Question:
Walk in Space for $15 Million (Plus Airfare)
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: July 21, 2006
The company that sent the first tourists to space is about to start offering its clients an alluring add-on: a spacewalk.
Space Adventures Ltd., a company based in Vienna, Va., that has sent three very wealthy men to orbit the earth on the International Space Station, is planning to announce today that future customers will be able to take an hour-and-a-half trip outside the station as well.
The price? Just $15 million, on top of the $20 million for the flight itself. For people who can afford $20 million for a 10-day vacation, the extra $15 million might seem like little more than overtipping.
The spacewalks have been approved by the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation, which provides training and transportation to the station on Soyuz rockets, said Eric Anderson, the chief executive of Space Adventures.
Using the initials for extravehicular activity, the technical term for a spacewalk, Aleksei Krasnov, director of the Russian space agency, said in a statement that space tourists “could potentially perform an EVA” with a month’s training, and if they had the proper “physical and psychological capabilities.” The Russians have been eager to commercialize space and get most of the fees that Space Adventures collects.
A NASA spokeswoman, Melissa Mathews, said the agency had not been informed by Russia about any intention to sell EVA’s.
Fewer than 450 people have traveled to space, and the club of spacewalkers is even more exclusive. Just 151 people have stepped outside the relative safety of their craft to greet the void with only a visor to separate life and death.
“Spacewalk is the ultimate experience that we’ve managed to invent as humans,” said Tom Jones, a former astronaut and spacewalker who is an adviser to Space Adventures.
Being outside the craft when “there’s nothing between you and the ground below but empty space,” he said, is “incomparable.”
As for the nausea and vomiting that some astronauts experience, and which could preclude a spacewalk, Mr. Jones said “almost everybody feels good after two or three days.”
Warming to the idea of another shot at that view, he said, “I think if I had 15 million, I’d go for it.”
Answer:
So cool! Maybe I'll wait for the price to come down a little before I try it, though.
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Maybe when the price goes a tad lower.
I'd still be scared half-to-death though.
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woah, yeah. when it gets to be 10 dollars for a trip, ill try it =]
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woah, yeah. when it gets to be 10 dollars for a trip, ill try it =]
ahaha. thats funny
X_X lol. I don't think I can ever afford for that trip!
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hmm... well it's worth it for checking out what it really looks like out there... hmm..i will try it when i'm rich or something...
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I'll love to go. If I was RICH. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)
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If I had enough money to go I wouldn't. The thought of being in space isn't something i'd want to experience.
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meh those 15mil + could be spent on helping MANY homeless people around the globe...
or 150 very lucky people.. like 100k giveaway XD lol
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15 millions dollars only? Pssh. Might as well take all of you with me when I go next year. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
...Not.
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well my familys been deciding
what we should do on our
family trip this year ...
