russia_usa_tourists_010126 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The United States and Russia are on the verge of entering uncharted diplomatic territory -- opening up formal discussions about the possibility of flying "space tourists" to the International Space Station (ISS).
Millionaire investor
Dennis Tito, meanwhile, is back in Moscow, ready to start training with two veteran cosmonauts for a late April taxi flight to the station a potentially groundbreaking mission that could open the door for other would-be astronauts pining to fly to the international outpost.Among the possible joyriders: The winner of a planned
Survivor-type reality TV show that would pit American contestants against each other at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center at Star City outside Moscow. As it stands now, officials from NASA and the Russian Aeronautics and Space Agency also known as Rosaviacosmos are laying plans to meet in mid February at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
One of the key topics on the table: The increasingly real possibility of launching civilians in the extra seat aboard three-man Russian Soyuz spacecraft making taxi flights to international station.
"Whats going to happen is there will be a meeting between the Russian and NASA space station officials to look at the question of flying civilians in the third seat on Soyuz taxi missions. Thats the first step the start of discussions," said Debra Rahn, a spokeswoman who specializes in international relations at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Its also an avenue that neither NASA nor its Russian partners has traveled down before.
"I mean, flying private citizens in space were going to get to that point someday anyway. Theres no controversy involved. Its just [putting in place] a process through which you have to proceed," said Kyle Herring, a spokesman at NASAs Texas field center.
Tentatively set for the week of Feb. 12, the talks will center on Russian plans to launch paying customers on semiannual Soyuz flights to the international station.
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Under intergovernmental agreements signed in January 1998, Rosaviacosmos is responsible for keeping a Soyuz spacecraft parked at the station at all times. The bug-shaped ships provide station crews with a lifeboat should a crisis require an emergency return to Earth.
The rescue vehicles, however, only have enough fuel to remain in space for six months. So two "taxi flights" will be made each year to drop off new Soyuz spacecraft and ferry fuel-depleted lifeboats back to Earth.
The stations first full-time resident crew which includes U.S. astronaut William Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev rocketed to the station Oct. 31 and docked their Soyuz craft at the outpost Nov. 2.
That Soyuz is due to be replaced by one now scheduled for launch April 30 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Veteran cosmonauts Talgat Musabayev and Yuri Baturin will serve as commander and flight engineer aboard the Soyuz, and a third seat is being held open for Tito a wealthy financier from California.
Tito originally was slated to fly up to Russias aging Mir space station, which now is to be sent on a destructive dive on March 6 back through the atmosphere and into the Pacific Ocean.
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The former NASA engineer paid an estimated $12 million to $20 million for the trip to MirCorp, a commercial company whose major shareholder is RSC Energia, the Russian aerospace giant that operates Mir and also serves a the prime Russian contractor for the new international station.
With the demise of Mir close at hand, the Amsterdam-based company in December shifted its focus to international station, which also is known by the radio call sign "Alpha."
MirCorp now plans to build a $100 million module for Alpha and also put money into production lines that would build Soyuz spacecraft and unmanned Progress cargo carriers on a commercial basis.
At the same time, the companys board of directors announced its intent to make good on its deal with Tito, as well as another multimillion-dollar pact involving Mark Burnett, producer of the reality TV show Survivor and the NBC television network.
That deal originally called for the development of a space-based TV series entitled Destination Mir. The idea was to follow American contestants through cosmonaut training during the 2001-2002 prime-time TV season. The surviving contestant then was to fly to Mir in late this year or in early 2002.
Major shareholder RSC-Energia, consequently, recently opened up a dialogue with Rosaviacosmos to weigh the possibility of Tito and the TV series survivor to the international outpost aboard Soyuz taxi flights.
Then earlier this month, Rosaviacosmos Director General Yuri Koptev sent NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin a letter requesting formal discussions on the matter.
"Were currently in the process of working that with the Russians. Mr. Koptev has sent Mr. Goldin a letter and were responding to that," NASA station project manager Tommy Holloway told SPACE.com. "We will establish a team that we go off and develop the criteria and the process by which that gets managed. And at this point, thats about all I ought to say."
Prompted by the Koptev letter, NASA now is laying out preliminary plans for the mid-February meetings in Houston. The idea is to open up a dialogue that perhaps might lead to a formal process through which civilians might be certified and approved for Soyuz taxi flights.
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Thats good news to MirCorp. Company spokesman Jeff Lenorovitz called the meetings "a positive sign."
"These kinds of meetings are very encouraging to MirCorp because theyre a sign that the key ISS players are now in a different mindset," he said.
"No longer are people hunching their shoulders and rolling their eyes when the third-seat issue comes up whether its Dennis Tito or other people or a winner of a Destination Mir-type program. It suddenly sounds like people are going to give it serious consideration at the right level on a government-to-government, ISS-partner basis."
NASA realistically has little other choice than to give the matter due consideration.
Outside observers note that NASA despite its leading-partner role in the station project can hardly tell Rosaviacosmos who it can and cannot fly to the outpost. ISS' central hub is a Russian-financed command post and crew quarters.
And thats a fact that even NASA acknowledges.
"The Russians have the key to their spaceshipso from a physical point of view, I dont have any way of keeping the Russians from launching a rocket with somebody else in it," Holloway said.
But, he added: "On the other hand, we do have a great deal of interaction and program management interface with the Russians, and I expect that we would be able to influence decisions that they make along the way."
Tito and Rosaviacosmos, meanwhile, are expected to sign an agreement this weekend that outlines the Russian space agencys intent to fly him to the ISS. And with the first Soyuz taxi flight a mere three months off, even veteran NASA astronauts say its probably time to tackle the issue of flying civilians to the new station.
"I guess, you know, the space station program is going to have to address this," said veteran astronaut Ken Cockrell, commander of an upcoming shuttle mission to deliver the stations first science lab.
"They are going to have to decide who really does decide what happens on all segments of the space station. And its a very interesting question," Cockrell said. "I guess what I think is that we need to keep working in that direction and keep everybody in synch with what we ought to do with all of our launchers and all of our participants on the space station program."
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