Space becomes tourist frontier for civilians

Brett Stone STO05020@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

NASA and space agencies of other governments aren’t the only ones pushing to go boldly where no one has gone before. A Chinese tourist is going to be paying about $200,000 for a sub-orbital trip to space, according to an article in the China Daily.

A sub-orbital trip means the tourist will not be going all the way around the earth, basically just getting high enough to see the curvature of the earth and experience weightlessness.

The Russian space agency began taking private citizens along with them to space as a way to help fund their space-program, which suffers from under-funding. NASA and the U.S. government strongly opposed the idea at first, saying that it was unsafe to have civilians on the International Space Station.

So far, the station’s visitors have been very well behaved, and have even contributed to the station’s scientific endeavors.

“My mission program included several South African space experiments in stem cell research, embryology, protein crystal growth, metabolic studies and muscle training research,” said Mark Shuttleworth, a civilian space traveler, on his Web site, www.markshuttleworth.com.

Shuttleworth, a South-African, went in April of 2002. American Greg Olsen became the third private citizen to free-fall around Earth in the International Space Station just last month.

The Russians have taken three men to the International Space Station in all, but no other announcements have been made concerning future passengers.