Challenger, NASA doesn’t really launch commercial satellites on the Shuttle. They do only the ones, like Hubble, that require a “human touch”, which has been very few in the past 15 years. Most satellites are launched on expendable launch vehicles (ie rockets) built by private companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Orbital Sciences.
Also, not all astronauts are pilots. Most of the mission specialists are other professions like engineer, scientist, or doctor. All of the astronauts I’ve met have given off a feeling of incredible competence and not at all hotshots.
The best way I can think of to explain why the idea of putting a tourist in space at this time concerns me is - You don’t put a tourist on a fighter jet when it’s going on a mission. It’s just too uncontrolled.
Someday going into space will be safer, and I hope I’m there to see it, but I just don’t think we’re there yet.