Only if your rich. Lets send Bill Gates up and shoot him out the damn airlock.

haha the thing is, someone making a commercial venture for space...it will be HUGE.

I mean, look, tito paid 20 million for his trip.

If someone could bring it in for say...5-10 million, you'd get a handful of guys who wanted to and COULD. That gives a company cash to bring down operations even more...

We could be nearing a dawn here.

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Manu Narayan

MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- A group of Western investors announced plans Tuesday to launch the first commercial space station, a Russian-built home in the heavens specially designed to host fare-paying space tourists.

Jeffrey Manber, head of MirCorp, told Reuters by telephone his company had signed a deal with the Russian space agency and Russia's leading spacecraft builder Energiya that could put a station in orbit by 2004.

Russian space agency spokesman Sergei Gorbunov, however, accused MirCorp of jumping the gun.

"All that has been signed is an agreement that opens the way for a feasibility study, one that will be conducted by Energiya and not MirCorp. Nothing has been decided yet," he said.

"No one can say the station will be built. We won't make a decision about its feasibility before year end at least."

MirCorp once had similar plans -- complete with a hoped-for stock market listing -- to turn Russia's aging Mir space station into a money-spinning cosmic hotel, before Moscow sent it to earth in a fireball last year.

"This is not pie in the sky," Manber said. "We've developed a business plan that is pragmatic and very do-able. I give it a very high rate of probability."

The deal calls for the creation of a $100 million orbiter, Mini Station 1, built to host three cosmonauts for 20 days at a time. Manber said customers were already lining up.

The station would have a lifetime of 15 years and be funded by selling tickets, luring strategic investors and winning corporate sponsorship, Manber said.

He said MirCorp envisaged positioning the station as an interim stop for Russian supply missions to the international space station, or ISS. Fees paid by space tourists would cover much of the cost of those missions.

Earlier this year, U.S. millionaire Dennis Tito became the first paying tourist in space, visiting the ISS on board a Russian rocket over the objections of U.S. space officials who said they thought it an inappropriate use of the $95 billion orbiter.


South African dot-com millionaire Mark Shuttleworth is preparing for a trip to the space station.
MirCorp was founded in 2000 to raise cash to exploit Mir. The company, which is based in Amsterdam and is 60 percent owned by Energiya, had also set up a deal to blast a U.S. gameshow contestant into space.

But the $30 million it raised was not enough to save the accident-prone Mir, forcing Russia's cash-strapped space chiefs to sink it in the Pacific in March.

"This time things are completely different. I don't have to worry that if I fail to make a payment by a certain date something will come crashing down on our heads," Manber said.

Manber acknowledged the deal had yet to be okayed by senior Russian officials, but saw it as a way to help the country find the money its chronically underfunded space program needs.

Moscow has already begun training other potential space tourists, including members of Russian boy band Na-Na, aiming to become the first pop group to give a concert from orbit, and Mark Shuttleworth, a South African Internet tycoon.

Manber said MirCorp was considering brokering tourist trips to the ISS before its own station was launched. www.cnn.com (http://www.cnn.com)

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Manu Narayan

is anyone else thinking death trap? mir space station was a bad joke, with numerous accidents waiting to happen. i doubt the hotel will be any different. the only reason the russians are still in space is becuase of the US.

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"I find your lack of faith disturbing..."

Originally posted by red84pony:
is anyone else thinking death trap? mir space station was a bad joke, with numerous accidents waiting to happen. i doubt the hotel will be any different. the only reason the russians are still in space is becuase of the US.

MIR was more a death trap because of its age, not is engineering. The fact is, when it comes to space stations tehr ussians have WAY more experience than us. They just lack funding. A lot of US components on the ISS have failed, the russian ones for the most part have held up great...



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Manu Narayan

Mostly form reserve stuff I've rea.d I will see if I cna find any links.

But Mir had its mission extended multiple time. It was performing YEARS passed when it was supposed to be adandoned. Especially given the amount fo advancment from the time when Mir was designed to when it was completed/in service, let along till the end of its life...

Regarding failing components. There was an article on space.com or abcnews.com months ago about how the US was experiencing their own 'growing' pains aboard teh ISS.

The things that come to mind are the oxygen filters, some hard drives, batteries, the canadian robotic arm...

The russian supplies have worked fine, aside form the increased decibls of noise in the russian modules.

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Manu Narayan

Originally posted by Manu:
MIR was more a death trap because of its age, not is engineering. The fact is, when it comes to space stations tehr ussians have WAY more experience than us. They just lack funding. A lot of US components on the ISS have failed, the russian ones for the most part have held up great...




http://discussanything.com/Ubb/frown.gif where are you finding this info?



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"I find your lack of faith disturbing..."