Former Microsoft Executive returns from Space
A former Microsoft Corp. executive Charles Simonyi has safely returned from his 12-day “vacation” on the International Space Stati, It was the last trip on which nonastronauts could hitch a ride on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Simonyi blasted off March 26 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with two crew members, Russian cosmonaut Gennadiy Padalka and American astronaut Michael Barratt. He took the only route available to space tourists: making a reservation for the Soyuz through US-based Space Adventures Ltd.
But the Soyuz is a one-time-use ship that can hold only three people. When the ISS crew goes up to six members from three, delivering the entire crew to the ISS will take two trips at capacity. There simply will be no seats for tourists, even those with $35 million to burn.
The seats that have been used by tourists will be taken by American astronauts. Last December, NASA signed a $141 million contract with the Russian Space Agency to send three ISS crew members on two Soyuz vehicles in 2011. And the number of seats booked by NASA probably will grow because the main transport used by US astronauts, the space shuttle, will be retired next year.
But space tourism companies are looking for ways to continue in business. Theoretically, they could purchase an entire Soyuz vehicle and send their clients to space even without docking at the ISS. This is what Space Adventurers intends to do. But such plans require building an extra Soyuz spacecraft, as all currently operating ships are contracted out for ISS expeditions.
“There is a potential to build [an extra] ship,” Aleksey Krasnov, the head of manned flights for the Russian Space Agency, said at a news conference. “But there are problems with this. This year we have a record number of flights – four – which means we need to launch four spacecrafts.
“It is necessary to consider industrial and production capacities as well as human resources when building the fifth ship,” Mr. Krasnov said. But he added that he hopes that Energiya, the company that constructs the Soyuz, will build a fifth ship.
Vitaliy Lopota, president and chief designer of Energiya, claims that it takes 2-1/2 to three years to build a spacecraft, which means tourist flights couldn’t resume until 2012-2013 at the earliest.
“But this project will require more financing,” Mr. Lapota was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency RIA Novosti. “The current conditions of financial markets are not allowing building an extra manned spacecraft.”
Private companies have started actively searching for cheaper options. A number of them are developing alternatives to Soyuz ships and carriers to get tourists to space. Competition is growing quickly.
The British firm Virgin Galactic is planning to send 500 people to space each year on its newly built SpaceShipTwo, carried by the rocket White Knight Two. It plans to send up its first tourist as soon as next year or in 2011, when all test flights are finished. A 2-1/2-hour space voyage will cost $200,000. Other companies such as Space Adventures and RocketShip Tours Inc. of Phoenix, are offering suborbital flights where tourists would fly about 37 to 68 miles high, experience weightlessness for five to 10 minutes, and return to Earth.
