Digital-Age
guru and entrepreneur Esther Dyson has bought a $3 million ticket to train as
the backup for a billionaire American space tourist set to launch next year.
Dyson,
daughter of the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson, signed on as the backup to
American software developer Charles Simonyi, who is paying $35 million to
launch on his second trip to the International Space Station in March 2009. He
will launch aboard a Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft under a deal brokered by
the Vienna, Va.-based firm Space Adventures, in which Esther Dyson is an
investor.
"I fully
expect to follow him all the way up to space sometime in the future," Dyson
said in a statement of Simonyi, who first flew to
the space station with Space Adventures in April 2007. "My father helped
design a rocket ship when I was a kid, and I have always assumed I will go into
space myself."
Dyson's
father, a longtime proponent of space travel and colonies, participated in work
to develop a massive spacecraft propelled by hydrogen bombs as part of Project
Orion in the late 1950s. The effort was chronicled in a book by Dyson's brother
George.
A veteran
investor in digital media, Esther Dyson is the chairman of the EDventure
Holdings Inc. and founded the Flight
School conference for entrepreneurs interested in aviation and spaceflight.
She also serves as a director for non-profit groups such as the Sunlight
Foundation, Santa Fe Institute and National Endowment for Democracy.
"Not only
is Esther a successful investor and philanthropist, but she is also well-known
in the blogosphere," said Space Adventures President and CEO Eric Anderson in a
statement. "She will be sharing her spaceflight training experience and
insights with thousands of people and will undoubtedly inspire others to pursue
their own dreams."
Space
Adventures is currently the only firm offering private seats aboard orbital
spacecraft and has flown five space tourists to the International Space Station
since beginning the service in 2001. The sixth space tourist, American computer
game developer Richard Garriott, is set to launch toward the space station with
two professional astronauts on Oct. 12. Simonyi's flight will follow in March
2009. Dyson will also train for that flight.
"My chances of going this spring are probably about 5 percent," Dyson wrote in
her blog, where she is chronicling her spaceflight training. "But my chances of
ever going
will probably be about 50 percent once I complete the training."
Dyson is
not the first millionaire to lay down cash for a backup space tourist seat.
In 2006,
American entrepreneur and Space Adventures investor Anousheh Ansari served as
the backup for Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto, who was ultimately
disqualified for the trip due to medical reasons. Ansari flew in his place as
the world's first female space tourist, though Enomoto recently launched a
lawsuit to seek
a $21 million refund from Space Adventures over the matter.
Meanwhile,
Garriott has not been alone while training to follow in the astronaut footsteps
of his father – retired NASA astronaut Owen Garriott. Australian entrepreneur
Nik Halik, a self-described
"thrillionaire," has been training as the
backup for that planned 11-day spaceflight. Garriott will become the first
American second-generation spaceflyer when he launches spaceward on Sunday.
By the end
of her training, Dyson will be certified as a fully trained cosmonaut and
assigned to an official space crew as Simonyi's backup, Anderson said.
"This is a
distinction that less than 1,000 people have ever had," he added. "We look
forward to the day when she launches to space herself."
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